told him i had an Outlaw Amp and he told me that it was not very good quality. he went on to say that sonus faber and vienna acoustics were not good sounding speakers all with horrible response curves, and the reason they get good reviews is because magazines like stereophile are paid to give favorable reveiws.
He said Axioms were no good and that i should look into focals and quads. Now i know how buisness works and i know he wants to sell what he has, but it there any truth to what this guy who's been in this buisness for 40 years is saying, or is he just pissed that the internet is killing his crazy markups?

By the way i love my Outlaw and i think it sounds Great!

I would have just laughed in this guy's face and walked right out the door. I own Outlaw and Sonus Faber (see equipment list below)and they sound fantastic. I have had several people who are both Audiophiles and/or Home Theater specialists come by and listen to my system. Everyone of them has been very impressed with the sound quality. This guy is obviously a fool who hasn't a clue about quality equipment or he is just a bald face liar trying to sell what ever snake oil he has in his truck.

In regards to Vienna Acoustics, I have never owned any. I have auditioned them on several occasions. I, also, have a friend who has a set of Beethoven Baby Grand's that are quite impressive. Build quality and overall sound on these speakers are very good and the price performance certainly make them a good value. However, I am still a SF lover.

Now granted I am not shopping for speakers in the $1500 range. SF's Domus series is intended for the entry level audiophile consumer. I have been auditioning for new speakers lately and I have spent some time with this series. The Concertino and Concerto are both very good speakers but the truth is there are many other competitors in this price range that probably give as good or better price performance. However, if you are looking in the $4-5K range now the SF's are really going to shine. The Domus Grand Piano is a floor standing speaker that looks great but sounds even better. Or you could move up into the Classic series and get a set of book shelf Cremona Auditors that are just out of this world. And of course if your budget has a little more room in it SF can provide you with all the speaker you could ever want at any price.

Now I can tell you all sorts of different things about my experience with these products and 10 other people could post their experiences as well and they all might be different, but the bottom line comes down to how does it sound to you! I am a strong believer in audition, audition and audition some more. I currently have 6 CD's that I have picked 3 or 4 songs from each. I have selected these CD's and tracks as being somewhat representative of my listening tastes. I then listened to these tracks very carefully so that I am very familiar with the subtleties of each track. Now when I go to audition new equipment I take my own music and listen and compare based on just those songs. Another very important thing when auditioning speakers is to consider how well they have the speakers set up for the room and your listening position. I won't even bother to listening to a set of speakers that are just stuck in a row with 4 or 5 other sets of speakers that the sales guy toggles through for you to listen to. Any reasonable audio store should have a well configured listening room and the speakers you are auditioning should be set so that they are properly voiced for your listening position. Otherwise you have no real idea of how well the speakers are really performing. After that just trust your ears. You will know what sounds good to you and what doesn't.

Gooomz,

I agree w/ mdrconsult.

walk out the door.

I always find it amazing to see the different speakers been driven by outlaw gear. There is a thread around here you can cruise and see for yourself.
The cool thing about it there are no wrong systems.

Stick to your guns and find the stuff your wallet and ears enjoy.

Later

I'm inherently suspicious of salesmen who start out by identifying bad equipment. If I were in the mood to poke and prod, I'd ask him to specify exactly why he considers Outlaw's amps to be not very good quality. Simply saying "those are junk" is easy. Speaking knowledgeably about differences between products without falling back to marketing fluff and arm-waving is much more difficult. In this case, though, I'd just write the place off.

Man, I don't know where to start with this one. What a jerk! And this comment got me laughing:

Having followed these sorts of magazines over the years, I can tell you they don't automatically give great reviews to advertisers. And even if they did, Quad and Focal both advertise and have been reviewed in the same mags! What a stupid statement.

I'm not sure how the salesman could have thought this was a very good sales strategy. As gonk noted, you don't try to woo a prospective cutomer to your product line by bad mouthing what they already own.

First, being both a former high-end audio salesman and a fellow Outlaw, I can tell you first-hand that their gear is absolutely great for the money.

Second, your story remind me of a time a guy I worked with had a customer who came in armed with Consumer Reports magazine. Unforuntately, CR's conclusion was all the gear pretty much sounded the same and to focus on features. They also focused exclusively on cheap, big-box-store gear. None of which we carried.

You could see the frustration level rising between the salesman and the customer. Finally, our sales guy points at the magazine and says "this is all junk!" At which point the customer turned on his heel and stormed out the door.

Frankly, I could not blame him.