Best Buy BS and SACD (1 Viewer)

[Steven Hen]

I was at my local BB looking through the sacd collection. Some other people were looking at the sacd players and wondering what sacd is. A BB associate asks them if they need help. They ask "what is sacd" and the bb guy says "oh that is for the 5.1 surround sound music. The potential customer asks.."so if I don't have all those speakers then sacd won't do anything for me?"

bb guy: thats correct. He then continues to say that if you want to hear good music you should check out dvd-a, it is much better than sacd. I guess you don't need "all those speakers" for dvd-a?

All the while, I'm looking through the bb sacd stock which is 99% 2 channel sacd!

If you like to shop at the BB, just remember not to ask for any help.

 

[Jason Wilcox]

i work at BB and yeah...most employees don't know all that much. however, it would really help if you corrected them.

 

[Jim_C]

Best Buy is a place where you go after you've done your research and you're looking for a good price.

It's amazing to me when people go in to Best Buy to spend $3000 on TV and they do it using the advice of a teenager that doesn't really know or care about what they're doing. You'd think that they'd get online and read a little, even if they're not HT enthusiasts like us.

BTW, I'm not intending to pick on teenagers in general, just the BB ones that misinform people because they could care less.

 

[Steven Hen]

I was tempted to jump in and correct him, but it wasn't really my place to do so. I didn't feel that I could have a positive impact by telling a company representitive that they had no clue. So I just minded my own business and left with a new sacd (SRV Couldn't Stand The Weather) and a chuckle on my face!

 

[Jim_C]

The closest I've come to correcting a BB employee is when a Blue Shirt was talking up a TV to a couple but not really giving them any information. He left to help someone else and I offered some advice about what spec's to look for, calibration of TV's in BB vs actual calibration, etc.
They bought the TV that I suggested to them

 

[Steven Hen]

I guess my main point is how interesting it is that a bb associate who obviously knows very little about the hi rez formats, is so quick to recommend dvd-a. Must be why bb hides sacd in the back corner of the store.

 

[Phil A]

I was in Best Buy earlier and just wanted to see their SACD selection and see if they marked down the prices on the WB DVD-As (with the new lower list price). They moved some stuff around and they had a person pushing the DVD rental stuff and I asked him. He did not know what a DVD-A was or where they kept them. I asked someone who works in the dept. and he did not know what they were either. I walked around and found the small row they had of them maybe 20 ft. from each of them. They have not brought the prices in line on the DVD-As with the new lower list prices. I always get a kick out of both Circuit City and Best Buy when one of the sales people asks you if you need help. I want to ask a really technical question just to see what they would say, I did do it once in Circuit City and managed to keep a straight face and no one knew what I was talking about of course. I usually barely manage not to laugh when I hear them talking to customers. It really is a shame that they don't give their employees some basic training who work in the depts. How difficult is it to define a few formats and how much time would it take?

 

[Greg Br]

This is what happens when you go to a mass market appliance store looking for anything to do with hardware. The days of the local salesman being an expert are long gone. I would go to a audio specialty store for advice, but prepare for higher prices.

 

[David Judah]

I wouldn't have corrected him in front of the customer, but I would have taken him aside and presented it to him in a friendly, FYI kind of way.

BB really should train their people better. I blame the company, not the clerk. There are other chains that do a much better job in that regard and maintain similiar prices, so I don't think it is a cost of training issue.

DJ

 

[KeithH]

Definitely do your own research before going to Best Buy. Nothing is absolute, but the vast majority of people I have come across at Best Buy are clueless. Of course, this discussion is kind of like that one we all sat through in school. You know, the one where the teacher expressed frustration with people ditching class to the people who actually attended. The people who frequent Home Theater Forum don't need to be told to research an item on their own before going to Best Buy. We frequent one of the greatest audio and home theater resources there is!
I still remember the time about two years ago when I overheard a loud-mouth employee at Circuit City tell a customer, "If you want good speakers, you have to buy Bose!". :rolleyes
Finally, one of my local Best Buy stores for the longest time had the Billy Joel An Innocent Man stereo SACD as the only disc loaded for demo in the 'CE775. Of course, the large banner above the set-up says "Multi-Channel Audio", which implies surround sound. :rolleyes

 

[Ron Etaylor]

Anybody else find that BB and CC have half-assed displays for the sacds and DVD-As? They've got the DVD-As at BB with the music dvds and the sacds are with the machines(and it doesn't look like they've added any new inventory in six months).

 

[Frank Zimkas]

I went into CC yesterday and was very disappointed with the SACD selections that they had. The guy in the audio looked completly baffeled when I asked where they kept the DVD-A's. I got fed up and walked out with out buying anything.

Tried MediaPlay before but they don't have any SACD'S, and the DVD-A's were few and far between.

BB ain't much better.

Do you think that we'll ever see a better selection than whats available right now? Don't get me wrong, I like Jazz, Blues, and Classical too. But I would really get fired up if I could find a few Pink Floyd SACD's or "The Wall" on a DVD-A or DTS disk.

 

[KeithH]

Best Buy has done a lousy job handling its inventory of SACDs. They almost never get new titles in.

 

[Paul D Young]

When I was shopping for an SACD player I checked out Best Buy's display. They had a five speaker surround sound set up with a subwoofer to demonstrate it. When I tried it out I found out that they only had two speakers hooked up to it and I don't even think it was the right and left outputs! In surround sound, some of the music came out of the right front speaker, all the vocals came out of the left front speaker and the rest of the speakers produced no sound at all. What a demonstration!:rolleyes
Well anyway, I ordered my SACD player from Crutchfield on the advice of some members here at the HTF. Thanks guys.

 

[Mike Broadman]

I go to Best Buy every week if I can, but of course for the prices only.

My roommate was looking to buy a TV and DVD player and one of the employees gave him some jive about how widescreen DVDs are better for bigger TVs and fullscreen are "better" for smaller TVs. He ran that by me, fortunately, and I corrected that. Even his girlfriend was like, "But don't they cut off some of the picture that way?" In the end, he ended up using the web and myself as resources and bought the stuff at BB.

I've had to return a couple of SACDs because of Sony's awful packaging, and everytime they look at it like it's an alien object.

I don't really mind any of this because I know my stuff. But many people don't. I don't even want to think about how many of them get misinformed.

NP: McCoy Tyner, New York Reunion, SACD

 

[KeithH]

Mike said:

I've had to return a couple of SACDs because of Sony's awful packaging, and everytime they look at it like it's an alien object.

What do you mean by this? Just curious. I haven't had a problem with Sony's packaging. Is there something I should be on the lookout for?

 

[Mike Broadman]

Keith, I've ranted about this before. Sony puts their (non-hybrid ) discs in a jewel case with the security stick on the jewel case and then put a slipcase around it, making it difficult to take the slipcase off without damaging it. Some people seem to just rip off the slipcase and throw it out, but I like keeping all the packaging. Sometimes, maybe because of heat, the slipcase gets stuck around the jewel case, and that's when I return it.

 

[KeithH]

Mike, ah, I do remember your commenting about this before. I save the slipcases too. A couple of times, I had difficulty removing the jewel cases from the slipcases, but nothing as bad as you have described. I don't store the jewel cases in the slipcases, so I only have to deal with this the first time.