belial Posted November 9, 2001 Share Posted November 9, 2001 I've checked out vendor ratings sites, so what I'm really looking for here is your personal experiences...From what vendors would you buy again? From which would you not? Remember, I only want to buy a receiver, so if the vendor doesn't carry them, it's not what I'm looking for ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seb Posted November 9, 2001 Share Posted November 9, 2001 why can't you buy from a local dealer? tell the salesperson you were going to buy online, he will try to do his best to match the price if he is not stupid. plus you get the better service of a store close to you! and I'm not just saying that because I work in an A/V store! seriously, give it a try, you might be surprised how prices are elastic in hifi, a salesperson, if you make it clear that it's a low-profit sale or no sale at all, will most often go for it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
belial Posted November 9, 2001 Author Share Posted November 9, 2001 If there were more dealers where I live, Seb, I might be more able to take your advice, but here there are only a couple. One is totally sleazy and his employees have openly lied to me on more than one occasion (he is the ONLY Klipsch dealer here). Another is a really nice guy who I know personally. But neither offer the kind of prices I might find if I lived in a larger area, with more competition and big chain stores like Best Buy or Circuit City. If I drive an hour I can get to a Good Guys, but they aren't much fun to deal with either ... Financially, my best option is to buy online. I don't mean to offer any insult to no doubt excellent salesmen like yourself, so don't take it personally. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kain Posted November 9, 2001 Share Posted November 9, 2001 belial, where do you live? ------------------ Home Theater (getting soon): TV: Samsung SP-43L2FX (43" LCD Rear Projection HDTV) DVD player: Toshiba SD-900E (Progressive Scan DVD player) VCR: Sony SLV-ED100 (HiFi VCR) Receiver: Denon AVC-A11SR (230V version of Denon AVR-4802) Speakers - Center: Klipsch RC-7 Mains: Klipsch RF-7 Surrounds: Klipsch RS-7 Subwoofer: SVS CS-Ultra w/Samson S1000 amplifier Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
belial Posted November 9, 2001 Author Share Posted November 9, 2001 Humboldt County. That's in Northern California, in the U.S. I'm only going to be here for another year. I sure do miss going to places like Best Buy and drooling over all the new shiny black home electronics stuff ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soundog Posted November 9, 2001 Share Posted November 9, 2001 The best HT receiver both sound quality and value wise is the Outlaw 1050, available only online at www.outlawaudio.com. High end quality at a mass production price ($499.).... you save big time by buying direct ... great customer service... Only negitive in my mind: does not have Prologic II which could be usefull if you have a large investment in videotapes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
belial Posted November 9, 2001 Author Share Posted November 9, 2001 I have my eye on that very receiver, sounddog, as well as the Onkyo and a few others. I have seen nothing but rave reviews for the Outlaw. Unfortunately, I AM interested in Prologic II, both for videotapes and for regular television reception ... which will be the subject of my next post. Thanks for your input! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigBusa Posted November 9, 2001 Share Posted November 9, 2001 Belial, I bought one from onecall.com Here's a link to all their recievers. http://ww2.onecall.com/About_00001000_17_51_0_0_0_0.htm Their prices are inline with most online electronics dealers. Great customer service. You will get a (HUMAN) customer service rep usually on the first ring! From my experience the cheapest place to buy recievers online is Ubid.com They have mostly refurbished/openbox/discontinued items usually with full factory warrantees. That's where I just got my HK AVR510. $409 at Ubid ...$625 and up anywhere else! I will say their customer service absolutely sucks! Expect to wait a minimum of 15 minutes on hold before talking to a human. It's usually more like 20 minutes though. I have waited 38 minutes before! It's impossible to hang up once I have 20 or 30 minutes already invested. IMO ...If you want dirt cheap pricing with no customer service go with Ubid. If you want decent pricing with great customer service go with onecall. ------------------ My system thus far: 1980 Cornwalls (mains) 1990 Heresy II's (rears) 2001 KLF-C7 (center) 2001 KSW15 (Subwoofer) HK AVR 510 (reciever - coming soon!) Kenwood DV402 (DVD) Sony KV 27V55 (9 year old 27" TV) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ray Garrison Posted November 9, 2001 Share Posted November 9, 2001 My take on