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This story is so common its scary. Read my story within (even more unbelievable).

I recently have been looking to purchase new speakers. I am a third year law student who is working in New York City this summer, so I thought this would be a great opportunity to listen to a wide array of "high end" (God that phrase makes me cringe)loudspeakers. My budget for the speakers was initially not to spend more than $8000...

One of the stops I wanted to make was Lyric Hi-Fi here in NYC. They had a pair of Revel Studios and also a pair of comparable N802s set up. I talked to a guy named Barry on the phone who told me to come down and listen to them. So I did. As I walked into the store I was greeted by a man who gave me a once over. I was not greeted with "May I help you?" It was up to me to ask, "Hi, I spoke to Barry about listening to the Revel Studios," and extended my hand and introduced myself. The man who had glared at me was, in fact, Barry. Barry lead me into the room where they had the Studios set up. Here's the exchange that followed:

Me: "I've listened to Merlins, the N802s and the Audio Physic Libras. And they are all pretty impressive. I hope these speakers are equally impressive (in a joking, light-hearted tone of voice).

Barry: "I dont't give a shit what you have listened to or whether you are going to like them or not. If you like 'em, you like 'em."

Barry then proceeded to cue up my first disk and left me alone in the listening room to listen by myself.

Barry never once made an attempt to give me any information on the Studios. He didn't tell me about the front end of the setup or the cables being used. After listening for about 30 minutes I left the room and asked Barry if he could shut off the rear firing tweeter (which I knew about only from reading Stereophile). He gave me a pissed off look, but did proceed to turn off the tweeter after complaining that he needed a flashlight to do so.

All of this was happening close to the store's closing time of 6:45. At this point I wanted to compare the sound to the N802s since the memory of the Studios sound was still fresh in my mind.

Me: "Barry, you think I could listen to the N802s?"
Barry: "Well we're about to close. You have to hurry up."

Oookay. Past experience with more pleasant dealers told me that they would go out of their way to let me listen to equipment, sometimes letting me stay well past closing time to do so...

Anyway, I listened to the N802s very quickly, again without a peep out of Barry about the setup, including the speakers. I quickly listened to my bass test disk and I thought the bass in the small room sounded extremely boomy on the N802s. I left the room.

Me: "Barry, I thought the bass sounded a little boomy in that room. I think the room might be a bit small for those speakers. Would it be possible to move the 802s into the same room as the Studios (a much larger room) to do a side by side comparison?"

Barry: "I don't think that's gonna be possible. I've never heard a single complaint about those speakers in that room. In fact every pair we have sold have been demoed in that room. The demand for them is so high they are on back order."

At this point I was about to tell the guy he was the biggest asshole I had every met. It was almost as if this jackass was TRYING to not sell me $10,000 speakers! I know the ".com"s are doing well in NYC and people probably throw around a lot more than $10k for speakers, but damn, the arrogance of this jerk was unbelieveable. BTW I was dressed in very nice business casual clothing. I'm relatively young (28) and I am Pakistani. I came to the conclusion that Barry was either a racist or had failed to take his Prozac and/or Haldol that day.

Needless to say, that was one of the most surreal shopping experiences I had every had. I couldn't believe whatever dumbass owns that store would let someone as offensive and unhelpful as Barry work there. We are talking about MUCHO EXPENSIVE hardware, not Circuit City stuff. The salespeople at Lyric should be kissing my freakin' ass. That whole experience left a bitter, bitter taste in my mouth. To hell with Lyric Hi-Fi.




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