mark wrote:
Thanks for all the replies, appreciated.


Doesn't make sense to me - you want a pile of 'expensive names' and yet you
want to be able to brag 'I got it cheap'....?


Firstly being a tightwad is nothing to brag about! But I do agree with
you to an extent. Its not the cost per se I object to, though it is a
lot of money for me. Its the "retail" price that bothers me. I don't
really want "dealer service" and I don't want to pay for it.

Of course £150 off £1500 isn't much compared to the savings of just
buying a £600 cheaper system. But it might well bug me for the next 10
years. Of course £150 over 10 years is even more inconsequential, but
I'd still rather keep it in my pocket.

Regarding auditioning...this is also a dilemma and does largely
undermine my thinking. I do know someone with the speakers I want, but
yes, I am largely relying on other people's opinions and reviews
regarding the Arcam stuff. (Ok, I admit I like the appearance of it too
and I am suckered in by their clever branding, but that's a thread in
itself.)

Maybe I should just grow up, go and have the salesman set up an
audition of some different brands and pay the full whack...

Mark


Go to a dealer, get a demo, ask to take the kit home on a trial.
Normally this will involve swiping a credit card before you get out of
the shop with this kit.

If you decide you don't like it, bring it back, and its cost you nothing
but time, and has saved you from spending money on something you don't like.

If you do like it. Go back and make the dealer an offer. If he doesn't
like your offer, give the kit back, and you are no worst off, but at
least you have some kit you know you like. Then you can try and get the
same kit elsewhere for a discount. But given the kit has already left
his shop, he may be more inclined to offer a discount on it.

Of course, this could all fall down if they send you home with demo kit,
and not the new stuff you wanted to get the discount on.

--
Nick

"mark" wrote in message
ups.com...
Thanks for all the replies, appreciated.

Doesn't make sense to me - you want a pile of 'expensive names' and yet
you
want to be able to brag 'I got it cheap'....?

Firstly being a tightwad is nothing to brag about! But I do agree with
you to an extent. Its not the cost per se I object to, though it is a
lot of money for me. Its the "retail" price that bothers me. I don't
really want "dealer service" and I don't want to pay for it.

Of course £150 off £1500 isn't much compared to the savings of just
buying a £600 cheaper system. But it might well bug me for the next 10
years. Of course £150 over 10 years is even more inconsequential, but
I'd still rather keep it in my pocket.

Regarding auditioning...this is also a dilemma and does largely
undermine my thinking. I do know someone with the speakers I want, but
yes, I am largely relying on other people's opinions and reviews
regarding the Arcam stuff. (Ok, I admit I like the appearance of it too
and I am suckered in by their clever branding, but that's a thread in
itself.)

Maybe I should just grow up, go and have the salesman set up an
audition of some different brands and pay the full whack...




I think I understand your dilemma - you have more or less decided on a stack
of gear and you want to say to the dealer 'I know what I want, just wheel
out the boxes, cut me a 'speedy spender' deal and I'll be gone in 60
seconds!' or somesuch? No?

If so, just say it!! Be *brave*!! :-)

Better by phone (non-confrontational) and do it any time now (post Christmas
drop-off) or leave it 'til high summer when the dealers are quiet. Phone on
a Tuesday or Wednesday afternoon when they have probably had an empty shop
and you'll be home pulling all that squeaky polystyrene off by teatime!!
You'll be happy as a dog with two dicks for about 6 months - until they
bring out the *new model* with the next number up and which purports to
'address all the issues' in the one you have just bought! ;-)

(Me? Assuming you're talking SS/digital - Amp, CD and DAB say, I'd pull the
thousand pounds off the front of that proposed spend for a start.....!! ;-)

Or......

See this stack?

This stack he

http://www.apah69.dsl.pipex.com/show/stack.JPG

It'll cost you about 210 (total) from Argos and you'll get 3 identical
remotes which will operate everything. Grab one and get a Dymo tape machine
to make some fancy labels to stick on each piece (I leave it up to you to
choose a sutable name) and then grab a pair of Living Voice Auditoriums

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~va...ivingVoice.htm

http://www.livingvoice.co.uk/auditorium.htm


and hook it all up.

Give it a week to settle in and then invite your mates round (the ones with
the ****ty mid-fi 'names') and see what they say....

(Then you can save up for your *killer stack* at your leisure - I suspect
you will be in no rush and the speakers will do you for life!! ;-)

I think I understand your dilemma - you have more or less decided on a stack
of gear and you want to say to the dealer 'I know what I want, just wheel
out the boxes, cut me a 'speedy spender' deal and I'll be gone in 60
seconds!' or somesuch? No?

Ok...I admit it, the above had crossed my mind.

