Schooled at Circuit City (1 Viewer)

[ScottCarr]

Went to circuit city while the Mrs was shopping at another store. While I was standing there I over heard a sales person recommend a $7000 Sony LCD projection over the Panasonic 50LC running $3000.

After he tried to justify the $4000 difference he blurted out it has HDMI. I asked him to show me the HDMI players that I can buy. NONE in the store. He told me all about the great resolution differences and asked what media is delivered in that resolution. NONE.

I then asked why I would by something so new and pay the inflated price of near useless technology when in 3 years I can probably by the same TV with supporting equipment for half the price. Answer NONE

Then I was once agained schooled in DVD formats. There is not 1 DVD movie with 6.1 capabilities anywhere unless you special order it from the studios. Studios are skipping 6.1 and 7.1 and move right into 9.1. My next question If I was to consider the $7000 Sony can I buy a 9.1 receiver today?

I need to stop hanging out in these forums and go to circuit city for the real information.

 

[Keiwana]

correct-a-mundo cc rocks!!!!!!!!!!!

yeah right:b

 

[Brent_j]

Yea, I just about cold cocked the CC "salesperson" that was trying to sell me a new system, unfortunately I had to purchase my new Polks there because they are they only Polk dealer in my area. Oh the guy was just an ass, so I went to another CC 20 miles away... anything to get as far away from that guy.




Wow, that guy is just chalk full of good information, maybe CC has some kind of training we could all attend to better educate ourselves.

 

[DanaA]

Yep, always go to Circuit City for the most knowledgable sales staff around. Luckily, the sales staff has usually been at least polite to me while I visited. I actually get more bothered when I go into a fairly high end establishment and find they demonstrate the same lack of care and are equally uninformed on certain matters. I expect more of them.

Brent, glad you didn't punch out the guy. You would have then been the topic of a thread in the After Hours forum.

 

[Robert Cowan]

higher end stores get a bad rap sometimes. the one i work at has a reputation of being stuck up. but, all the guys i work with are super nice and really fun. but, we are laid back, so people ASSUME that we arent helping them because we think they cant afford anything. truth is, we just arent stalking them. we let them look.

circuit city has always been good to me. i never bought anything there, but i have shopped them numerous times. i worked in an AV store that shared a wall with a circuit city. we would always go next door and test them out. while they werent the most knowledgable ppl around, they would rarely give bad information. but, that was just my experience.

 

[Jon_Welker]

I've had some similar experiences with Ultimate Electronics here in the Midwest. I'm sure there are some people on here thay may work for Ultimate and may know what they are talking about, but the guys that I've dealt with so far have had their heads firmly planted up their asses. And, I'm not really sure why someone whould shop at an Ultimate instead of your local dealers. They really don't offer any prices. Just because they send out a flyer ever week witht the paper doesn't mean it's actually on sale. Sometimes I go up to my the local Ultimate if I want a couple of good laughs as I overhear their salespople talking with customers.

 

[gene c]

If you guy's (and gal's) haven't seen it yet, there is a nice little article in the April issue of Home Theater Mag about BB, CC and UE. They all were rated pretty well with CC a little behind the rest. What I like to do when I go asking about electronics, computers, auto parts or what-ever is ask a couple questions I know the answers to and see what they say. That lets me know if I found a good sales person or if I need to move on. This works best with auto parts. Especially import auto parts. Italian imported auto parts. Fiat Italian imported auto parts. Fiat 124 Italian impor... well, you get the idea! Gene

 

[Adil M]

Scott,
The 50" LCD Panasonic as far as I know is a great unit for PC's b/c of the dual vga inputs in addition to the component and dvi inputs. There's a new model due.
The XBR 70" (discontinued) is
A 20" larger
B I don't think it has hdmi, but it has a similar connection in DVI and it has IEEE1394 (many dvd players this year coming out w/ them)
C The res'n is higher on the Sony, but not significantly
D Also, I heard the Panny downscales everything to 480P unless fed a 720P signal (interesting)

The point is the right ? would be what is your viewing distance.

"I then asked why I would by something so new and pay the inflated price of near useless technology when in 3 years I can probably by the same TV with supporting equipment for half the price. Answer NONE"

Seemed like a good answer. Your PC use must be at public work stations or PC clusters.

I personally think that if I were to make a stereotype, it would be that people at these types of forums are a bit arrogant in their presumption of having found the holy grail of HT knowledge which they add to their base of no HT experience.

BTW, if going to mass chains irritates you so, just stop.

 

[ScottCarr]

Adil,

As I was looking at the $3000 TV the salesman told me that the Sony at $7000 was the TV to buy. The whole premise was that a $7000 TV better look better than the $3000 TV.

PC use is quite extensive. The one dell XPS was the most expensive but the two domain set up with a total of 7 computer still cost under $5k. How? Because each computer has been purchased with the purpose in mind. each montior was purchase with its use in mind.Is the XPS any better than the next 2.8gig dell, nope. The point of return is significantly diminished at a certain level. Same as tv's and other electronics. whenever I read venchmark results btw Intel and amd I laugh. They are not talking minutes they are usually talking less than 5 to 10 seconds, a sip of coffee of other beverage.

