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In Reply to: RE: Recommendations Sought posted by Lee of Omaha on April 14, 2014 at 11:51:04
When I was a salesman at a store on Route 4 West in Paramus, New Jersey, in what was the most hotly contested arena of trade since they tore down Radio Row, Sam Goody across the street was killing us with the JBL L100. Audiophiles can say what they wish about this controversial speaker, but they sure appealed to a lot of people, the quality of the drivers was superb, and they were standard equipment in every professional recording studio in the United States.
JBL protected Goody by not selling their line to anyone else in the neighborhood. So our store bought a pair, placed them on display, and allowed customers believe that the store carried them, and they could buy a pair from us if they wished.
Our store was promoting a high-margin 3-way Infinity model – practically our house brand – that was similar in size to the L100, but significantly cheaper. This was the speaker we were supposed to push instead. And it sounded pretty good for the money, too.
"Listen for yourself!" The salesmen would say. "Trust your ears! Where's the midrange?" That beautiful JBL midrange was there, all right – but it had been disconnected from the back, then replaced in the cabinet. Next, they'd switch over to the Infinity, and it was no contest. After the sale, everyone would run into the back of the store, give each other high fives, and do a bunch of lines.
Personally, I found such deceptions abhorrent, and I refused to participate in them. I had my own equipment preferences, and tried to steer my customers to those. That said, I was never known to pass up too many of those lines.
If I was setting up a high-value audio shop down the street from a high-end salon, I think I would stock a wide range of active studio monitors. I would buy a pair of whatever was selling best at my competitors' stores, let customers compare them for sound quality and value, and let the IC chips fall where they may.
The same monitors are sold by musical instrument stores. But unless you are in New York (and possibly LA), they will have very few models on display, and those they do have will be the lower-end models, and very poorly set up.
That said, I have no idea what the pricing structure is or the dealer requirements are for selling pro audio. But if you've heard something like a Dynaudio BM6a Mark II (now III) compared to a hi-fi speaker several times its price, selling the pro monitor seems like it should be a slam-dunk.
Good luck, Lee!
Follow Ups:
Chef Henry,
Your story sound like my experience with Crazy Eddie's. They threw me out of the store when I discovered the JBL L100's had the midrange drivers disconnected to make the Acousti Phase speakers sound better. The margins on Acousti Phase were so good, it allowed Crazy Eddies to sell Kenwood (and other) receivers at close to cost so people would think they were getting a great deal on a receiver and speakers! When customers came into the audio store I worked at and told me they had a Kenwood receiver and Acousti Phase speakers, I would say "you bought them at Crazy Eddies, right?"
That Acoustiphase was all over I guess. One famous downtown store had all salesguys pushing them like crazy (Eddy!) playing them much louder than the Infinities. Two colleagues in my office were so impressed and bought the Acoustiphase and a turntable which they said had 24 pole motor and a belt! That was a house brand. This store was not any run of the mill Canal or Chambers St store.
BTW, did anybody ever shop at Mashuguna Mike's?
Cheers
Bill
That's the only other store I knew of on Rt 4 Paramus. And your story is the reason they went out of business. A very slimy company, I know I worked for them in NYC - For 3 days...they wanted me to bait and switch. They would advertise some sort of Sony VCR real cheep then when you come in we say we don't have it or we only had 1 at that price and switch them over to the vcr that we bought 500 of at half the price.
They pretended to want to be a hi end dealer but really wanted the low end low information consumer. That's where the highest profits were.
Nope. This was the mid and late '70s, long before big box stores like 6th Avenue.
Guess again.
I remember a Tech HiFi but not the Infinity. I bought an Onkyo A5 amp from there. I bought a 3M Wollensack Cassette player and a pair Technics SB 5000A speakers from Goody. Used for many years.
Cheers
Bill
Tech it is! You win a Kleeneez record cleaning pad, or would if any still existed. The magnanimous company gave one of these gems away with every system purchase.
If memory serves, the Infinity was a model 3000. It was roughly the size of an L100, with a doped twelve-inch woofer, a cone mid, and cone tweeter. They actually sounded pretty good for the money, though they were no match for an L100 with its midrange connected!
Bill, do you or anyone else reading this remember Sam Goody's brilliant and eccentric tech, Tony Deluca?
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