This stack he

http://www.apah69.dsl.pipex.com/show/stack.JPG

It'll cost you about 210 (total) from Argos and you'll get 3 identical
remotes which will operate everything. Grab one and get a Dymo tape machine
to make some fancy labels to stick on each piece (I leave it up to you to
choose a sutable name) and then grab a pair of Living Voice Auditoriums

I'm slightly disturbed by your in depth knowledge of this "system",
Keith! ;-) Have you auditioned one yourself? Do you, dare I say it, own
one? Three remotes...I'm sorely tempted.

The Living Voices are a bit over my speaker budget but they do look
sure to impress my mates, and my 12 year old Mordaunts are getting a
bit long in the tooth. Do you think they can handle the output from the
Argos rig though? ;-) I'd hate to think they weren't doing it
justice...

Actually, more seriously, I'm looking at an Arcam CD73, an Arcam A70
amp...and possibly some B&W 603 S3s. Can't stretch to anything fancy
like a tuner.

With any luck I might get bored with the idea soon and be able to go on
holiday instead...

Mark

Signal wrote:
"jasee" wrote:

Has anyone experience of negotiating recently? Are the big dealers
such as Sevenoaks even open to this? I've no interest in haing
around and trying things out, I just want to go in, and agree a
price and then be out with my new hi-fi.

I used to find that asking "How much for cash?" worked quite well.

If they can actually see the money, works even better... ;-)

Hardball negotiating tactic#1... slap wad on the counter and say
"That's all I've got will you accept it?"

I've _never_ got a reduction for cash for _anything_ (but especially
hi-fi and I've tried it in Sevenoaks). Maybe I just look hopeless :-)

Retailers pay a percentage of every credit card transaction to the
bank, think about it.... ;-)

Yes, however the fact that they do has never made the slightest difference
in my case: when I finally pay by credit card because they don't offer a
discount of cash they don't seem at all perturbed and no-one begs me to
change my mind and pay in cash! It just never seems to be a good negociating
point.

It's probably easier for them as individuals than to actually count the cash
and make sure I haven't just made it on my photocopier.

"mark" wrote in message
oups.com...
I think I understand your dilemma - you have more or less decided on a
stack
of gear and you want to say to the dealer 'I know what I want, just wheel
out the boxes, cut me a 'speedy spender' deal and I'll be gone in 60
seconds!' or somesuch? No?

Ok...I admit it, the above had crossed my mind.

This stack he

http://www.apah69.dsl.pipex.com/show/stack.JPG

It'll cost you about 210 (total) from Argos and you'll get 3 identical
remotes which will operate everything. Grab one and get a Dymo tape
machine
to make some fancy labels to stick on each piece (I leave it up to you to
choose a sutable name) and then grab a pair of Living Voice Auditoriums

I'm slightly disturbed by your in depth knowledge of this "system",
Keith! ;-) Have you auditioned one yourself? Do you, dare I say it, own
one?


Damn, am I that transparent?


Three remotes...I'm sorely tempted.


I know - I still can't get used to the idea myself!! :-)




The Living Voices are a bit over my speaker budget but they do look
sure to impress my mates, and my 12 year old Mordaunts are getting a
bit long in the tooth. Do you think they can handle the output from the
Argos rig though? ;-) I'd hate to think they weren't doing it
justice...


:-)

See below....



Actually, more seriously, I'm looking at an Arcam CD73, an Arcam A70
amp...and possibly some B&W 603 S3s. Can't stretch to anything fancy
like a tuner.


Hmm....

Just as I thought - you are spending all the money on the electronics.

The reason I got the Argos stuff was to find out how good it was at the
price - bearing in mind you can get your money back if not satisfied, within
a couple of weeks. I actually only bought the amp to start with (60 quid,
IIRC) but was so impressed at the VFM aspect (and the reet *snacky* buttons)
I followed up with the matching CD and DAB just for fun!

Hifi electronics are a done deal these days, you really can get a perfectly
good DVD player for 20 quid!! (Silvercrest from Lidl's a while back...)
Quite what some suppliers are providing for kit costing 10 times the price
(and looking only a wee bit better) I really couldn't guess! The CD player
is the least impressive of the 3 bits of kit but it was utterly
*indistinguishable* from a ********y Marantz 'KI Signature' ubertweaked CDP
I already had, when the Marantz' internal attenuation was used to
level-match the output. Not one person (in about half a dozen that heard
them both here) could tell them apart and I was able to switch between them
seamlessly, once I had 'time aligned' them. (Not hard to do...) The DAB is
as good as DAB gets...

Anyway, on my speakers (mostly up there in the high 90s/100 mark) they
positively *sparkle* - although I'm only using the DAB atm!! The only Arcam
amp and CD setup I've had here to audition was about a year ago and were the
'new models' then (CD72 and A65?) - they belonged to Ray Mr Bitsy and were
perfectly OK but they weren't 10 times better than the Argos stuff!!



