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So it’s time.  You’ve gotten that last little chunk of change you needed to enter the market for some new speakers.  Time to turn your living room into the city’s newest, most intimate music venue.  You’ve read the reviews, scoped the newest products, and you’re ready to hit the streets in search of some big boxes that will blow you away.  But where do you turn?  Who has the products and info to bring your music to life?

In many ways, finding the right dealer is as important as finding the right speaker.  You’d like to speak to someone with extensive audio knowledge, someone who can optimize your speaker choice to fit the needs of your equipment and room.  You’d also like a dealer who has a variety of products, in different sizes, price ranges, etc. so you can thoroughly compare your options and find the perfect product to meet your demands and budget.

First off, I’d like to eliminate discount retailers on the web, or non-established mail order businesses with no store front.  A lot of these operations can be fly-by-night, unauthorized dealers, which create serious problems with returns/exchanges and warranty issues.  In general, manufacturer warranties are valid only if purchased by an authorized dealer.  So unless you are confident that the site that you are dealing with is legit (i.e. Crutchfield)—stay away from it, no matter what green they promise to save you. Besides, these are speakers we’re talking about; you want to audition these babies thoroughly before taking them home.

With the vast marketplace of the web largely eliminated, let’s take a look at some other common retailers: the big box style electronic store (i.e. Best Buy or Circuit City) and the smaller, more specialized stereo shop.  Each has its pluses and minuses, offering its customers different product ranges and levels of advice.

Let’s start with the more commonplace of the two—the electronics giants.  As our economy becomes more globalized and corporate, big huge chain stores are becoming the norm in every corner of the atlas.  It’s likely you have several within a 10 mile radius.  When it comes to speakers, stores such as Circuit City and Best Buy offer a broad range of models, from the super cheap to higher quality.  If you are on a super strict budget, you might want to start and end your shopping in such a superstore, as you will find a solid variety of lower priced speakers.

Larger electronics stores offer a number of advantages to the consumer.  They generally have a nice variety of speakers set up side by side, making comparisons easy.  The speakers also tend to be powered by pretty standard receivers (like the kind you might actually own), and in some cases you can even select the receiver.  This way, you can go ahead and use a receiver that is most like the one that you own, if not the same exact one. You will also find equipment that is geared more toward the average consumer, as opposed to the multi-millionaire.  There will likely be plenty of speakers to choose from that fit neatly into your financial plan.

Big box stores, however, lose some points in other areas.  The listening area tends to be a showroom floor with none of the characteristics of your living room where you’ll be putting your speakers to use.  Since the characteristics of a room play a huge part in how effectively speakers belt out your favorite tunes, a non-representative room can really hinder your ability to effectively gage.  Big box stores tend to have a healthy selection of lower to middle end speakers, but don’t always have much to offer in terms of more high end audio.  Obviously, this is a disadvantage if you’re determined to bring home a top of the line set of speakers, but it is also a disadvantage in terms of comparison.  It is always nice to see what a few hundred extra bucks could buy, even if you have no chance of affording it.  Hell—it might even validate the more affordable speakers, if the sound goes toe to toe.

In my experience, the big box salesman is not the most knowledgeable audio expert out there.  Of course, this is a broad statement. I am sure there are Best Buy employees with tip-of-their-tongue info that could make the devout audiophile scratch his head.  However, big box stores undoubtedly have a higher turn over and more youthful staff than smaller shops.  The more knowledge you have the better choice you can make.  Personally, I want the tech geek standing next to me, who could go off on a 45 minute rant about crossover frequency.  It might be unnecessarily and painfully boring, but at least you know that he knows his shit inside and out.

Bottom line, big box electronics stores offer the consumer a chance to compare a variety of brands and models and find something right in his/her price range.  Unfortunately, there is a ceiling to the quality that you can expect to find.

How do you solve the problem of lesser expertise and quality?  Specialization.  It’s time to head out to the audio specialty shop.  These shops generally have a much narrower focus, specializing in areas such as home theater or home/car audio.  They have staff that specialize in their field and know audio from every angle.  Often you will find yourself talking to an owner, who has been in the business for decades.

