Buying direct vs. through a dealer

[Marco]

Indeed, Julian. The problem is that the majority of the bickering is as a result of the behaviour of the designer of the equipment, not the equipment itself, which is why it is the former, rather than the latter, that is often the subject of criticism!

Sadly, he brings it largely all on himself.

Marco.

[synsei]

RD's insecurities are a product of his dust ups with the big boys way back when and it is obvious the wounds have never healed. Ironically it sounds as if he would be a better retail dealer when compared to his prickly online countenance.

[jandl100]

Jerry, I don't doubt that the latter is true (indeed I've seen plenty evidence of it), but doesn't it strike you as somewhat foolish (to say the least), being an Internet "keyboard warrior", as you put it, when you're the owner of an on-line audio business, especially when that business get its customers from precisely the same place as said "keyboard warrior" operates, i.e. the Internet? Shooting yourself in the foot doesn't even begin to describe it!!

Your reputation (and thus sales) are bound to suffer, as a consequence, even if that fact isn't immediately obvious, as most people will think twice about dealing with someone like that. Therefore, he does himself no favours whatsoever, in his professional capacity as a business owner, with his disrespectful and rude behaviour towards people, which unfortunately he seems blissfully unaware of, or indeed as has been suggested, is in complete denial about...

Marco.

Oh yeah - all of that is spot on.

But RD gets more than enough sales to keep him happy - he recently had to shut his eBay shop cos he couldn't handle any more orders.

I do find it curious for someone who espouses the "power to the people" principle of hifi sales and that the forums are a tremendously good and powerful thing and the way of the future etc, that RD pisses 'em all off Big Time!

[sq225917]

With the best will in the world to RD, the reason he acts like he does online is because he's wired up just a little differently to everyone else. The fact that his products succeed despite his actions is just proof that he makes decent stuff.

[synsei]

He reminds me of the guy in Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy who flies round the universe insulting everybody in alphabetical order...

[kininigin]

I bought my pre amp and speakers online (the speakers are admittedly second hand) this was after reading up on said products and forming a general picture of what they can do and if it fitted with where i wanted to go.So far has worked a treat for me!!

On the other side of the coin,i went to my local audio t in reading (after vowing never to go back,after been looked at like a piece of scum,thankfully,it was being run by different people) to get some records cleaned after i discovered they had a keith monks machine.
They were friendly,showed me how they cleaned your records,told me alot of things about how records are pressed and we had a good old discussion about various subjects.
It was the kind of service,which makes you want to support your local shops.

When i lived in hereford,english audio allways provided a great service,letting me take things home to evaluate,as they knew shop demo's only tell part of the story.

So either way can and has worked for me.

p.s. After hearing what a rcm can do,I NEED TO NOW BUY ONE

[Stratmangler]

He reminds me of the guy in Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy who flies round the universe insulting everybody in alphabetical order...

Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged was his name.
He was immortal, but he wasn't born that way, so he had to come up with some way to fill his time and justify his existence.
http://hhgproject.org/entries/wowbagger.html

[Marco]

Hi Jerry,

I do find it curious for someone who espouses the "power to the people" principle of hifi sales and that the forums are a tremendously good and powerful thing and the way of the future etc, that RD pisses 'em all off Big Time!

Indeed - I suspect it's just simply envy. Let's face it, Richard would love his forum to have the captive audience of 'the big 3', but he knows that it'll never happen, as he's his own worst enemy. The fact is, some of us are able to learn from our mistakes and change, whereas others are too pig-headed and stubborn to admit to their faults and address them, thus consigning themselves to a rather lonely and unfulfilled existence, compared with what could've been...

Also, he keeps bringing up the Crossover Network thing, as if it somehow aids his defence. Yes, I lost the plot big time (my head was in a very bad place then), and yes I'm not proud at all of what I wrote years ago in an email to a well-known and universally hated forum troublemaker, whose son had just hacked into and trashed this site, and with it years of work, but the big difference is that, for me, that was a one off, and completely against my normal nature, as anyone who knows me well would confirm.

Whereas with Richard, whilst he hasn't been caught in public yet being quite as nasty to anyone (although his malevolent treatment of Chris Frost indicates what he's really capable of), makes up for it by continually being rude and aggressive to anyone whom he feels deserves it - and worse, seems to consider it as normal behaviour This was witnessed only the other day with his disgraceful treatment of Alan Sircom, who I doubt will be back again to grace his site.

If Richard had only handled Alan properly, it might have given his forum some much needed credibility, but again he demonstrated his innate predisposition towards conflict (always just bubbling under the surface and ready to explode), complete lack of empathy towards others of a different mindset, and a commercial short-sightedness that beggared belief.

In any case, if I was genuinely as bad a person as what I wrote in that email suggests, shown on The Crossover Network, then I'd be sitting on a forum now with about 6 active members, largely talking to myself, just like Richard is, and creating more enemies by the day, rather than somewhere like here, surrounded by many good friends and like-minded people!

Marco.

[Joe]

Isn't discussion of banned members against the AoS AUP?

[Marco]

Hi Joe,

Normally, yes, but Richard is an exception, as most banned members don't have their own forum with a specific section dedicated to slagging off this forum and me (amongst others). Therefore, he has ample 'right of reply' on his own little platform, the contents of which are usually ignored, but on this occasion I decided that certain remarks needed to be addressed, including now this:

I still have a collection of emails from back then right up to the moment he put me on his blocked list last week, what I should do is just publish them and let people see if he has changed and the TXN thing was an aberration, but I can't be bothered.

What he *actually* means is that publishing them would provide nothing other than blatant evidence of his appallingly antagonistic nature, living in denial of the truth, amazing ability to deliberately misconstrue what's written in front of him, and finally, me trying hard to avoid further circular argument and a serious fall out (which is what eventually happened), and his failure simply to 'agree to disagree' and just let an argument lie, after a series of frank, but perfectly polite, exchanges of opinions. There is not one single threat from me contained in any RECENT email I've sent to him.

So publish away, Richard - you'll only make yourself look more stupid than you have already!

In fact, just to show that I have nothing whatsoever to hide, if anyone here is remotely interested in reading the dialogue in question, PM me, and I'll forward the whole recent email exchange, between Richard and me, directly from my email account to theirs (so that I can't tamper with the content in any way), and if they can find any threatening or abusive behaviour towards him from me, I'll gladly give them £500!!

Marco.