Very true, but there is not much we can do about that though. Perhaps, If I were a sales rep, I might just give them answers that don't require any more than very basic engineering, physics and/or math knowledge except if they questions further and becoming obvious that they do know the basic theories then I would try to go further. Otherwise my answers would just be based on manufacturer specs, but for more technical types such as slew rate, I would just give them the kind of rule of thumb answers such as Audioholics (by Gene in this case). If the questioner seems to know his stuff then I might go as detail as showing them how to calculate the approx number required for their use case. I have yet to meet a sales rep, including high end stores who sells the likes of McIntosh, Krell, Passlab, let alone Bouder and D-Agostino's lol... That's probably expected, it is unlikely that a electronics designer, engineer etc., would work as sales rep in an AV dealer. Some would do it for specific reasons, such as a retiree getting bored, or some enthusiasts want to do it part-time for fun.
There's a lot that can be done about it, but it would require a time machine, to get people to learn Science & Math- I helped take a yacht to the marina so it could be hauled out & Winterized on Thursday evening and in the course of the trip, some of us were talking about 20-somethings not being able to count change at a register- I dug deeper into this and gave a few examples of info people should know, but don't. We have discussed the Metric System and American's resistance to it on AH, none of the others know or use it. We talked about Math that's at the level of Algebra or above, only one did well in that. They don't seem interested in learning, even though the son of the boat owners has always been a Math whiz and has advanced degrees in Applied Mathematics. They almost seemed to be saying "It's too late for us, save yourselves".
Sales reps are required to sell, not provide technical info. When I started selling audio in '78, our reps were often knowledgeable, some not so much. Many were great WRT the business aspects of running an audio store and we benefited from them greatly but the salespeople at the store weren't the ones who knew the most about this stuff, they were just able to close more sales. Sometimes, they saw more returns, but their totals were higher, so they made more money for the store and that's what the owner wanted.
Big box stores have very few knowledgeable sales people in this city- I don't want to shop them because people mainly buy on price but the last time I was in the same place as a Magnolia 'consultant', I was told that the Def Tech 8090 speakers don't have a line input for the woofers. That was absolutely incorrect and it was just after she asked why I had installed coax to the speaker locations.
You really think a store owner wants to hire someone who's retired & bored or an enthusiast who wants to do it for fun? That's the last thing they want- people who have seen decades of BS or someone who wants to make friends and talk all day. A B&M store is competing with the internet, or were you referring to online companies like Crutchfield, etc?
I would hate to be an uninformed consumer- the support people are leading them into the weeds without leaving clues for getting out.