Such shops also carry some of the top brand names on the market and have much higher end speakers than the electronics super store.  If you want to head straight for the best quality on the market, you can be sure to find it here.  They tend to have an intimate setting, mimicking a living room environment, providing a more realistic test drive.  Get ready to listen to some dream equipment and talk with someone who knows exactly how to get the most out of it.  Some shops will even come out to your home and set your speakers up for you to ensure they are positioned properly.

Specialty shops make their money off of larger sales, as opposed to bulk.  This means that they will be able to work with you more closely, and be around to help you out.  Often I have found myself a lone customer when shopping in these shops.  I’ve certainly never had a problem getting quick answers and help right when I needed it.

Just like anything, audio shops have their down side too.  Price is the first one that comes to mind.  Quality and price go hand in hand, and depending on what you’re looking to spend, you might find yourself priced clean out of luck.  I remember my first trip, when even after every discount they could muster, the lowest end speakers were still out of my price range.  Prepare to spend more than you planned, or go home empty handed.  Another, slightly, less obvious side effect of high quality equipment: the type of receiver/amp set up that the shop is using is likely to be better than your own.  I know when I auditioned my speakers, the store set up was easily worth thousands of dollars.  Therefore, it was hardly an indication of what these speakers would sound like with my $500 receiver at the helm.  This is something to keep in mind.

The advent of home theater has changed the focus of the high end audio industry.  When shopping for speakers this can be a set back.  From my experience, a lot of shops were focused more on the full home theater set up, and less on individual components.  For instance, one of the shops I hit was a recommendation from my father, who had bought speakers there back in the 2 channel days.  He raved about the selection and how he’d spent hours listening to all kinds of speakers.  When I got into the showroom, I found a much more limited selection.  In fact, they specialized in only 1 brand and had only 1 or 2 set ups to try out.  Shops seem to do more business in designing full home theaters as opposed to retailing components.  Long story short, the selection in some smaller specialty shops can leave a void of desire.

A final drawback that I came across was that some guys in the business are, how to say this nicely, jerks. Anytime that a shop specializes in something expensive, there is the chance that they might not be interested in you unless your name rolls off of the tongue like Rockefeller.  Many such store owners have that particular customer in mind, and they know how to pick him out.  If you’re not him, good luck in getting any help.  I rolled up to one shop, and the owner’s Porsche sitting in front was a good indication of what I could expect.  The guy was not helpful and rude.  Clearly, a young average guy like me was not the customer he was looking for.  My advice, if you catch any ambivalence or attitude—walk—there are plenty of other shops out there that would welcome your business.

One last diversion before throwing my final thoughts out there: some stores aim to shoot the gap between audio specialty and big box.  Tweeter and Electronics Expo come to mind.  These shops offer a nice compromise between high quality and selection, but offer the full advantage of neither.  They’ll likely have a better selection than the specialty store, but probably won’t give you access to sheer high end quality.  Alternately, they’ll stock better speakers than your neighborhood big box, but probably will be pricier.  If you can’t afford high end prices, but don’t like what Johnny Big Box has to offer, these are definitely worth looking at.

In the end, I’d have to recommend figuring out what is most important to you and go to the shop that caters to your needs.  Do you have a tight budget that you have to adhere to or are you more interested in picking out a quality product, even if it means paying the price?  If you want top quality you definitely should shop around the specialty shops.  They have the products you’re looking for with staff that could talk for hours on things you’ve never heard of.  If you’ve ever associated yourself with the “audiophile” mentality then you should find your speakers at a specialty shop.  If spending too much on speakers could mean imminent bankruptcy and divorce, then compromise and do your shopping at an electronics giant.  You can still find a quality set of speakers, while maintaining a healthy bottom line.  If you still can’t decide which suits you—shop them both. 
Find a helpful dealer and a solid product and make that purchase.  Speakers are an expensive investment, so you might as well shop some different dealers.

Now quit reading and find those speakers.  Your CD’s are not playing themselves.

-Chris Weiss