With any luck I might get bored with the idea soon and be able to go on
holiday instead...


I'm on holiday now (note the hour) but, as I'm retired, it's a bit like
doing 'overtime' to me!! ;-)

On Tue, 2 Jan 2007 03:19:32 -0000, "jasee"
wrote:

Yes, however the fact that they do has never made the slightest difference
in my case: when I finally pay by credit card because they don't offer a
discount of cash they don't seem at all perturbed and no-one begs me to
change my mind and pay in cash! It just never seems to be a good negociating
point.

It's probably easier for them as individuals than to actually count the cash
and make sure I haven't just made it on my photocopier.


It depends whether you're dealing with a salesman on commission or a
store owner.

Unfortunately, to get anywhere near a good price, you generally have
to be dealing with a chain store with big buying power. This means
salesmen.

"Signal" wrote in message
...
"Michael Chare" wrote:

Has anyone experience of negotiating recently? Are the big dealers such
as Sevenoaks even open to this?

There is no harm in asking. The worst that they can say is 'no'.

Well... they could say "No.. and don't come back here again!" :-)

Indeed they could, but that way the lose any business now and also in the
future. As their goal is to sell you the product at the full price they are
more likely to politely decline the offer.


--

Michael Chare

"Signal" wrote in message
...
"Keith G" wrote:

Actually, more seriously, I'm looking at an Arcam CD73, an Arcam A70
amp...and possibly some B&W 603 S3s. Can't stretch to anything fancy
like a tuner.



I didn't write that - it was the OP....



I got all my stuff used. JM Lab Electra 905 for £500, Primare A10 for
£150, Marantz CDP for another £100.
Cheap at retail £2k (SQ vs price) ... a gift at £750

http://translate.google.com/translat...3Doff%26sa%3DG

I always suggest buying used if you have the smarts.. there's plenty
of good-as-new gear available at 25%-50% retail if you look around.



Once I would have agreed with you wholeheartedly, but not everyone wants
secondhand and there's an awful lot of dreck out there atm, especially at
the lower end of the market. The grubby black 80s/90s gear with the busted
remotes is turning up in the shops (from what little I see of it) and the
good stuff goes on eBay!

I think it's worth mentioning that the OP appeared to want a smart/matching
stack (a lot of people do) - I merely pointed him to an impossibly cheap
stack of quite smart and really quite clever brand new kit for less than
secondhand prices and dropped the hint he should spend the bulk of his
budget on a decent pair of speakers. Mid-fi electronic gadgets change year
on year (for some obscure reason), but a good pair of speakers is
*eternal*.....




Hifi electronics are a done deal these days, you really can get a
perfectly
good DVD player for 20 quid!! (Silvercrest from Lidl's a while back...)
Quite what some suppliers are providing for kit costing 10 times the price
(and looking only a wee bit better) I really couldn't guess!

Quality of components, design, attention to firmware, materials and
parts used, quality control..? Perhaps put together by people being
paid a fair wage?


That one doesn't wash with me - there's hardly a 'name' now that don't get
its stuff built in China (where the purported 'sweatshops' are) and some
'respectable names' have been doing it for years. As far as the 'slave
labour' bit goes - I'm sure they are not being forced to work at gunpoint
and I suspect they would rather have the option to work than not. Normal (if
not ferocious) economic development will sort things out eventually, in any
case...???



Three mates bought the same "bargain" does-it-all ALDI DVD player over
the christmas period... all three went back. One was rejected because
the internal subtitling was yellow one pixel wide lettering with no
background border, so nigh on impossible to read over light
backgrounds. Another rejected because the USB socket doesn't work
(design fault - none of them work, something is bolloxed) and the
third because it stopped recognizing discs. One of the buyers is
techie, said there were problems with anamorphic playback too...



Sure, not all cheap stuff is good. It's a case of Caveat Emptor, as always -
there are plenty of forums giving useful FB on the cheap stuff and I gather
they are not averse to calling a product a POS if it's justified. Unlike the
'magazines' of course.....



I doubt any budget DVD player is sonically on a par with a decent
current mid range player. Trevor Wilson can probably give a technical
explanation for this.



Oh, I'm sure he could, but if I can't personally distinguish between two
pieces of kit then it's academic AFAIAC and if a twenty quid player only
lasts so long, then that's OK too - the last thing you want these days is a
bit of kit lasting forever it seems!!



The CD player
is the least impressive of the 3 bits of kit but it was utterly
*indistinguishable* from a ********y Marantz 'KI Signature' ubertweaked
CDP
I already had, when the Marantz' internal attenuation was used to
level-match the output. Not one person (in about half a dozen that heard
them both here) could tell them apart and I was able to switch between
them
seamlessly, once I had 'time aligned' them. (Not hard to do...)

