The Lost Art of The High End Audio Video Demo

[chrisy]

Do you agree that the (lost) art of the demo doesn't have to die because of the rise of the warehouse store?

Read the whole story by Jerry Del Colliano on this subject at www.HomeTheaterReview.com

The Lost Art of The High End Audio Video Demo

In my career in ultra-high-end audiophile retail at Christopher Hansen Ltd. in Beverly Hills and Mark Levinson's Cello Music and Film Los Angeles I was blessed to work with some of the best audio-video demo artists of all time. Anybody who things a client can just plunk The Who "Live at Leeds" in the CD player on your Levinson/Transparent/Wilson audiophile system and thinks that he or she is getting the order has another think coming. Without question, there is a time and a place for the consumer to listen to his or her favorite music on a top-performing system. However when you go out for a test drive in, say a brand new Ferrari in California, the salesman always gives it a few runs through the gear box to give you an idea of what you are getting into on the test drive. Then the salesman turns over the wheel to you when you are all excited and at the perfect place on the road for you to get the most out of the car, leaving you a giddy mess and ready to do something downright silly with your money. And yes, I just drove one and it was amazing and no, I didn't buy the car but my very dear friend and former Christopher Hansen Ltd. client did, thus proving that the demo truly matters.

At Cello Los Angeles in the mid-1990s, Mark Levinson was normally in New York selling tons of high end gear to some of the most powerful and interesting people on the Upper East Side and beyond. When I got to work with him in person in both New York and L.A., I learned so much about the way he engages people into acoustical music. The Cello system at the time was the most expensive and exotic system in the audiophile world. It had powerful class-A operational amps, ultra-high-efficacy speakers (97 dB) and could really rock. Mark always had master recordings of music that were recorded using special mics and high end electronics. In Mark's arsenal, he had on DAT tape Indian tabla drums would snap and pop with live acoustical energy in ways that nothing on CD or anything you would hear at an audiophile shop would do. Forget vinyl - these dynamics don't come from LPs and they never did. Mark would play recordings of exotic and beautiful instruments that you likely have never heard in your life. They would shine musically with a three dimensionality that allowed me as a salesman to know that even if the client went to, say Ambrosia or LA Audio Video to hear other very high quality audiophile gear - that they wouldn't get that religious experience. We were selling audio religion as much as audio gear back in the day. We actually got our clients going out at night to hear more live music. We got them buying August Forster pianos and Martin guitars. We inspired them to play and record music with their kids. We were doing things that went beyond audiophila, that were both fun and profitable.

Roll the tape forward to today and the art of audio sales is gone for the most part. In fact, thanks to the likes of Circuit City and Best Buy, commissioned salespeople who make their living being excellent and expert at selling audio and video are now unemployed. The idea that top selling commissioned salespeople "made too much money" is the single best reason for Circuit City's Chapter 7 failure. Now the pressure is on the manufacturer to pre-sell the product so that a big box clerk or warehouse checkout girl can simply take an order, which to be clear is very different than actually making or earning a sale. This is one of the most important reasons to support independent AV stores that spend the money and effort to showcase high end audio-video gear. While it's possible to save money buying some products (used on Audiogon.com or at Costco), you lose the magic of learning and experiencing high end and high performing equipment which is as much of the part of the process as building a top performing AV system.

My direct boss at Cello in Los Angeles back in the 1990's is an actor named Joe Cali. He is best known for his work in Saturday Night Fever as one of Travolta's New York buddies in the movie. But Joe Cali's true calling is as a pure salesman. As the late Don Bouchard once said "Take all of you hot salesmen like Levinson, Del Colliano, Chris Hansen, Andy Singer, Mark Goldman, Frank Betz or any of you where the deal was you got a bullet in the head if you didn't close the deal - each and every one of them would pick Joe Cali to close the deal." In many ways Don was right as Cali's pitch was different than Mark Levinson's in that he could - like an actor - adapt like chameleon to the musical and theatrical tastes of a client and find what make them tick. He got them emotional. He taught the listener what to listen for like the slight hum of Stevie Ray Vaughn's Fender Twin Amp in the intro of his version of the Hendrix classic "Little Wing" or to look for the ants crawling on the edge of a basket of berries on Fried Green Tomatoes. He taught customers to be enthusiasts and in the process - he made himself a millionaire. What I struggle to forgive him for is making me as the college kid and music student at The University of Southern California is making me run down the street to the famous Tower Records on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood and buy every Kenny G record before Mr. G came into the showroom for a celebrity demo. This was a damaging experience for my young ego but you know what - Joe closed him. You could bet on that as he expected an above fifty percent close ratio for anyone selling in the store which meant Joe or myself.

Today's HDMI-based systems make doing a slick demo in a store or even for your friends at home much more difficult than in the past. HDMI is slow and glitchy to be polite and younger audiences are so used to the immediate action of a Blackberry or their laptop that they rarely have the patience to sit-down for an artful demo. My good friend at Paradigm was telling me that they actually bring four or five Blu-ray players to each tradeshow to do their active demos which are among the best in the AV business. They set the disc to play on a perfect loop for each track they want to play and simply switch from input to input to keep the cadence of the demo moving along. I think this is something that all "showing" retailers should consider with at least two players per system. For consumers, permanently recording some key shows on say a DVR or toggling from Apple TV to Xbox 360 to Blu-ray keeps the show moving when you are showing your neighbor the latest improvements in your home theater rig.

