Short Review: One of the best customer experiences I have ever had and a great selection…read more
Detailed Summary: Jim spent the better part of a day with myself and a friend, letting us try out speakers, A/V receivers, amplifiers, pre-amps, etc. He listened to my relentless technical questioning, made suggestions at the right times, allowed us to play with the gear, left us alone with the equipment to try (big contrast to other high end stores that will not let you touch gear), switched the receivers back and forth for us to try, and let us select from a plethora of streaming songs. He did not try to push any products or high end gear, but allowed us to experience the equipment ourselves and reflected and provided insight after. These guys make recommendations for you, the customer. In fact, he advised against some higher end items, explaining it the diminishing returns unless you just had the money to spend.
In contrast to this experience, I previously visited the only McIntosh dealer in Pittsburgh, Butch's Sound and Vision (totally unrelated name), who "did not allow customers to touch equipment", gave me vague technical info and answered most questions with " it depends how much money you wanted to spend." The speakers here could not be switched without redoing the wiring (useless when trying to compare speakers), the in wall speakers were from the 80's, and while the selection was mediocre, I would go out of my way (and in this case out of state), to find another McIntosh dealer.
These guys at this Sound and Vision sell couches/furniture as well, which makes use of the space. They have 1 sound room with high end items like McIntosh and Anthem amps/preamps, combined with some Bowers and Wilkins 800 series speakers (please let me win the lottery!), 1 sound room with sets and sets of speakers (Paradigm, etc.) with surround sound, acoustic panels, various brands of A/V receivers (Marantz, Integra, Denon, Athem) to try out, another back sound room that is more of a true home theatre experience, a large projector room with 11 channel audio (including Dolby Atmos height ceiling speakers, etc.), and a few small areas with amps/tv's etc. They also have spools of audio cable but only a few types of end connectors available. They have some power conditioners and half dozen outdoor speaker options. We walked away with a few things after investing time here: knowledge of proper speaker/room setup, a few products including a high end a/v receiver, and new knowledge about how to get more out of the receiver. Jim said to just give him a call when I was setting up the receiver and he could walk me through it, a good gesture. The only negative thing was that their knowledge of some of the wattage specs for a few amps was off and it would have been nice to have the specs printed out somewhere handy, but they looked up the information. A+ experience overall.
