Ok cool I wasn't sure if I was interacting with a bunch of millionaires on here or what.
Technically I am a millionaire. Times two point something. It changes. Like it matters. A million ain’t what it used to be, let me tell you! I am tight with my audiophile dollar. Tight as I ever was 50 years ago with my newspaper route and burger-flipper money.
Truth is most things, not just audio but pretty much everything, below a certain price point is pure crap. Darn near an iron law of economics. Due to the simple fact shipping, transportation, and packaging eats up about the same total cost whether the product is $50 or $5000. There simply is not that much difference in cost between the box a $15k Rolex and $15 ear buds comes in.
Consequently, when you step up from a $500 component to a $5k component virtually all the extra you pay is actual component.
People however, the money they can afford to spend does not work quite the same way. There’s way more people with $500 to spend than $5k. And hardly anyone with $50k let alone $500k. They are out there but way less of them.
The reason I focus so much on the economics is you are talking about a preference for local retail. Which is all well and good but you should go into it with your eyes open.
The stuff Kevin Deal and all the others sell, they all have to make a profit. The manufacturers who sell to them, they all have to make a profit too. Otherwise, no more components. Typical retail markup is like 100%. Sorry, but it is.
Take your $5k integrated. Dealer cost $2500. Manufacturer had to make a profit, his cost probably $1500-2000. Your $5k buys you at best $2k worth of goodies.
Take your same integrated from say Raven, your $5k now buys you $4k worth of goodies. Manufacturer actually makes a little more profit. But there is no retailer, his profit disappears.
You start to understand why there is so much value in Tekton speakers, Raven amps.
Another reason, their business model relies much more heavily on sound quality performance. Tekton is one place. Raven is one place. Something like Prima Luna has dealers all over the place advertising, spreading the word. Tekton and Raven, they do some of that sure but nowhere near as much. This stuff all costs money. Once again your audiophile dollar buys more goodies with them. The more and the better you understand this the more clear it is they are not even close. You start to understand why the guys who have this stuff are so deliriously happy, why almost no one ever goes the other way. Not once they actually hear it.
This by the way is something I learned a very long time ago, when going into some high end shop and seeing a bunch of stuff I never heard of before. It seemed real strange then. Now it is expected. Sony and Bose succeed in the mass market. There’s a reason everyone knows them. Raven, Tekton, only serious audiophiles ever heard of this stuff. Probably a lot never heard of Raven. I hadn’t, not until a couple years ago. Decware, ditto. Same thing. Same exact thing.
This is not to say the boutique stuff is always the best. They can sometimes be a little hot-rodded. Great sound, not so great build. But the best of them, there just is no comparison. You really do tend to get what you pay for. Just be aware how much of what you are paying for is another guy in between to make a buck off of you, and how much is actually going into the component. Because believe me, there ain’t no free lunch!