Have your say & ask the experts

bigboss:

he charged me £40 each for non-branded HDMI cables...I don't really mind that.

You dont? Really? Guess it depends how much you saved.

I got a £300 discount on my Kuro (got it for £2199 in June with 5 year Pioneer warranty), £220 discount on my Yamaha, £140 discount on my buttkicker & £275 discount on my speakers & subwoofer. He ended up price matching all my equipment with best online deals that time. So it's almost a £1000 discount.

Well fair enough then!

chris_beale:

Worse still was a specialist shop in York (where I'm at uni) where upon enquiring about low-mid priced amps I was told that I could not get anything other than the £450 Cyrus V2 with matching CD player, anything else would be utterly ridiculous and that DACs were a waste of money below £1000 so using my PS3 as a source with a cheaper DAC would be unthinkable. To be fair to the guy there, he's a small independent retailer trying to make a sale but I thought it was over aggressive.

But overall I think you'll be much happier shopping in Brizzle.

I wonder which shop this was - I had a similar experience with a hifi independent in York a few years back. Was going to a wedding later in the afternoon, but stopped by this place (can't recall the name now). Walked in and the guy / owner asked me what I wanted, I said "just browsing really" and he made it pretty clear he was after the money. He had a demo booking arriving "shortly" and he more or less closed the door on me. I hope his booking made a purchase or two as he blew his chances of getting my custom later on out of the water. I go back down that way quite often, so it's not beyond the realms of possibility I'd buy from a shop in York at some point (plus it's on the train route from Edinburgh).

About 4 yrs ago i bought my daughter a cdp and amp for christmas at richer sounds in bristol, i think the make was tangent, (i know its not great but it was the first seperate system i bought) i think the system cost about £200 including speakers, any way the cdp kept stoping so took it back and changed it a few days later, no problems, few days later the cdp packed up again so took it back again and told the guy who sold us the system that we did not want the same again as a bit fed up with the whole thing.

He made a big thing of testing the cdp in the shop,(i think he thought we were trying to fool him, i dont know why) anyway cdp proved to be faulty so had to be changed again, at this point i said i was not really happy at having the same again as more than likley the same thing would happen again, at which point he said they had no problems in the past and it should be ok, i looked around and spotted a marantz combi at £120 more exspensive and asked if he could do a deal on that system, he told me again that there was nothing wrong with the tangent system and we just had bad luck.I told the sales guy that we would take the marantz system as it was a present and i did not want to come back a third time, (as you guys know packing up system is not a five minute job) i asked again if there was any discount on the system for the hassle we had, but was told again no.Paid the extra money for the marantz system and were just picking it off the counter when another sales guy said sorry for the trouble we had and gave us a better interconnect free of charge, and said any more trouble to come back and see him.

My point is really who you deal with in the shop, the guy who gave us a interconnect cable done more good for richer sounds than the guy who thought he was being good for the shop with ( i showed them attidude) i have since bought off that guy a yamaha av amp, surround speakers,two denon m37s plus speakers,after i bought my surround speakers and went back in the shop for some better speaker cable he came over and asked how i was getting on with it and said to ask him for any advice i needed.In the future i will be back for my own seperate system(hopefully not a tangent) i think it just shows sometimes a little goes a long way.

Hey Brisk,

I liked your post, it bought back many memories of visit's to hi fi dealers, usually not pleasant.

I was once collecting something purchsed on the intrnet from Audio T in Chandlers Ford. I walked in and was basically ignored for the first five minutes, and the staff were very snotty. whilst I waited quietly I listened to one of the sales men talk absolute rubbish to a man who was trying to buy a television. He was explaining in great detail why the LED backlit telly dealt with motion far better than any Plasma would. hmm

This went on for sometime. Afterwards I collered the man outside and informed him of what had just happened to him. Luckily he listened to me and went elsewhere.

I think my point is that some dealers are brilliant and some are useless, selffish and very very very snobby.

The important thing is to trust in our own ears and own eyesight. We  are usually right and we need to trust ourselves. Yes it's good to have our opinions confirmed but lets face it. That salesperson you mentioned wasted lots of your time.....you should have ignored them and carried on with the mission you started with.

I am a liberated Hi- fi shopper..

yours

Matt

just reading bits of this thread and wondering:

How would people feel about paying a nominal fee for a demo? if you are genuine then you'd automatically get the amount knocked off the purchase? It may not be practical, but it would week out the time wasters.

I'm in both camps when it comes to buying in store as opposed to online;

if its things like cd's, dvd's, camera bags (i.e. low value impulse purchases) i'm just as likely to be wandering round HMV and then search the internet for the best price as buying it there since i'm in no rush to get them. However for things such as hifi, i couldn't imagine buying blind on the web and will go to the store i like best (i.e. nicest staff who give imo the best advice)

This has been mentioned before, and I think the problem would be that customers might have a different idea about a reasonable figure for a demo compared to a dealer. The you have the problem that if one dealer doesn't have everything the customer wants to audition, he may need to vist 2 or 3 dealers, which could become costly, and with no money return from 2 dealers. Then the customer may decide that to get the best from his money that he has paid for the demo's, to buy one product from each.

Then there's still the actual buying price to agree on......

 

very true, guess i've just been lucky in my buying (i.e. mostly in the one place), although i have had a couple of demo's where i've not bought anything - also helps that the sales man hasn't been sitting in the whole time so i've not been wasting his time as well as taking up the room.