Rip off British Hi-Fi Industry

[Marco]

How do they do that? by adding extra components or better components? by redesigning the product for you?

Oi, SM, you know perfectly well what Steve meant so stop being facetious

I agree with him - a good dealer is worth his weight in gold, for a variety of reasons, although I tend not to use them so much these days.

Tony from Coherent is certainly one of the good guys, and Larry, et al, from The AudioWorks - rarely does anyone 'go the extra mile' for customers more than they do. In my experience, the guys there have a dedication to the cause that's second to none.

There are other good dealers, too. Perhaps someone should start a thread on 'Vote for your favourite UK hi-fi dealer'? - Or somesuch. I'm sure it would be very popular!

Marco.

[WikiBoy]

Oi, SM, you know perfectly well what Steve meant so stop being facetious

I agree with him - a good dealer is worth his weight in gold, for a variety of reasons, although I tend not to use them so much these days.

Tony from Coherent is certainly one of the good guys, and Larry, et al, from The AudioWorks - rarely does anyone 'go the extra mile' for customers more than they do. In my experience, the guys there have a dedication to the cause that's second to none.

There are other good dealers, too. Perhaps someone should start a thread on 'Vote for your favourite UK hi-fi dealer'? - Or somesuch. I'm sure it would be very popular!

Marco.

SM facetious

A manufacturer makes £100 for designing, building, etc. A retailer makes £150 (of your money) for sitting on his arse and making you feel good when he gets your money

[Marco]

Not all retailers "sit on their arse", as you describe. You have a somewhat jaundiced viewpoint on this matter, Richard.

SM = Super Muppet, i.e. YOU.

Facetious? Look it up!

Marco.

[WikiBoy]

Not all retailers "sit on their arse", as you describe. You have a somewhat jaundiced viewpoint on this matter, Richard.

SM = Super Muppet, i.e. YOU.

Facetious? Look it up!

Marco.

Not jaundiced but realistic.

I worked in electronics and Hi-Fi retail. Part time Saturday lad at G.W.Smith Lisle St, back to them after excursions into Uni (not for me) dropping out, into the 60's thing and repairing marshalls and fenders and vox's and lugging them around on stage brain dead from chemicals. Then the merger with Laskys that formed Audiotronics and the new Lasky's (which was really a Smiths takeover). Shop manager in Lisle St and Edgware Road and then sent up to Leicester to open and manage the shop there and promoted to area manager before moving on to Acoustic Research.

So I know retail, it is hours of boredom followed by frantic activity as they all turn up at once. In those days retail was necessary, there was no other way for manufacturers to sell their products. Now retailers are Dinosaurs, they are dying not only in Hi-Fi, look at the High Street - Coffee Bars, Restuarants, Banks, Building Societies, Estate Agents and Charity Shops. In the next 10 years the High Street and the Hi-Fi Industry will look totally different to now in terms of how it is sold, but the specialist product will be *very* similar in concept as it has been for the last over 20 years.

Retailers were a necessary evil, now they are an unnecessary evil, and both they and their apologists are struggling like mad to justify the unjustifiable. Money and value always dictates, they are losing it now and that process can only progress.

[Chris Frost]

Is it possible that retail has changed a bit in the 30+ years since you were involved at the coal face?

[Mike]

involved at the coal face?

Aaaarrrggghhh!!!!.......'Management speak'!!! <runs away at great speed>

[griffo104]

Sorry I was a little hard on you, obviously you do listen with at least a degree of open mind. I am just up riding my hobby horse, and getting caried away on the sound of my own voice, a very easy thing to do. This is and has been a slow moving revolution for the last 5 years or so. I just feel that if the runes being thrown at the moment means a one or two year recession then the process will accelerate. My point is that if retailers didn't exist then you would have to rely on fellow enthusiasts and manufacturers, that process would immediately mean you would be paying half as much on average for you specialist hi-fi than if you *have* to buy it through a retailer. Absolutely no disadvantage as most set up things are common sense and like minded people can help online. Peoples minds get set into a *think* so they cannot see hi-fi life without retailers, but without them and a common sense attitude from the manufacturer a £10K system cost £5k.

Richard, don't worry you weren't hard on me, just trying to get your point of view across, perfectly ok.

