Could be, could also be they had tweaked the player via DSP and ended up with some weird EQ curve. Whenever a store won’t let me play a CD directly I always suspect this, or it could be odd room reflections / interactions.
Uh, no. They were using the Axxiss Forte 1 amp and you can't do DSP on it.
It's very possible he had +and - swapped. Would be the first time I heard that at a dealer.