Why are brick and mortar HiFi dealers so bad?

For those in the Seattle area, I have found Olson’s HiFi (olsonshifi.com) to be very good.   They aren’t pushy, they have rational advice, they lend components for people to try at home, and they have a generous return policy.   They also stock and evaluate very interesting brands.

I’m just a regular customer there and have only had positive experiences.   I don’t like to bash places, but there is no other place in the area that I would even consider.

I live on eastern Long Island. Back in the 70s and 80s there were plenty of places to shop for audio. Today the closest one is 30 miles away, and they are moving. You can buy plenty of Theater equipment, since there's a best buy in every corner. I do business with a family that owns 60 independent appliance stores in the NY metro area. Although the manufacturers they have are limited, they do have Marantz and Yamaha. Through them I have been able to special order some of the higher end equipment these lines offer and at dealer cost. I've spent about 5k on about 10k worth of equipment. I made my choices solely on reviews, as no one carried the models I was interested in. So today I'm happy with how it sounds, yet curious about the vast array of equipment I read about on these posts. I hope to attend a show so I can actually here some of the gear I read about on this forum.

One more recommendation for John Rutan and staff at Audioconnection in Verona.

There are a few left in SoCal: Try Audio Revelation in the San Marcos/Carlsbad area; Jay has been amazingly helpful regarding cartridges and phono preamps (including having the designer of my phono preamp call me--from Switzerland!-- to debug a noise problem I was having, then fabricate a custom length umbilical which he swapped out--for free- with the standard length cable.  You don't get service like that anymore from very many dealers.  I also used to patronize Jonas Miller (Santa Monica), Absolute Audio (Santa Ana), and Havens & Hardesty (Huntington Beach and two other locations).  Ah, those were the days!

I'll tell you about my experience with Graeme at CDF in Montreal. I went there for the first time wanting a little info on a Line Magnetics amp knowing that he sold said product. I didn't want to irk anyone so I told him up front that I had seen one of these used and thought of buying it. I'll never forget his reaction. His very words were "Go for it! I've got you covered". I have been a loyal customer ever since and have highly recommended him to anyone looking for SET and high sensitivity speakers. Extremely knowledgeable!