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I met another dealer who despises Stereophile and TAS and equipment reviews.

I think equipment manufacturers are the most important people in the industy, equipment dealers are a dime a dozen and I gotta look real hard to find a worthwhile good one - and this dealer, who despises the magazines and most reviewers is a good one.

I've visited dozens of shops in my life, but never one that I consider excellent, though I know two dealers who have shops that I do consider excellent though I've never been to them.

Is it is an absolute certainty that a good dealer selling good equipment, will poke fun at the magazines and most reviewers? I think it is, yea generally speaking, many shops will have the hate Stereophile banter going full bore from the outset unless it's the kind of shop with copies of Stereophile/TAS/HiFi Choice reviews sitting on top of each component they sell. I'm not talking about dealers who tell us the magazines suck or are stupid - guys like that just want to come off as sounding smarter. I'm talking about dealers who know and honestly believe the major magazines make it hard, if not almost impossible, for a skilled knowing audiophile to become a dealer in order to assemble and sell truly good audio systems to the average audiophile.

I've heard this story on several occasions. A dealer gets a product into his shop and thinks it's fantastic. He starts showing it off to his customers - mostly to lukewarm receptions. But if the component then gets a rave review in a magazine suddenly the lukewarm receptions turn to exclamations of heavenly ejaculations.

Now I'm not putting guys like John Marks or Art Dudley down - these guys are great and deserve to get the rewards and recognition from the audiophile community they deserve. But I gotta imagine that if either of these guys wanted to open an audio shop based on their on subjective preferences in order to sell equipment they deemed capable of bringing the greatest reward to the audiophile the magazine they currently work for would cost them more busines than other shops in the neighborhood. These would be great and awesome audio shops, and there are such audio shops around, just being run by less recognizable, but equally experience audiophiles.

I think good dealers and good equipment manufacturers are taking it in the butt because the major magazines are playing the reach the widest audience card.


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Topic - I met another dealer who despises Stereophile and TAS and equipment reviews. - Don T 23:18:03 11/24/05 (148)
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