Another key detail of doing an excellent music or movie demo is to keep it short. For music, there is a rule - never go past 1:30 and roll down the volume smoothly at the first chorus. Much like Thomas Keller at The French Laundry says - you want to leave the patron (or your buddy from college who likes movies) wanting just one bite more of each dish. Movies demos can go a little longer but be wary of losing the point of why you are showing the movie. Be sure to pre-sell the scene by alerting people to the shotgun blast in the bank robbery opening scene of The Dark Knight. People need something to focus on unless your goal is to let them fly blind into a scene or musical track.

The art of the demo doesn't have to die because of the rise of the warehouse store. The fact that flat HDTVs are something that nearly everybody can afford today only means that there are more people to teach about the high art of audio and video. Most have never heard what a really good surround sound system can do. Most have no idea what video calibration does. Perhaps you will show them and earn a new client for the specialty AV business?


Source: HomeTheaterReview.com

[mjb1023]

Great article. The reference demo is a lost art. I worked in the industry for years and there was nothing as enjoyable as watching a customer's jaw drop after a well-executed home theater or 2 channel demo. It is tough watching the business fade away.

[Kal Rubinson]

mjb1023 wrote:

Great article. The reference demo is a lost art. I worked in the industry for years and there was nothing as enjoyable as watching a customer's jaw drop after a well-executed home theater or 2 channel demo. It is tough watching the business fade away.

For many reasons, some of the guys who do this best are now working for, or are, manufacturers and doing impressive demos at CES/CEDIA and other trade events.

[mjb1023]

Dennis Chern from Martin Logan is a master at giving a memorable 2 channel demo. I learned a bunch from him.

[conchyjoe7]

I too am one of the "old timers" that worked the industry 2 decades ago. It has been tough to watch some excellent people go, even The Good Guys in California had excellent demos and the guys knew their product. Everything has become about price in the industry, but to all that support buying on price alone...do you work for free? What happens when the only thing that matters in all purchases and services is price? America's not going to be a very nice place to live then huh?! Don't forget, they can probably do whatever you're doing in Mumbai India, or China for far less, or do you want to compete with them on price? I thought not: Methinks we are all just getting a small taste of the future in the destitution that has jumped us in this once (and hopefully again) great country in the last 2 years.

[tonyvdb]

conchyjoe7 wrote:

Everything has become about price in the industry

But what about those people who buy into scams like Bose? HUGE price and in the end not worth the box they come in. If people never hear what a real good system should sound like all they can go by is the Marketing.

[conchyjoe7]

Tony:
You obviously misread/understood what I wrote and meant. I am FULLY behind and support the high end everything! My criticism was with the folks that begrudge folks trying to make a profit so they can live a decent life. When price alone becomes the value status of those folks livelihoods, I feel certain they will change their opinions very very quickly.
Cheers.

[RRAZ]

We are indeed in a race to the bottom. So many people are quite happy to have "more stuff" instead of "better stuff".

To be fair, people also have a lot more options today and even the stuff IS a lot better than much of the good stuff used to be (see" Televisions). On the other hand, those raised on MP3s may never hear a high-end CD or vinyl system in order to be able to make a value judgment. And its not just the loss of musicality, but the loss of ceremony.

Jiggling the wheel on a iPod while you perform some mundane activity evokes none of the zen of loading an album and settling down at center audio to pay attention to the orchestra.

[Jarrod]

What a fabulous, but sad story. A few years ago the last good high-end shop where I live shut its doors. It had been in business for over 50 years. The day I drove in the lot to find the farewell sign on the door was a sad day for me.

As a customer, I really miss having a spectacular demo. The memories of some of the best will stay with me forever - like the time my local shop had quad B&W Matrix 801s being driven by a pair of McIntosh MC 500s, banging out some incredible bass lines from Deep Forest. I couldn't afford them, but the shop did earn my money that day on a good pair of B&W speakers - which I went on to enjoy for 10 years.

I miss those experiences.

[lcaillo]

Having started in the business in the late 1970s in an audio shop, which later moved into the home theater business, and experienced some of the best salemanship and demonstrations over the years, I have a little different take on the matter. I see the art of the demo and the art of selling as two distinct, yet often overlapping aspects of the business. The skilled salesman taps into the emotional triggers of the client and uses those to manipulate him into a transaction. The methods will often include skilled demonstration. The nature of that demonstration tells you a great deal about the salesman. Some are willing to "sell the religion" and will not hesitate to use every technique possible to convince the client that he/she is hearing or seeing what the salesman is selling. The age old "prediction-proof" demo technique is one of the staples. Whether or not a particular characteristic is present, once the expectation is set in the listener, and something is experienced, it is almost always accepted if the salesman has established any credibility and if it is something that the client is inclined to find desirable. Those salesmen have often bought the "religion" completely themselves, and thus, are very convincing.

The art of the demo is not necessarily the same. This involves understanding what the system can do, selecting the proper material to show it, controlling the presentation and the environment, and putting the client in the right place at the right time to show the best that the system can perform. It involves careful product selection, as well as application. It may or may not involve the skill of the sale. It often does result in loyal clients who develop trust and respect for the dealer. The fact is, however, that trust and respect don't pay the bills, and inability to generate sales and profits in relation to overhead are what kill most retailers.

The extreme high end is a special case, and will likely always be present to some degree. There will always be people for whom money is not a serious matter when it comes to such equipment, and the experience of owning something perceived to be state of the art, or the "right equipment" for their status is most important. Of course, at this level, one has to be skilled in both the sale and the demo in order to maintain the status of "guru" or "prophet" or whatever the Mark Levinsons of the business might be thought of by these clients. Levinson obviously was one of the best at these skills, as well as building the products. I recall some of his recordings on tape as being some of the best material I have heard. The products were quite good, but there were many others that could have been argued to be as good or better in most cases, but that is really irrelevant to the sale or the demo as long as they did the job.