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View Full Version : The dilemmas and the positives of home demonstrations.



Neil McCauley
24-07-2008, 10:08
An increasing number of callers are requesting demonstrations in their homes. This is for both sensible and practical reasons such as their room being acoustically different to mine, and so on. The extra physical effort on my part is I feel worth it as it helps the potential customer make a better quality decision – even if that decision is not to buy my wares as sometimes happens for very good reasons.

However there is a dilemma. Take Harbeth loudspeakers for example. I have the 4 principle pairs on permanent demonstration here in north London. However without a transit-size van, it is physically impossible to haul all 4 pairs to one site.

So from the potential customer’s perspective, how does one resolve the desire for (a) hearing the range in one’s home and (b) the sheer practical effort involved in carting the entire range to that home? You'd think of course, as I did initially, that a pre-visit 'filtering' would be applied in terms of size and cost. Curiously (and happily) though in my tiny market sector, neither of those factors appear to be heavily influential.

At least Harbeths are moveable by one person. When I stocked a range of Apogee loudspeakers, it was all one could do to do a home demo of even the lightest pair, the Scintillas. Similarly with the ATC actives.


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Togil
24-07-2008, 11:44
Incidentally Harbeth have an extremely interesting article about " Listening to Loudspeakers" on their website .

Prince of Darkness
24-07-2008, 18:41
However there is a dilemma. Take Harbeth loudspeakers for example. I have the 4 principle pairs on permanent demonstration here in north London. However without a transit-size van, it is physically impossible to haul all 4 pairs to one site.

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Could be worse, at least you're not selling Tannoy Westminsters.:lolsign:

purite audio
24-07-2008, 21:10
Buy a transit.

pure sound
24-07-2008, 22:10
I put this conundrum to Richard of NVA who, for a while, was here championing a brave new dealer-less world of internet based audio trading. Unsurprisingly, there was no sensible answer. Some utopian vision of a world serviced by commissioned sales reps doing home loans/dems on behalf of the speaker manufacturers. If people are going to make the investment in larger speakers, they are often going to want to hear them (and other ancillaries) at home in a room they know. They will always need specialists to provide that service, but, as Keith says, you'll need the van!

jandl100
25-07-2008, 06:56
From my pov, it seems unrealistic for a buyer to expect multiple home dems of large speakers. I just can't see how it makes any sense from the seller's side. The already small margin must diminish to the point of invisibility. That's no way for a dealer to make a living, surely. Much fairer for dems at the dealer to narrow down the choice to one (or maybe two) and then a home dem on those.

Togil
25-07-2008, 07:22
Totally agree with Jerry. Do you expect a dealer to come along with the full range of Wilson speakers including Alexandrias, he needs more than a transit van ! Or Keith with Alpha Beta Gamma Cessaros !

From the customer point of view it's also extremely embarrassing to have to tell a dealer that you're not buying anything even if you have the very good reasons that Howard mentions ( I would like to know them from the dealer's point of view ! )

Neil McCauley
25-07-2008, 11:23
From the customer point of view it's also extremely embarrassing to have to tell a dealer that you're not buying anything even if you have the very good reasons that Howard mentions ( I would like to know them from the dealer's point of view ! )

I can of course only legitimately explain the reasons based on my direct personal experiences rather than supposition. The reasons for a sale not occurring at the conclusion of a home demo usually fall into the following 6 relatively broad categories.

Reason #1

My intervention has been successful in creating one or more differences but that in my opinion those differences cannot legitimately be considered improvements. I usually explain this via my mantra that “For something to be better, it has to be different whereas a difference does not automatically translate into an improvement” Or …

Reason #2

I have through my intervention created a series of noticeable and worthwhile improvements but these do not in my opinion represent particularly good value and I feel obliged to say so. Or …

Reason #3

I arrive at the home to discover that the customer has forgotten to tell me something - or has been suffered an inept installation which in turn means that I can significantly improve the system by rectifying cock-ups at no charge. I gain considerable satisfaction from this.

One example from many was merely removing a stack of mains filtering nonsense (I'm not including mains regeneration in this) and plugging the system back into the conventional wall sockets (a transformation to a £75k Levinson Reference System with Wilson WP series #7 where the customer had been royally tucked up by two other dealers who really should have known better).

