Buying a DVD-Audio Player in the
Midwest -- One GoodSound! Guy’s Experience
Those of you who live on the left or
right coasts may not realize this, but not all of us have free and easy access to all
things audio and video. Out here among the corn and bean fields of the Midwest there
simply aren’t a lot of choices when it comes time to look at new products. Take the
town I live in as an example. This is a small city of roughly 100,000 people in the middle
of farm country, at the juncture of two major interstate highways. The nearest cities of
any size have populations comparable to this one and are an hour or two in each direction.
The nearest real city is almost a half-day’s drive away, which makes a day trip
possible, but not likely for somebody shopping on a budget.
Let’s face it, when you live in a town of 100,000,
your selection is going to be limited. My particular town is home to a pair of big-box
stores, two department stores that sell some electronics, and one and a half specialty
audio retailers (more on that in a bit). Since I originally hail from a much larger city,
I sometimes find the limitations of living and shopping in this land of strip malls and
minivans more than a little frustrating. I look forward to trips into the city for no
other reason than having the opportunity to drop by one or two real audio stores while
I’m there.
Looking for DVD-Audio
Recently, the DVD player in our bedroom system went belly
up and an immediate replacement was in order. I could have ordered directly off the
Internet and had a player in a few days, but lacking patience and being the kind of guy
who likes to at least play with the remote before I plop down my hard-earned cash, I
ventured out to brave the local stores and see what I could find.
So off we went to check what the five and a half places in
town had to offer. Now, being into music as much as I am and possessing two systems that
are fully capable of handling the input from a six-channel player, I thought it would be
nice to pick up one of the new breed of inexpensive DVD-A or SACD players for the bedroom
system and see what I thought. This should be a simple enough task, even out here in the
middle of nowhere. Right? Wrong.
Stop one, by simple virtue of the fact that it’s
closest to my house, was the larger of the two big-box stores. They had two models of
DVD-A players on display but none in stock. The salesperson explained that there simply
wasn’t enough demand to justify stocking them. However, they could get one in about a
week or I could order it from their Internet site. Thanks. I’ll keep looking.
At the second big box they didn’t have any
DVD-A or SACD players. Actually, the sales kid wasn’t sure what they were but was
pretty sure they didn’t have any. Thanks. He had already run off to help somebody
looking at DirecTV receivers. I looked at all their models and he was right, but not
because he had any idea what I was talking about.
Stop three was right across the street and the first
department store on the list. They had one of the players the first big box had, but at a
much higher price. Of course, I was about fourth in line and had to wait for the poor guy
to finish writing up a sale on a digital camera before I could find this out, but he was
at least helpful when he got around to me. He wasn’t exactly sure what DVD-A was
either, but at least showed an interest. He thought it sounded like a cool idea and would
like to hear it sometime. They didn’t have one in stock but he could order one and it
would arrive in four or five days. Thanks. I’ll keep looking.
Stop four was the full dealer of the one-and-a-half
specialty dealers, and they were already closed for the night. So was the half-dealer at
stop five. It’s hard to be a specialty dealer here, and the full dealer is located in
an office/light industrial park so I suspect they don’t get much business at night.
Actually, nobody I know had even heard of them before I mentioned them, so I wonder if
they get much business at all.
I made one last stop, at the second department store, which
had absolutely nothing to offer and nobody was around to answer any questions. By this
time I was getting a little grumpy. "Thanks. I’ll keep looking," I said to
nobody at all.
Fine, I thought, I’ll check out the specialty dealers
tomorrow. Surely the full-line dealer would have one. But it turned out that none of the
three DVD players that the full dealer had on display was DVD-A or SACD either, but he
could certainly order me one if I wanted it. He might be getting a new model if we could
wait a week or two and he thought it might be DVD-A. Thanks. I’ll keep looking.
My last hope was the half specialty store (named because
only half of what they sell pertains to audio/video) and I wasn’t expecting
much from them. They more than lived up to my expectations as both salespeople were far
too busy selling cellular phones -- yes, that’s right, cell phones -- to be bothered
with an audio customer. It didn’t really matter though, since they didn’t have
anything either. I’ll call them on my cell phone later and thank them.
In the end, I went back to the first big-box store, where
they at least knew what DVD-A and SACD were, and bought the bottom-of-the-line Toshiba DVD
player for less than a hundred bucks. I figure that at that price when I finally get
around to ordering a decent DVD-A or SACD player off the Internet I can give this one to
my daughter. I really want one of these players but I realize now that there’s no
rush because if it’s not on the shelves here, nobody is buying it, and if the sales
staff doesn’t even know what it is, it’s not a real product yet.
Until DVD-A or SACD start selling in real numbers around
here, they’re nothing more than a mere footnote on the CEA’s sales figures. I
guess that’s one advantage to living in the middle of nowhere. I can tell before most
of the rest of you when a product has finally gained enough support with the general
population that it might survive in the marketplace. With prices for decent budget players
hovering around $200 you would think this technology would start to catch on, but it
hasn’t started to happen here yet. Too bad, as I think they offer some real
potential. Will they ever make it to the mainstream in Middle America? I don’t know,
but if that sales kid should try to talk me into buying a DVD-A player anytime soon,
I’ll let you know. In the meantime, I’ll keep looking.
|
