Speaker Manufacturers: ID vs B&M Who do you prefer

[admin]

When shopping loudspeakers do you prefer Internet Direct or traditional Brick&Mortar brands? We give you a tour of the pros/cons of each.




Discuss "Speaker Manufacturers: Internet Direct vs Brick and Mortar" here. Read the article.

[AcuDefTechGuy]

There is a speaker for everyone. It does not matter one bit if it happens to be ID or BM or hybrid.

[JonnyFive23517]

I have always been a fan of the internet direct business model, so I support ID businesses whenever possible. I think an interesting study would be: given a fixed price for a pair of speakers where does the money you spent go? My guess would be that for ID brands, a significantly higher portion of the money goes into quality parts/product research whereas for B&M that same money gets sucked up in overhead for real estate, distribution, and salespeoples' salaries. But that's just my guess, based on my own ID experience within the reptile industry.

[Casey01]

One of the strengths of a B&M retailer pointed out in the comments is also one of its biggest weaknesses. Retailers usually sell many brands and from my own experience over the years they tend to formulate agendas whereby they will end up pushing certain brands over others because of discounts from the manufacturers and hence, because of this, generate larger profit margins in the process. There is also the issue of knowledge of the salesperson which more often then not, is quite lacking, especially, when it comes to objectivity in the eyes of the potential consumer.

For the above and many other logical reasons, it is no accident that more and more CE companies, especially with speakers, are going the ID route and as we can see, in recent years, because of it, much of the retail B&M business is in trouble. Like many others, I have listened to speakers in a store, taken them home, only to return them later because I didn't like the way they sounded. Many retailers normally won't even allow this to begin with and if they do, it is usually an exchange, not a money back set-up. ID companies usually have complete 30 day return policies which usually negates the issue of listening to the speakers before hand and even if one has to pay the return shipping, it is still more advantageous than being stuck with a product a buyer doesn't want.

There are many well established, quality companies out there that sell strictly the ID method and when it comes to a wide variety of choices, it really shouldn't even be an issue. Your ID buyer, especially in this case, is usually a better informed, more educated buyer anyway.

[SaviorMachine]

Wow, calling out Velodyne directly. Hm.

[cpp]

I don't care as long as the price is right, the dealer is an authorized dealer of the product and the warranty is valid and there is a 30 day return policy.

[Irvrobinson]

I normally like these AH articles, but I'm not understanding the tone or the point of this one. It seems more like a rant.

[KEW]

There is a speaker are lots of speakers for everyone.

Fixed it!

[fuzz092888]

There is a speaker lots of speaker for ME!!

Fixed it!

Double fixed it

[Cliff_is]

I normally like these AH articles, but I'm not understanding the tone or the point of this one. It seems more like a rant.

We tried to stay out of it a bit, something we don't normally do, and just lay out some ideas rather than take a definitive side.