Another was merely getting the polarity correct on one pair of speaker connections. In those 2 examples, charging nothing was ethically appropriate and anyway, the extent of the improvement was greater than could be achieved by getting them to buy more equipment at that point. This was because at that point they were either in shock, or rage, or both at how they had been financially abused by other retailers.. Or …

Reason #4

The sound is so dreadful that without a massive and inappropriate change, there’s nothing practical that I can achieve. A classical example being that of one owner of a pair of ghastly horn speakers which were both bass light and nasally shouting in the mid range and with a rock-drilling treble. No amount of farting around was going to correct a fundamentally flawed design that should have never exited from the original designer’s ego. Or …


Reason #5

The sound is so good (and the owner really underplayed and/or underestimated this) that the best thing is for me to sit down, relax, have a cup of tea and listen to the music and not unpack the gear from my car. This reason is quite rare these days. Quite common though when I was acquiring my skills at Subjective Audio.

Reason #6

The prospective customer is in fact thinking of becoming a dealer and wants to see first hand how to undertake a home demo and/or wants to attempt to buy cheap from the importers, the makers or European retailers.

One instance that springs to mind was a 5 hour demo in North London where I went through numerous combinations of Ayre pre and power amps and Nagra pre and power amps and the Nagra DAC. Judging from subsequent emails, the time-waster wanted a serious discount to incentivise him to buy. He did in fact become a retailer so I'm told. Complete tosser.

Having said this, during the past 36 months, 7 out of 9 home demonstrations resulted in a sale. And of course there is the added advantage of me increasing my knowledge-bank through listening to combinations on site and noting which intervention produces which result. Not a bad life really.


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jandl100
26-07-2008, 11:21
Reason #5

The sound is so good (and the owner really underplayed and/or underestimated this) that the best thing is for me to sit down, relax, have a cup of tea and listen to the music and not unpack the gear from my car.

Yup, I well and fondly remember a dealer coming round to my place with some kit. "Well, let's hear how the system sounds as it is now" , he says ..... I played some Big Mahler and his jaw very nearly hit the floor. I don't think he'd heard sound that good before! :lol:

... I had some rather nice ProAc Response 3 speakers at the time, iirc, fed by a pair of Jadis JA80 monoblocks. Yes, it was rather good. :)

Another dealer came around with some amps - he was one of the "I'm a dealer and know what good sound is really about" types. He sat down for an initial listen to my existing system ready and willing to "rubbish it"...... no disparaging comments (unusual for him), he just sat their staring at the musical image in front of him ... and blinked slowly 3 times. "Yah" he croaked, "pretty good". Another dealer having an audio epiphany :eyebrows:

Togil
26-07-2008, 11:47
So , Jerry, why did you ask the dealers to come round to your house, or did they insist on coming ?

jandl100
26-07-2008, 12:41
So , Jerry, why did you ask the dealers to come round to your house, or did they insist on coming ?

No, I don't think I asked them - more they wanted/suggested to come round to show their kit off to best advantage, I think, and neither was too far away. Other dealer home dems have gone more according to their plans ..... PS Audio PowerPlant and Perpetual Technology upsampler/DAC spring to mind - those dealers made their sales! :)

John
30-07-2008, 10:45
7 out of 9 is a good return
I would only home demo if was seriously considering purchasing and that is only after reading up as much info as I can before I went a head.
I think if you are transporting a lot of speakers its only fair that a person helps towards time and petrol if no sale but think that would probarly put a lot of people of the home demo, Maybe with most people that sense of good will you create is worth the effort of transporting

Neil McCauley
30-07-2008, 14:12
7 out of 9 is a good return
I would only home demo if was seriously considering purchasing and that is only after reading up as much info as I can before I went a head.
I think if you are transporting a lot of speakers its only fair that a person helps towards time and petrol if no sale but think that would probarly put a lot of people of the home demo, Maybe with most people that sense of good will you create is worth the effort of transporting

Yes, I'm content with 7 out of 9. And yes, generally speaking people are very thoughtful / considerate and don't abuse my effort nor my time. Yes, the goodwill generated is worth the effort. However, there is a degree of self interest here in that if an item is purchased at the conclusion of a home demonstration, the buyer does not express regret. By this I mean they never, not even once, request a refund.

My conclusion is that from the buyer’s standpoint, a home demonstration reduces the risk of buying the wrong thing down to negligible. This is not always the case with demonstrations at my place.


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John
31-07-2008, 13:16
When I have bought a item via home demo I have never regretted it so from the customer point of view think a home demo is essential if you want to achieve decent sounds