In some respects I agree totally with you. The last few components I've bought have been ex-review phono bought direct from the distributor with a serious saving to me, a cdp bought 2nd hand and again at a serious saving and a cart/step-up bought from Japan and not available in this country.

All 3 were bought via the internet, some direct fromthe shopping trolley such as the cart/step-up some advertised on the web and subsequently ordered over the phone.

Did I need a dealer to purchase these componets ? Not really. they were cheap enough that I was confident I would get my money back by using the web to sell them on myself. The componets are all still in my system so the gamble paid off and they are superior to the components they replaced, imo of course and excepting the cart which was more to have a play

For me hifi dealers lost their way when AV became the big money spinner and too many decided hifi wasn't important.

As for the setup, well things were a bit different then. I didn't hang around on hifi fourms, didn't know the importance of speaker positioning and things like that. My speakers are still in same position that Linn dealer placed, and I have tried after reading and talking to others, but they still sound best where the dealer set them up.

I do agree that a lot of hifi can be overpriced, some manufacturers who decided to ship the manufacturing to China and yet increase their prices are the most annoying, some of these established uk manufacturers.

I see you sell on ebay, but after my ebay account was hacked and subsequently my email and then they went after my Paypal I decided never to use Ebay again, especially with how difficult they can make it to get you back on line sometimes. this for me is still the major failing of the internet and when trust goes then you will look elsewhere.

[Marco]

Not jaundiced but realistic.

Nope, I still say jaundiced; precisely because of your past experiences which have tainted your view of things seemingly forever...

Realistic? Perhaps the majority are as you describe, but you can't tar all retailers with the same brush!

The fact is there are quite a few UK hi-fi dealers who are genuine enthusiasts like you or I. The only difference is they have a shop and are trying hard to make an honest living whilst selling something they're passionate about.

Hint: It might help your argument if you were just a teensy bit more reasonable

Marco.

[WikiBoy]

Nope, I still say jaundiced; precisely because of your past experiences which have tainted your view of things seemingly forever...

Realistic? Perhaps the majority are as you describe, but you can't tar all retailers with the same brush!

The fact is there are quite a few UK hi-fi dealers who are genuine enthusiasts like you or I. The only difference is they have a shop and are trying hard to make an honest living whilst selling something they're passionate about.

Hint: It might help your argument if you were just a teensy bit more reasonable

Marco.

Not unreasonable, all retailers are tared with the same brush. They took the devils shilling. True enthusiast are like Shian7, they take up the soldering iron (one sort) or concentrate on music like Gromit and Jerry (the other sort).

As soon as it is a living you kill it. Yet lots want to turn it to a living - become reviewer - become retailer - become forum owner : Then you have to create more - more reviews and companies giving me product - more customers and turnover and more profit - more members and more chances of slurp.

I do not only dig at retailers, it is the slurping triumverate I rant at - marketing men - magazines / reviewers - distributors / retailers. They are on-costs, wastes of time and space and wastes of your money. Their functions are migrating to the web (apart from marketing men, and they really have no sensible function apart from irritation). My original point in the rant thread was that *some* forum owners want to turn it into a quad-verate (no such word) of troughees (no such word).

Again my point is there are only two important things, people who design and build product and people who use product. Everything else is on-cost.

[WikiBoy]

I see you sell on ebay, but after my ebay account was hacked and subsequently my email and then they went after my Paypal I decided never to use Ebay again, especially with how difficult they can make it to get you back on line sometimes. this for me is still the major failing of the internet and when trust goes then you will look elsewhere.

Ebay is learning and changing, it started as a poor mans junk / pawn shop, so it is hard to lose that image. It attracted the modern day spivs and wide men. It takes a while to lose an image but the latest changes are going that way and they are finally solving the spammers / frauds problem. Ebay just takes a little common sense like most things. I use it for a very simple reason, my on-costs and work load to sell is very low compared with everything else, so I have more time to design and build, which is what I want to do, and I am determined not to hire on-costs to do it for me. Ebay / Paypal even virtually run my sales invoicing and accounts for me. I just only need to keep a simple quickbooks record for my manufacturing costs and overheads.

Basically I am a simple little man looking for a simple life.