Who Can I Trust When Buying The Right Equipment?
 

by James Leahy

You must be prepared to invest some time in listening to different systems before you make your final purchasing decision. Throwing money at Hi-Fi equipment is no recipe for Hi Fidelity sound. While internet & popular Hi-Fi magazine reviews may seam like a easy alternative to short cutting some of the hard work ahead, nothing comes for free in this world. Instead what you will more than likely end up with is believing some heavily biased one sided review by a commercial magazine or website that relies directly on advertising revenue from the very equipment manufacturer they are supposedly reviewing! Most big name review publications on the market today have been sadly corrupted by the power of the almighty dollar.

This is hardly what I would call an optimum set of circumstances 'if' their final aim is to remain totally objective and unbiased. More often than not these reviews are nothing more than glorified advertising campaigns thinly disguised as poorly written and badly researched reviews. Always listen to someone's system before you ask their opinion.

If the person spewing out advice hasn't achieved a level of performance in their listening room that would make the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end you ought to ignore them. Like how many of you would take financial advice from a bankrupt? Same principles apply here folks.

It's amazing how many people believe what they read in Hi-Fi magazines written by authors, not Audiophiles, or by Hi-Fi collectors who don't even have a system worth listening to. Just listen to their set-up and if this is not the sort of sound which you'd be proud of don't think the guy writing in a magazine knows anything more than you do. Most seem to come from technical avocations, like engineering, computers and sciences. These people worry so much about trying to put numerical ratings on things that they are completely oblivious to the fact that specifications and test data have nothing to do with the spirit of the sound. Because they worry so much about measuring an audio frequencies performance I have dubbed them "Measurbators." Unfortunately, many of them wander into here looking for more information on Hi-Fi performance. Many of them also play with audio equipment, computers or automobiles. They enjoy these toys just like their Hi-Fi for their own sake, but rarely if ever actually use them for the intended purposes.

Do not be fooled by such things as you now know better and all the reviews in the world mean nothing when you hear the product for yourself. Ask your dealer to let you listen to their personal system and see if they practice what they preach when it come to the wares they are peddling. This will tell you if they are really interested in High Fidelity sound, or if they are just another quick talking snake oil selling salesperson working a 9 to 5 job. You would be amazed at how few would-be Hi-Fi salespeople are true audiophiles.

If you choose to blindly follow the local salesperson at your store they most often would prefer to take the easy road and give the uneducated consumer what they have been told they 'need' by friends instead of teaching and showing them better alternatives from fear of losing a potential sale. This road is undoubtedly an easier sell for the salesperson but at the end of the day the customer will have a poorer sounding system that would have otherwise been the case. This unfortunately is not an uncommon phenomena. As far as salespeople being "very knowledgeable," this is seldom true.

There are however several things that most salesmen are knowledgeable about: The spiff on each item on the floor, down to the last dollar. Exactly what items are in stock at the moment. About how much cash the prospective customer can be persuaded to part with. How to "sell away" from any item in the store to one with a higher spiff or that is in stock at the moment. And how to spot a customer who knows something about audio equipment. I could go on for many more pages about how the customer gets bilked, or describe how to rig a demonstration so subtly that only the most experienced audiophile would suspect that anything was amiss. The bottom line is to trust only your own ears and get interested in learning about Hi-Fi if you care about getting the best system you can for your budget. Knowledge is power.

What the average salesperson is certainly not knowledgeable about is: what the customer actually requires for their own particular ears and musical tastes. What constitutes a "balanced system." What specifications actually mean and how the tests are conducted. What changes in a system will make significant improvements in sound and what changes will only provide negligible improvements.