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In Reply to: Who's the snobbiest high end dealer? posted by MGH on April 23, 2007 at 19:30:55:
I never met a bigger bunch of A-holes in my life. On the other hand John Dudley, I can't remember the shop name, was a great guy, spent hours with me and a friend for very little profit.
Follow Ups:
...I was treated well and allowed to listen at leisure, even though I was a poor college student. Bought an MIT-1 cartridge from them. Couldn't afford the Goldmund table to go with it.
nice guys. always let me play with the mcintosh stuff when i was in high school.i bought a grado black form them when i was in HS. then, bought a "blown" pair of apogee centaur minors for $250. ribbons were fine, but the vifa 6.5" woofer's surround separated from the cones. my friend fixed them and i underpowered them with a pair of mcintosh MC60s for 6 years! ;-)
Back in the day (comfortable/easy transaction). Had wonderfull experiences at Jonas Miller. They had a relaxed attitude, and obvious effort made to please, every time (bought a turntable).Shelley's currently in Woddland Hills? Yes, they do give retail audio dealers a bad name (Very). Pretty much the end of my retail/bricks and mortar shopping. That was nine years ago [the whole being ignored thing ..... wha da froog is up with that? One word (o.k. two): F'ing Clowns].
Shelly's is now in the valley. They're OK, overall, but I have been ignored by the sales staff there one time.
God, you guys bring back memories! C. Hansen in Beverly Hills was my first exposure into the hi end. Maggies with ARC and Linn Sondek table just blew me away. Yes, the sales guy was a little stuffy, but I was a senior in high school in the mid 80's and just walked in wondering what this place was about. He let me listen to the Maggies and Duntechs eventhough it was pretty clear I couldn't afford the gear. Ambrosia is a good dealer but their setups never really appealed to me. Paris Audio with their Acoustats with the French amp I forget the name of was great sounding.
nt
Made in either Australia or New Zealand, I can't recall which.
NT
that was David weinhart's place. he's now an MBL dealer.one of the nicest guys around. when i was in college, he traded me a Sumo Andromeda II for Macintosh lessons. which was sort of a gimme because he kept falling asleep during the lessons ;-)
still one of the coolest cats around. i played with lots of stuff there. bought some tubes. he let me borrow his vintage Harman kardon citation IV tube preamp.
my friend pierre was building tube amps in college (instead of studying). david would let us try pierre's creations on his systems.
he had it all. levinson, meridian, forsell, dunlavey, goldmund, avante garde, eggleston and so much other stuff i simply can't remember.
I really try to NOT post negative experiences regarding dealers, but this time I am going against my better judgement. I had dealt David before.....I found him so rude.....I had previously purchased gear from him although the experience at his shop up in the hills was horrible, the price at the time was right. I then went back up there on another occasion with a friend. We had set an appointment with him and between us we were spending quite a sum (close to six figures). Well we make the one way 3 hour drive and arrived and after only being there talking with him 20 minutes, a guy walks through the door and wanted to drop a bit more cash on product than we did and he immediately advised us that our meeting was over and that he was going to spend his time with this other customer! NEVER AGAIN! Over the years with the amount of money I have spent in this hobby on ultra high end gear, it is his loss........
That guy blew up at me for calling his store a half hour before it opened, and I was trying to buy something. Never been treated that poorly by anyone in retail in my life. Yeah, great guy.
i had fond memories riding my bike there as a kid and listening to their Apogee Diva/Aragon set up. never heard anything like that before!nice guys.
good equipment and shi%&y little salesmen.
Funny, me defending dealers (not that there's anything wrong with that). But well, I had very positive experiences with him. I lived maybe half a mile from their first location. And sucked up a fair amount of time listening to dem funky Sonabs (never bought). And Eli was emphatic about showing me that turntable that had next to no platter/record support [a few orbs/dots .... funny that, cos I thought it and him were nuts (guess what I'm listening to now!)].The later W.L.A. location, yes the salesmen/service/knowledge wasn't the same (the caricatural attitude was indeed laughable). But I still did manage to buy a tonearm there as well.
David at Ambrosia? Positive experiences there too (bought 300B and 6sn7 tubes, and Grado headphones). But I always thought the location was a bust.
Are there bad dealers? Obviously. And ..... somehow they still manage to stay in biz. But I'd venture there are more good ones. And the great ones? Gentlemen and Gentlewomen, scholars. Assets to the community in which they live.
I've never heard better music reproduction than at the long departed Northridge Audio. The skill and expertise with which the large main sound room, and equipment were set-up. Was a memory that will never fade (the room size prolly didn't hurt). Pure magic.
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Back in the go go 80's going to either the first or second Beverly Hills' locations was a rite of passage. The set-ups/equipment always sounded good to my ear. Not a lot of pretense, but yes you could feel the mild tension of being visually qualified (can I afford the equipment under eval, am I ready to buy). Which actually was already largely settled at the old/first location when your (and your car), were seen approaching/arriving. I did throw down some coin at the later/second location once, for a used Fiddlesticks 64. And found Mr. Hansen a regular Joe like the rest of us. Who just happened to be saddled with doing biz in a rather strange world (Beverly Hills).
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