Visited a Store and was shunned

I will generally visit dealers for accessories I could probably get a lot cheaper on line,  used records,  and ONLY when I am about make a serious decision and ready to make a deal.   Otherwise I do not waste their time.  

If I walked in and was told there was an audition fee on something costing several grand and I was ready to spend, I would politely say " thanks for your time" and leave.   That is BS...

There used to be some good stores that sold some great equipment here i. Suffolk county LI...but most of them are gone.They took care of you and let you listen to what ever you wanted.Oh well.

OP’s experience brings back bad (lame, actually) memories for me. It was the mid-to-late 1980s and I have a sales mgmt job that meant traveling to 39 states (which I did). I was flat-out ignored once in an audio salon in Chicago, and another in Atlanta. It was amusing as much as offensive: I was very well informed in audiophile matters, not a tire kicker at all--but those high end audio dudes wouldn’t even make eye contact with me: a case of audiophile leprosy on sight.

In retrospect it makes a tiny bit more sense--I looked 10 years younger than I actually was, and business dress aside, they obviously sized me up as someone who wandered in by accident and would be better off a Circuit City. But on a business level, it made zero sense that any retailer who fronts gear with that kind of markup and profit margin would dump on a prospective customer. And I was that; I could have easily ordered from them + shipping.

Oh, well. Arrogance is always in season.

To expand on my previous post an audio dealer is not there to provide entertainment. There are too many Audiophiles that like to talk shop and kick tires but have no intention of purchasing anything only to complain about cost and glorify the old days.

Buying into products that belong to an Industry that is dead in the water from individuals at the sales frontline who really are struggling to recall a period when money was free and easy to extract from a customer. Especially as the through-the-door turnover of customers is no longer a thing, are creating a sales staff who are unwilling to massage a closed-won; it looks like a 'gift horse' is the level of trade they are willing to participate in. 

All very, very different to my experiences of the 90's when an audio retailer would reserve a room for a few hours as the minimum time allowance, sit a potential customer in the room with a hot beverage and a top-up if wanted. The only discussion outside of the structure for the demo period was the number of tracks preferred to be listened to for the demo, and whether the rep or customer was to change the Albums. All this offered in a real friendly manner in a selection of audio retailers.

Other audio retailers really under the influence of a Brand were not allowed to be so liberal in their dealings with a customer; the customer was wrong and needed education to teach them why the Brand was their only option for a purchase and why they should start budgeting for the upgrade route with immediacy. 

Those Brands with Billion Annual turnovers in the present market have a lot to answer for when the model used for sales is considered.