it is, at this late date into the dot com implosion, almost all of the dealers who are still maintaining an online presense are doing a job which is at least adequate, if not steller, to keep their customers happy. If you're buying a major brand receiver, or an internet-only product from a major high profile player like Outlaw, I don't think you need to agonise over this too much. Pick a few you like, based on reputation, user interface, feature set, power and price, and poke around on the net. Stay away from anyone who has anything remotely sounding like shady business practices or a bad on-line rep, and try placing a call to their customer service department, just to see if you can actually get their customer service department. Also, when you think you've decided, I'd post a note back here and ask if any of us have any experience with the online retailer you're thinking of. ------------------ Music is art Audio is engineering Ray's Music System Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T2K Posted November 9, 2001 Share Posted November 9, 2001 The only internet audio purchase I have made was a C7 from www.sounddistributors.com .Although I received the speaker new in box,it took about two weeks as opposed to the 5 days promised.Not that I was in a hurry,but after the purchase and subsequent credit card charge,I was unable to get a straight answer from them about the delay.I prefer buying from a dealer. You might check out www.pricescan.com . Good luck. Keith Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seb Posted November 9, 2001 Share Posted November 9, 2001 didn't insu;t me belial, just wanted to make sure you were aware of the elasticity of the prices. i'd at least go to the dealer you like and tell them before buying online, they may be able to give you a sweet deal. again, no guarantee, but i'd try it, nothing to lose, everything to gain. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Audio Flynn Posted November 9, 2001 Share Posted November 9, 2001 Just a few days before I was going to place an order for the NAD T 761 for $750 plus shipping from Sound City.com; I ran into a demo Sherwood Newcastle separates setup I could not pass up. I had some dialog with soundcity and have researched them to be a pretty sound dealer from what i could find. The Outlaw was a finalist in my investiation as well. Pro Logic II functionality does limit your options somewhat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
belial Posted November 9, 2001 Author Share Posted November 9, 2001 Wow. Thanks for all your excellent responses! They are all helpful toward making this decision a little less confusing for me! Seb, I may try your advice with the friendly dealer in town. I know it sounds odd, but I always feel funny playing "hardball" with someone, telling them unless they can match some internet price I'll have to go elsewhere. I don't know if this guy can afford to match an internet price (or even come close) but I'll ask him ... Talktokeith, I've bought several speakers from sounddistributors and not had a problem with them. Maybe I got lucky, or you had back luck, or some combination of the two? That is sort of the spooky thing about buying online, when two different people can have completely different experiences. Thanks for the warning reguardless! And again, thanks to you all! This message has been edited by belial on 11-09-2001 at 11:57 PM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teleburst Posted December 19, 2001 Share Posted December 19, 2001 quote: Originally posted by BigBusa: Belial, I bought one from onecall.com Here's a link to all their recievers. http://ww2.onecall.com/About_00001000_17_51_0_0_0_0.htm Their prices are inline with most online electronics dealers. Great customer service. You will get a (HUMAN) customer service rep usually on the first ring! From my experience the cheapest place to buy recievers online is Ubid.com They have mostly refurbished/openbox/discontinued items usually with full factory warrantees. That's where I just got my HK AVR510. $409 at Ubid ...$625 and up anywhere else! I will say their customer service absolutely sucks! Expect to wait a minimum of 15 minutes on hold before talking to a human. It's usually more like 20 minutes though. I have waited 38 minutes before! It's impossible to hang up once I have 20 or 30 minutes already invested. IMO ...If you want dirt cheap pricing with no customer service go with Ubid. If you want decent pricing with great customer service go with onecall. In regards to Ubid, you need to make sure that they *do* indeed have a real manufacturer's warranty. They might be a Klipsch dealer but they sometimes claim to offer a manufacturer's warranty when they actually can't. Case in point is Denon and Mitsubishi. They claim warranties on both company's products but they aren't authorized to do so. I know this for a fact with Mitsubishi