Would like to start a Stereo Club in the midwest.

Kf, I have already addressed your concerns..I have thought this out for some time..
1. anybody can get ripped off, including individuals.

2. who decides? the club, every month, one of the members gets to purchase the piece of his choice, and right on down the line.

3. I have never nor do I know anyone whose equipment has been damaged..in their possession.

4. If one or more of the members want to buy one piece, than you would have to buy it on their own. First choice would go to the person that bought it initially.

5. As I said on the thread.. it would have to be in the same locale, as to keep problems to a minimum, but I know several people whom I have dealt with out of the area, that I would trust in a second, as do the other potential members of the club, and yes the number of members would need to be no greater than 12..for the months of the year.

This is an interesting idea. There could be a lot of advantages to it, including some non-obvious ones. For example, if you got a new piece of gear ever few months to audition just on your own, you've got constant justifications to the spouse. If it's happening because you're part of an auditioning club, you explain it (and the money) once.

Anyway, I have a couple questions as well.

1. Would the club buy used gear, or would it be new gear?
2. Who sells it when it's made the rounds and is not purchased by a club member? The last person to "touch" it, the person who picked it, or the club "seller"?
3. It would be interesting to think about segmentation of this a bit too - for instance, this probably works more efficiently for preamps than it does for floor-standing speakers. Similarly, one of the values of auditioning is comparison, so it might be most interesting to do six preamps, followed by six pairs of speaker cables, etc. or something of the sort.
4. How many pieces are in circulation at any given time?
5. How long does a member get to hang onto a piece to audition?
6. With the answers to 4 and 5, how much of the year would a member be participating vs. waiting on the "sidelines".
7. How often would money have to be "refreshed."? It would seem that over time, the group would lose money buying and selling, and that the cost of auditioning would have to be borne through yearly (?) contributions.

Interesting idea.

very good questions...that is why I posted it...

1. used gear.. as you dont have to pay the 40% up charge.

2. selling? the person who picked..so you would need to be ready to buy it yourself, which by the way, is the intent.

3. NO speakers..just electronics, keeps the BS to a minimum

4. Circulation....12 months, 12 pieces.

5.. 12 members, 12 months, one month.

6. I'm not sure what you mean...

7. I'm not sure if the money would have to be refreshed, if no ones wants one particular piece, sell it, the money goes back to the club..and if it sells for a loss... what cant always make a profit, losses goes with the territory, at least everyone got to use it...that is why it is a "club"

An important item you did not address (in your answer to my post) is an important issue. What happens if no one wants a particular gear? Who is responsible for selling the piece, and who determines how much money the piece will be sold for? All I have to say is, that lets say someone in the club bought a digital piece for $3000. They demoed it and thought it was ok but not a keeper. Everone else in the club over 6 months or so demos the piece, and no one decides to buy it. Interestingly enough in those 6 months this digital product is discontinued (or the manufacturer goes under) and is replaced by a product heralded as better and less expensive that sells for $2k new. Well, people start dumping the unit your club bought for $1500 to $2000. Who is going to make the determination as to how much money you guys are going to loose?

I have been doing deals on Audiogon since before the Feedback system was in place. If you think the above scenario does not happen... well it does. It happens much more than you would think especially the longer you hold onto a product. And to not just digital, but almost any component. One could say that whatever loss incurred becasue it is distributed over all of the members, is very little. At say $1200 loss is only costing $100/per member which may be %10 of the yearly fee; however, it is still a loss. And frankly, some members might be a little upset because they are set digitally.

My item #2, you indicate that anyone can get ripped off... Well it is one thing to rip off an individual, and completely different to rip off a group of people. And I relly am not talking about being overtly ripped off. I am mainly talking about if your club sells a product, and say it is damaged in shipping. Have you ever fought for a claim against any of the major shippers? It is not fun and many times it is not fair. Sometimes you even need to get legal representation to win. All I can say is that every shipper I have dealt with will fight tooth and nail against paying any claim unless it is 100% their fault, i.e. they totally lose a box. Even then, they are slow as snails. Who is the club is going to be responsible for claims?

My number #3, you say you have never known anyone who has had a piece of equipment break in their possession... Well you are pretty lucky ot very new to hi end audio. Accidents happen with all sorts of potential causes: deffective gear, internal damage during shipping (difficult to prove for a claim), power surges, young children, pets, tubes eventually go bad (who replaces them during the demonstration phase... especially if you need matched sets), crime, floods, earthquakes, other natural disasters. Basically, there are all sorts of things that can damage gear. And the more gear you go through, the high the chance that something will occur. I once bought a dealer demo Classe CA-100 amp. I hooked it up, and played some music. It immediately blew the right channel of my speaker. Apparently the right channel of the amp oscilated. A CDP of mine (Cary 306/200) display suddenly went out one day. I had an amp that I bought (4 years ago) which was 1 month old start smoking as soon as I plugged it in. I bought a dealer demo preamp whose left channel was 180 degrees out-of-phase. I have bought equipment that was not in the condition that it was promised per se. I have had an amp damaged by water from a leaky roof (in a new apartment which I did not know the roof leaked). I have had an amp damaged by flood water. My dogs have scratched up some pieces of gear I have owned. I once got a remote stuck under my couch and had to move my couch to get the remote; however, the remote got stuck under a steel beam under it which mest up the remote quite a bit.

Anyway, stuff happens... And a lot of it can be beyond your or anyone's control. Who's going to incur the cost of fixing the gear?

My number 4, first choice goes to the person who decided to buy it. Who gets second choice, and third choice, and so on? I guess it could go in a definite order, but I could see that some people might feel slighted by this. ESPECIALLY, if an item is procured at a very very good price.

Anyway, I hate sounding like a pessimist, but if you can get this club to work, I would be interested in how it turns out.

Personally, I think you will have problems and it will come down to money issues, personal responsibility issues, and audio decision issues. Lets say I was in your club, and my turn came up, and I wanted to get a 1M run of Nordost Valhalla pair of speaker cables (I could maybe get them for oh.... $3k new +/-). One thing though... most of the other folks in the club need more than 1 Meter of speaker cable. And the few folks who only need 1M, could not afford Nordost Valhalla or want it. While I am demoing the Valhalla, Nordost replaces the Valhalla with Valhalla II which is a little better and less expensive. People start dumping their Valhalla on the market for 30 cents on the dollar, and we can only get $2k for the Valhalla. What are the other members of the club going to think of me? I bought a speaker cable that really was not viable for anyone else (maybe I did not know this). I bought a cable that depreciated immensly after I bought it costing everyine money. This situation can happen with a lot of gear... Take low powered tube amps for example. SOme people design their systems around low powered tubes. Lets say two members of your club have this kind of tube setup. When it comes to their turn to buy a piece, they could very well buy pieces only they could viably use in their system. Additionally, these two could be really excluded from most of the pieces purchased by others in the club.

One of the underlying assumptions with this club is that any given piece can work in most of our systems. This is relaly not true unless the group has essentially the same or similiar systems. Equipment such as amps, preamps, and speakers must be matched well to get great sound out of them. Moving any of those pieces from one system to another can be problematic. Sources are a bit easier; however, digital sources fluctuate in prices quite a bit.

Anyway good luck in your endeavor. I would just be careful.

KF

HMMMM... nothing ventured... nothing gained...