Quote:
Originally Posted by carlseibert 
(Since it has come up in this thread)
I cruised the store on Federal Highway in Ft Lauderdale (Florida, for those elsewhere for whom this post has very little meaning). Virtually no electronics left, let alone high end electronics. Certainly no Cambridge CDPs at giveaway prices. There seemed to be fair numbers of Klipsch and Polk speakers and some flat-panel TVs that they haven't really discounted yet.
Tyrion - should we be stampeding to the store near your office?
-Carl
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Shame that they've gone under. I always liked their stores but felt that I wasn't in their target market in the sense that I'm too immersed in the high end audio thing and thus know where the deals are (or indeed, which of their lines were even worth bothering with).
I really don't mean this in any snobish way, but it seems that they catered to the types of people who would walk in off the street with a wad of cash and little, if any, product knowledge or understanding of audio in general terms. As a result, I was always careful not to waste too much of their time, or to lead them into thinking that I was going to buy something and then order it online instead. Free demos at their expense isn't my idea of being a good customer.
They did carry some good stuff though and some of the sales guys were quite good as well. I enjoyed wandering in once or twice per year to see where they were headed, but they always seemed short on customers. I did buy my Tivoli Model 3 clock radio with a matching second speaker from them.
I also considered getting a couple of the awesome D-Box Quest chairs that they had in their demo room in the Federal Highway store. See the funky chick's review here:
http://www.gadgetgossip.net/episodes/12.html Website here:
http://www.d-box.com/2008/product_movies_SRI.html D-Box also sells purpose built flight simulators and race car driving simulators to bring the visceral experience home in a very real way. This is really cool stuff. Right up there with the Smyth Research demo that I did at CanJam. Home theater has just never been a big priority, however.
Such a shame... Sound Advice was really about the only game in town for mid to upper end gear, other than individual stores like's Oz's "Let There Be Sound."