My little no name shop.
There has been a lot of discussion lately about service (or lack there of) and big-box stores. On a recent trip to Vancouver Island I found myself in a Future Shop killing time while the wife and daughter shopped for (more) shoes. I was browsing through their CDs and DVDs and picked out a couple titles when I remembered that I'm still in need of an A/V calibration disk for my system (like Avia). I thought what the heck, I'll ask and see if they have something. I approached the first sales person I could find, a young woman of perhaps 25 years who was restocking DVDs, and asked if they carried such an item. I could tell right away by the look on her face that she thought I was from Mars, and proceeded to tell me she had never heard of such a thing. "OK ... Thanks" I said, and made my way over to their receiver area. I was eye-balling the HK gear when a young salesman approached and launched right into his well rehearsed script. I waited for him to finish and then asked if they had any calibration software. He looked puzzled so I said "you know ... it's a disk that puts out test tones for speaker calibration and has test screens for TV calibration". He ran off to get his manager who assured me that "it depends on what kind of system you have". It took some time, but when I finally got through to him what I was after, he just used the same line the saleswoman used and said he'd never heard of that before. Call me old fashioned, but is it too much to expect the manager of a fairly large audio/video department would know something of this type of software?
Back home in our little hamlet here on the beautiful Sunshine Coast there are two options when it comes to shopping for home audio/video gear. The new player on the block, London Drugs, carries a lot of Sony and a few other "name brands". I don't shop there too much, but I did purchase my HDTV sat system from them. There is, however, a small shop tucked away beside a furniture store that has convinced me to spend my money locally rather than take it to the big city. The owner carries names like Toshiba, Paradigm, Yamaha, Pioneer, and others and is very knowledgeable about his products. He'll also match the best prices I can find in the city, which is a huge plus for me considering I'm looking at a healthy beer tab and ferry fair every time I go in there. I've done a lot of shopping in that store over the years and the one thing that always impresses me is the enthusiasm of the owner. All I have to do is tell him what I have in mind and right away he gets this big smile on his face, takes me into his sound room and sits me down, flips a few switches and says "check this out" (smiling all the time). I have learned over the years when I see that smile, I'm in for a treat. Then he might just leave me there to enjoy what ever it is I'm enjoying, or sit down and take it all in himself. You really get the feeling you are in this guy's man cave, and what an awesome cave it is. This guy is the epitome of the "no pressure" salesman: it's purely his enthusiasm that sells gear. It really is a pleasure to shop there. I won't mention the name of the shop because anyone reading this from my neck of the woods knows exactly who I'm talking about anyway.
By the way, Takeereasy, my last purchase there was a PS1000 sub. Without a doubt one of the best decisions I have ever made to improve the sound of my system. I can't get over how good it's sounding in my little cave! The PS1000 will take you down to 22Hz and his big brother (and I do mean big), PS1200, will go to 21Hz.