IIRC Marantz' internal attenuation is _not_ clean. The SQ certainly
seems to degrade on my Marantz CDP even knocking the internal level
down a couple of notches (compensating volume with the amp of course).


Whatever

The important thing to take into account is that I already *owned* both
pieces of kit - nothing in it for me if one was (or wasn't) worse than the
other. It's no hardship to get rid of spare kit these days - asitappens, I
flogged the Marantz and it virtually paid for the Argos stuff!! :-)

"Signal" wrote in message
...
"Keith G" wrote:



I think it's worth mentioning that the OP appeared to want a
smart/matching
stack (a lot of people do) - I merely pointed him to an impossibly cheap
stack of quite smart and really quite clever brand new kit for less than
secondhand prices

Sure, if the guy wants some plasticy boxes that you can put on top of
one another he should proceed immediately to Argos...


Hmm....

This is where people go wrong - they make sweeping statements about that
which they have not personally experienced. FYI, the Argos kit is not
'plasticky' it's actually got a tin front painted in a rather pleasant matt
'frosty silver-grey' and is surprisingly substantial. The Denon PMA-655R amp
I bought shortly after and the Marantz CDP both have/had plastic fronts. The
AS amp weighs 9 kg, the considerably more expensive Denon weighs 7 kg.....

I buy stuff to *find out* about it....

Full specs here, if you are interested:

http://www.acousticsolutions.net/cat...?Cat=Separates

Remember the amp/CDP/ and tuner were about 60, 70 and 80 (or 90?) quid
respectively and then note the functionality (digital everything on the
amp), inputs and outputs, headphone sockets with volume control &c....

Again, here is the stack:

http://www.apah69.dsl.pipex.com/show/stack.JPG




and dropped the hint he should spend the bulk of his
budget on a decent pair of speakers. Mid-fi electronic gadgets change year
on year (for some obscure reason), but a good pair of speakers is
*eternal*.....

I think you are exaggerating a tinsy winsy bit when you say eternal..
but I agree speakers is where the bulk of the money should go


Not eternal? Ask anybody with a pair (or even one) of the original Quad
panels. Ask anybody with original Tannoys...

But at least we agree on something - ****e speakers will knacker any setup,
no matter how much has been spent!




That one doesn't wash with me - there's hardly a 'name' now that don't get
its stuff built in China (where the purported 'sweatshops' are) and some
'respectable names' have been doing it for years.

My speakers were made in France, my amp in Sweden, everything else is
Japanese or British Bulldog. Oh.. the XBOX is Chinky.. ack...


I couldn't even begin to list the 'country of origin' of all the stuff I
have here, but take it there's summat from most countries that produce hifi
gear!!



I doubt any budget DVD player is sonically on a par with a decent
current mid range player. Trevor Wilson can probably give a technical
explanation for this.



Oh, I'm sure he could, but if I can't personally distinguish between two
pieces of kit then it's academic AFAIAC

Fine, but some hear differences and proffer advice accordingly..



Sure, but note I said about half a dozen people failed to split the players
when I had them matched up - it was a button press on the remote to switch
between them. (If it wuz only me that couldn't tell them apart it wouldn't
mean a thing - I ain't CD's biggest fan here...!! ;-)



and if a twenty quid player only
lasts so long, then that's OK too - the last thing you want these days is
a
bit of kit lasting forever it seems!!

May I offer a contrary viewpoint? I want my equipment to last as long
as possible!!!


Fine.


The important thing to take into account is that I already *owned* both
pieces of kit - nothing in it for me if one was (or wasn't) worse than the
other. It's no hardship to get rid of spare kit these days - asitappens, I
flogged the Marantz and it virtually paid for the Argos stuff!! :-)

I'm not surprised.. the Marantz is probably worth more! :-)


Only to someone who prized Audio BS over Harsh Reality....

Just for you, a pic of the stack with the Marantz on top:

http://www.apah69.dsl.pipex.com/show...ithmarantz.JPG

;-)

Nick Gorham wrote:

Go to a dealer, get a demo, ask to take the kit home on a trial.
Normally this will involve swiping a credit card before you get out of
the shop with this kit.

If you decide you don't like it, bring it back, and its cost you nothing
but time, and has saved you from spending money on something you don't like.

If you do like it. Go back and make the dealer an offer. If he doesn't
like your offer, give the kit back, and you are no worst off, but at
least you have some kit you know you like. Then you can try and get the
same kit elsewhere for a discount. But given the kit has already left
his shop, he may be more inclined to offer a discount on it.

Of course, this could all fall down if they send you home with demo kit,
and not the new stuff you wanted to get the discount on.

--
Nick

this attitude is exactly why HIFI and HIFI dealers are dying. Don't
blame me when there are no shops left to dem at.