Another Viewpoint
I have watched this thread develop from its inception. Since I am named in several posts, I hope it is OK to make a few observations.
Reference - IME, audiophiles simply don’t have a great reference for what to expect from their systems. Therefore it is difficult to know where to go or how to get there. I make this observation from installing and voicing perhaps 700 or so systems in my career. With a tiny handful of exceptions, dealers do not demo nearly the sound quality that they should - or could. You certainly will not hear it at a show.
Dealer service – (this is my pet peeve, about which I occasionally rant to other industry associates and sometimes to my RoomPlay clients who are especially satisfied with their musical engagement when I am done, yet frustrated that their dealer couldn’t or wouldn’t do this for them). So let me come out and say it - in general, dealers do not provide the level of service that they ought to. IMO, they should install what they sell, and not leave until they cannot get the system sounding better with the gear and room at hand. If they would perform this service, in most cases they would have gained a loyal client for life.
Why don’t they do it? - I blame it on short-sightedness at best, or inability to really know what to do, and in some cases, an unwillingness to do the work required. I emphatically agree that the dealer should be doing what I and some others are asked to do.
Retail audio specialist – As I write this, I am backed up more than 18 RoomPlay voicing sessions, and I have had to turn away 3 out of 4 applicants for a couple of years now. If the dealers would step up, there would be little call for someone else to help. It seems to me that a retail audio specialist needs to offer the sort of service that goes against the discount grain. I say this with substantial experience in this area, which I will briefly outline below.
Qualifications part A – Almost without exception, the clients that I have worked with over the years have been bright, successful individuals. Whether they are anesthesiologists, attorneys, businessmen, whatever, they have proven success in their lives. But they still do not have a reference, nor do they know what to do beyond the so-called “basics” (which are wrong all too often). Many of them are also time-poor. They need someone to help them. They have finally realized that they don’t want to throw more money at the latest and greatest components when the fundamental basics of voicing to the room haven’t even been covered.
Qualifications part B – The people that are serving as “consultants” appear to have considerable experience. With one exception, they are classified at WBF as Industry Experts. That exception is Jim Smith. Not sure why this is the case, but here are some qualifications in case you didn’t know. Honestly speaking, I do not need to work, nor get more accolades, but I do enjoy helping to make a difference in people’s lives. I am simply including this info to offer credibility to the statements made above.
Skipping as much as possible, here we go:
Managed a high-end audio store in Norfolk, VA in the early 70s (ARC, SAE, Crown, McIntosh, Dahlquist, Magnepan, ReVox, etc.). Installed every high-end component that I sold. Some of those clients are still active with me today.
Sold (and installed) so much ARC, that in late 1975, Bill Johnson flew into Norfolk from Minnesota, expressly to offer me a job at Audio Research. I subsequently took it and moved wife and family to Minnesota. Traveled for ARC and, with Wendell Diller, called on HP and JGH.
A year later, Jim Winey hired me away from ARC to be Magnepan’s National Sales Manager. I wrote the Magneplanar T-1D, MG-2, and MG-1 owner’s manuals. I visited the dealer network early and often. We had about 80 dealers when I joined Magnepan, most of whom were not doing much for us or for their clients. I made wholesale cuts and got the network down to about 40. I trained them on set-up. In two years our sales quadrupled (helped in no small measure by the introduction of the MG-1 to our much smaller and more knowledgeable dealer network).
In late 1979, I opened my own hi-end shop – Audition - in Birmingham, AL. Same concept – install what you sell. Audition was named one of the top 50 audio shops by AudioVideo Interiors (leading industry mag at the time) in 1980 & 81. The other recipients were all larger shops with some longevity, unlike our start-up venture.
We became a (and sometimes THE) top dealer for a number of our vendors (Linn, Goldmund, Rega, Transparent Audio, Apogee, Magnepan, Quad, Wilson, Vandersteen, Thiel, MLAS, Cello, Spectral, Bang & Olufsen, Luxman, Nakamichi, NAD, etc.).
Started a location recording company as well. NPR affiliates broadcast my recordings. Primarily used Mark Levinson ML-5 – a modified Studer A80 (30/15 IPS half track). In the '80s, excerpts from my master tapes were played at several CES Shows, including Magnepan & Apogee (I did not allow any attribution to me, as the performers were well known). Gordon Holt commented very favorably on the tapes in an issue of Stereophile. These digital copies were made on my Nakamichi version of the Sony PCM-F1. Mr. Nakamichi gave me one of his first two units. Jeff Rowland later modified the line stage for me.
In 1998, Holger Fromme offered me the distributorship for Avantgarde Acoustics. Two years later Avantgarde-USA demo’d for the first time at the 2000 CES. We received tremendous press, from folks who had never liked horns before. In 2003, at the Stereophile Show in San Francisco, Robert Harley of TAS and Srajan Ebaen of 6moons reported on the never-before-seen phenomenon of the audience giving a standing ovation at the end of each 25-minute demo for three days! Harley mentioned it again recently. Of the shows where we participated, we won Best of Show acclaim in the audio press 5 out of the 7 shows. Always different rooms, different components. I personally (and solely) voiced each of these demos. Avantgarde had not received such acclaim previously, nor have they since I resigned as distributor in 2005.
Get Better Sound was introduced in 2008. There is much more I could tell, but it’s getting way out of hand. Just wanted you to know that my comments at the top of this post come from considerable successful high-end audio industry experience, since 1969.
