They will be sporting such gear as Vienna Acoustics, Primare, Audioquest, and other well known "high-performance" brands.

What are your thoughts? I will tell mine later as I have a somewhat different perspective having worked in a big box consumer electronics retailer in the past. Is this the "magic bullet" the high performance audio industry needs? Or, will it fail?

Discuss...this is coffee talk.

Regards,

Lee

The Magnolia's are apparently only being put in BB stores with certain demographics conducive to selling the higher priced gear. I've also heard that they are going to put a few freestanding stores here and there.

I'm sure there will be warranty service, I don't know what the warranty policy will be.

Regards,

Lee

I wonder what brought this move. Is there a consumer trend towards higher-end (i.e., better sound) or are they simply riding the way of up-scale home furnishings? I strongly suspect the later.

No, this is not the "magic bullet" that hi-fi needs. It might, however, be one more nail in the coffin.....Colin

All big box retailers are run with the concept of a "fast floor", how this environment translates into selling of high performance audio is yet to be seen.

Bose prefers to service their own gear if it's under warranty. I would imagine that Primare, Vienna, and Martin Logan would be the same...

The consumer trend towards purchasing so called "luxury items" is still going strong, so I would bet that played strongly into the decision. Also, Wal Mart is now the second largest retailer of CE goods (in very short time), so BB is wise to position themselves as a higher price/better performance alternative as Wal Mart will surely soon be number one.

My question really is, does BB carrying higher performance goods help the high performance audio industry by exposing it to more people, or hurt it by not allowing these goods to be displayed in the best manner?

BTW--All of this is not new, Ultimate Electronics, Tweeter, Sound Advice, and many other smaller chains have for years carried some well recognized and respected high performance brands. Some manufacturers worked well, some did not.

I just found all of this interesting, is all. I knew once BB purchased Magnolia a few yers back, they had something up their sleeves.

Regards,

Lee

I also think that big volume low margin types probably make more cash. If that's the goal, that's the place to go. But the coolest stuff is always more rare than that. An example is the one-off race car. It's not going to make much in the way of profits, in fact, it will probably lose money. Twenty or thirty economy cars may have the same value, but will probably generate much more profit through direct sales.

It's just cooler to say you have a race car than a bunch of Yugos I guess. Cooler to drive too.

My belief is that the needs of high performance audio can never be satisfied by the big box retailer, but, the added exposure of certain products in an environment such as this can only help the industry in general. S'phile and others are always be-moaning the fact that the word never gets out about all of our cool toys and the industry has been stagnant for some time. I read an article the other day asking where all of the yhoung audiophiles are. Well...they are buying computers and car audio at BB, perhaps, with the sun and moon in alignment, these future audiophiles will make their way back to the Magnolia room!

There will be a certain number of people that will buy there and never look for alternatives that perhaps BB doesn't carry. But...there will also be a certain group, once they are exposed to high performance audio will have a paradigm shift (and their interest piqued) and actively seek out the smaller comapnies who really produce the innovative, great sounding products. I, for one, am hoping that this is the case with this situation.

Only time will tell. It will be interesting to watch.

Regards,

Lee

In the speaker market, the middle is disappearing. You can by $100 speakers, you can buy $10,000 speakers. What is in the middle is going away. I can't see Best Buy making a go of the middle ground. At best, it will be a loss-leader, and the share holders won't stand for that.

I think that this bodes well for guys like me. I can produce a few items of good quality at a good price because I don't need a large mark-up or large cash flow to keep going. Just because the market niche is too small for billion-dollar corporations to justify servicing does not mean that the niche does not exist. Small entrepreneurs will fill the gap. And, brick and mortar retailers in the middle are history. It's all going to be done on-line. If you want to hear my speakers, you are going to have to locate someone who owns a pair or go to a one of the very few shows I participate in. It is going to be a very different worked for the serious HiFi hobbyist.

Bob