The arrogance comes from the BS these places try to feed innocent, unknowing consumers. This salesman could have had two sales of the panny while I was watching a movie. But each time he tried to convince the customers to buy a higher priced tv, leaving the two couple with we will have to think about it.

CC wonders why they have to close a niumber of stores. well, if you can move the product it is tough to stay in business.

the question still at hand would these people have been able to take advantage of the "new" feature and truly appreciated the $4000 higher priced picture?

 

[Wayne Ernst]

Scot,

The part I don't understand is that Circuit City employees are no longer on commission. With that being the case, there would be no reason to steer a customer towards a higher-priced screen. Unless, they get a percentage of the extended warranty - which would cost more on the $7,000 item.

Finally, I really think it would have been better to work on the $3,000 screen. For most customers, they might take some of their extra money and put it towards some other gear in the store. However, if one has purchased a $7K screen, they probably don't feel like buying anything additional at that moment.

Clearly, the research that a consumer can do prior to walking in such a store will pay them back dearly. Salespeople are good for getting items down off the top shelf or pulling it from the warehouse - not trying to push us towards crappy equipment that costs $4K more. :roll;

 

[Jon_Welker]

Don't worry, chief, I have plenty of experience with HT. Do you call asking a salesperson for a demo of speaker system A, but he demos speaker system B, and, me the customer, has to point this out to him after 5 min. of him not realizing it is being being arrogant? That's like walking into a Chevy dealer and saying you want to test drive a Vette, and they roll a Cavalier upfront for you to get in.

 

[Jesse Sharrow]

Robert: I think I know wich store you are talking about. Boulder right?

Jon: I work for an Ultimate. Soundtrack specifically. I know how we can be. I have learned more from this forum than most of my salesmen know. We have alot of guys that like the stuff but dont know the stuff. Now there are a few that have nice systems at home and really know there stuff. Those are the guys I like. But alot of them are no better than BB or CC employees. One guy that has worked there for 20+ years though is a true audiophile. He has a $12,000 pair of Logans and hes about to buy an $8000 2 Channel Krell amp. Another guy has invested about $5000 retail into cables alone!

Oh yeah then theres me. The 2 last guys I mentioned I am acctually going to try and have come with me to listen to the PC-Ultra and a couple SVS subs when ron gets it.

 

[Jesse Sharrow]

I have had customers come in doing basically that same thing and end up paying $7000 in the end anyways, but they get more stuff out of it. Dvd player, cables, surround system, etc. I work in car but basically the same idea. I have a customer coming in looking to buy some new rear speakers for a suburban($120) and he walked out with a $4000 system and is coming back to buy a DLP from me. Do I think I ripped him off or sold him something he didnt need? NO! This truck is going to sound awsome!

 

[Jesse Sharrow]

Acctually its more the other way around... they want you to buy the Vette.

 

[Todd^B]

They should be listening to the B4 plus, If they can afford that much. It is $2499 by itself.

 

[ScottCarr]

SVS is a great example of good salesmanship. As tom, ron or erik what sub is right for a particular room. they are sure as the sun rises in the east not going to steer that person to the PB2Ultra or the SS model.

The panny display is very nice, and perhaps somewhat overkill for the $150 dvd player and cable TV. Now would you sell a customer a $7000 tv so they can watch cable tv or a $150 dvd player?

Perhaps the problem with the mass chain stores is they fill their people full of information but never coach them how to match the customer with the right product.

 

[Drew_W]

I was at a local Best Buy last Wednesday night. I heard some guy saying the picture on the Samsung DLP was superior to any plasma. He then turned to his salesperson buddy and asked him what he thought. His reply? "The only thing a plasma has going for it is that it can be hung on a wall."

I'm glad I had somewhere to be, I don't know where I would have started.

The new (4th generation I think) Pioneer Elite plasmas. Yummy. And they have HDMI. And Pioneer makes a DVD player with HDMI. Now, I wasn't able to compare to progressive scan performance, but I will say that over HDMI the picture was absolutely beautiful. This was at a Pioneer Elite demonstration. I had to feed my curiousity, so I asked what chip they were using in the new 59AVi. The reply I got? "The chroma bug does not exist."

But we'll leave that for another time.

 

[Brett DiMichele]

Actually Jesse they don't have any problems selling the
Vette's and they tend to be dicks about letting anyone
drive them

 

[Jesse Sharrow]

LOL. Brett.

Todd: I am glad you had a good "experience". You just liked it cuz I hooked you up on a sub cable.

 

[eryn shannon]

A sales person at Best Buy trying to convince me to buy a Samsung DLP told me the bulb lasts 400,000 hours. Hmmmm at 10 hours of tv watching a day the bulb will last over 100 years.