because I got a defective refurbished DVD player from Ubid that claimed to have a 90 day warranty from Mitsu. They will *not* honor it though. First of all, they don't sell reburbished gear *anywhere* and they don't sell on the Internet (so they said). If you go to the Denon webite, it specifically lists the only on-line dealers of their products andf Ubid isn't one of them. I'll bet that you'd have the same problem with getting warranty service through them as well. To Ubid's credit, they have offered to take back the DVD player and pay postage both ways. We'll see how long *that* takes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Cornell Posted December 19, 2001 Share Posted December 19, 2001 I have the outlaw 1050, and a new harman kardon, with pro logic 2, Whoopppeee!! Didnt hear much difference between logic 1 and logic 2, unless the logic 2 puts a VCR into digital surround like ive heard! Regards Jim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
decibel man Posted December 20, 2001 Share Posted December 20, 2001 You may want to ponder this thought. Take a hard look at the Harmon Kardon AVR310 and AVR510. These two models have been recently replaced by the 320 and 520. The new models have the PLII that you are looking for, but they all have Logic7 which was designed by Harmon's Lexicon division. It basically does the same thing as PLII. I have the AVR7000 and the Logic7 sounds great. These babies have plenty of super high current power and quite a few extras. There should be plenty of the older models still around, just don't buy a refurb! I actually purchased mine from J & R over the phone. They have an extensive website www.jandr.com but they can be more competitive over the phone. They gave me a great deal on the AVR7000, RF-3's, RS-3's, and a RC-3. That was a couple of years ago when Klipsch let them sell mail order with a full warranty. The cheapest price for the AVR7000 at the local stores was $1499 (it had just come out) but the entire package was $2625 delivered to my door. Sevice was excellant and they double boxed everything, even the RF's. I then bought my DVD player from them also. In total on just those purchases I calculated that I saved $975 from the local pricing. That bought me a nice 36" Toshiba TV, component video cables, cd player, and optical and coax digital Monster cables. The TV was a floor model for two weeks and then it (36CZ61) was replaced by the 36A60, giving me a 30% reduction for a mere two weeks worth of use. Good luck in your receiver hunting! JT Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
speedbump Posted December 20, 2001 Share Posted December 20, 2001 www.accessories4less.com has Marantz refurbs at pretty hot prices sometimes. It's worth a look. I have never bought from them, but they are at least Marantz certified and come with decent warranties. Speed ------------------ Klipsch Chorus I Mains Klipsch Academy Center Klipsch Heresy I Surrounds Marantz SR19EX Receiver Yamaha 5 CD Changer Mitsubishi WS-55807 55" HDTV Playstation 2 for games/DVD Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
synthfreek Posted December 20, 2001 Share Posted December 20, 2001 This is simple: outlawaudio.com ------------------ Outlaw 1050 A/V Receiver Rega P3 Turntable AMC CD8b CD Player Toshiba 3108 DVD Player Klipsch KG 4.2s(main) 2 Dynaco A-10/V IIs(centers) Cerwin Vega E-706s(rears) Cerwin Vega LW-12(sub) Parasound PPH-100 Phono Preamp Vampire Wire Digital Interconnects & Speaker Wire Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raneman Posted December 20, 2001 Share Posted December 20, 2001 More commentary on uBid. First, they are cheap, and many people have had no problems with their purchases. That being said, my experience with them has been horrible. They do not always have items in stock, and as teleburst said, they're not always correct about warranties. Basically, their business systems are so poor that if anything goes wrong with inventory, a user account, or an order they can't handle it. My last auction with them they didn't have the item I won in stock to ship me, they cancelled my order, but then they billed my credit card anyway. Their customer service has been degrading over the past month. 38 minutes on hold with uBid would be a dream for me. In the past month, if I've been able to get through, I've been on hold for over an hour each call. Their customer service through e-mail used to be OK, but now you will get an automatic reply saying they'll respond to your e-mail in the order received. Been a week since my last e-mail and no response. So, I didn't get the item I won, was charged for it anyway, and now I can't get any response from customer service either via the phone or e-mail. I hope no one else has this many problems with uBid--but you've been warned. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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