AUDIO INSIDER

BECOMING A SHREWDER HI-FI BUYER: Part 9: Why spend more time and money getting something better?

A high-end retailer writes: I know the answer, but that’s not the point. What I think, feel, perceive and believe re audiophile issues is, realistically, irrelevant to my customers. Yes of course they want my know how, the brands I represent, encouragement, enlightenment and more … but they base their buying decisions on their emotions […]

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BECOMING A SHREWDER HI-FI BUYER: Part 4

Those of you who know me personally probably know that I’m fascinated by the psychologies (or in simpler terms the brain processes) which guide people to make decisions in general and buying decisions in particular. Having made many seriously flawed commercial decisions (the demise of Subjective Audio being a case in point) I strive to […]

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AUDIO INSIDER

BECOMING A SHREWDER HI-FI BUYER: Part 8

Is this topic relevant to you? This series will focus on how to help a buyer or potential buyer of audio /hifi equipment / stereos make better quality decisions. I’ll come on to ‘quality’ decisions shortly. However I need to clarify who might find this series irrelevant. Easy – anyone who is a stereo equipment […]

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AUDIO INSIDER

BECOMING A SHREWDER HI-FI BUYER: Part 6

Previously …   Welcome back. Here are the three topics identified from yesterday that I’ll be – time permitting – hoping to cover today: How to understand how you arrived in such a situation and thus how to avoid a repetition, How to firmly and unaggressively regain control Tactics that turn the demonstration toward your objectives. […]

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AUDIO INSIDER

BECOMING A SHREWDER HI-FI BUYER: Part 3

Howard Popeck writes: On the face of it, subjective (ears, not machines) group testing of audio equipment, by which I mean ‘n’ items are compared to each other, are a great idea for the potential buyer. Through this lack of insight by the magazine reader and, unfortunately the failure of the magazines to recognize let […]

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AUDIO INSIDER

BECOMING A SHREWDER HI-FI BUYER: Don’t be fooled by a “louder is better” decision.

A few readers have asked me to back off on being uber technical and get back to writing more about sound and high end audio from a listener’s perspective rather than a designer’s and I’ll definitely do that but I did want to finish up on our little series about DACS. One thing to remember […]

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AUDIO INSIDER

BECOMING A SHREWDER HI-FI BUYER: Part 5 – NAKAMICHI PA7 power amplifier … a few observations

An inconvenient truth – rarely acknowledged I have a great interest in vintage equipment. From my retailing perspective it’s an inconvenient fact of life that occasionally, vintage equipment sounds every bit as good as brand new equipment and for far less money too! And then, the value. When you take into account the fact that […]

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BECOMING A SHREWDER HI-FI BUYER: The four pitfalls of buying and selling on eBay

Originally published in 2015 Sophie Christie (The Telegraph) writes: With more than 18 million users, eBay is the country’s largest online marketplace. Buyers get to browse a vast range of goods and snap up bargains. Sellers use the site to do anything from disposing of unwanted goods for a few pounds, to showcasing all the […]

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