Midwest loses another electronics chain

inson71

Very sad day for me. American TV has announced it is going out of business closing all stores. I have been frequenting this store for the better part of 30 years. It was my introduction to quality stereo gear back in the 80s and major supplier of my addiction since. It is the end of an era and almost feels like losing a friend. Sad day indeed!

hochpt21

That's sad. There are two big stores in Madison.

That's where I heard the 705's.

inson71

Even if you didn't buy from them, it was a great place to see the latest gear in person. Rockford really doesn't have a place where you can do this anymore.

gudnoyez

Sad indeed stuff I bought from them A5's, A3's, Csia4, Csia6, couple of AVR's Yamaha & Denon, a Zvox, Cambridge Tuner, my new UHD tv, a 5 piece HT entertainment seats. That sucks the only place left will be 1 good store and best buy ugh. I wonder who I will be paying the balance on my American card to now?

inson71

gudnoyez wrote: »

Sad indeed stuff I bought from them A5's, A3's, Csia4, Csia6, couple of AVR's Yamaha & Denon, a Zvox, Cambridge Tuner, my new UHD tv, a 5 piece HT entertainment seats. That sucks the only place left will be 1 good store and best buy ugh. I wonder who I will be paying the balance on my American card to now?

Are you down in the quad cities? I am curious...what is the one good store left?

hochpt21

http://www.americantv.com/

FYI..."GOOB Sale" starts this Thursday.

swegyptian

That sucks. Until recently I worked for a small AV store in central Illinois, but I had to get to a new employer for the sake of my future.

Now I have a bunch of coworkers in their early twenties, and they don't seem to care for anything other than a big TV. None of them have any stereo stuff at all. The world has indeed changed.

pitdogg2

swegyptian wrote: »

Now I have a bunch of coworkers in their early twenties, and they don't seem to care for anything other than a big TV. None of them have any stereo stuff at all. The world has indeed changed.

Sure they have audio stuff and it is the best thing since sliced bread and it has a camera and it had a video recorder and it has a voice recorder....do you know what it is yet........their CELL PHONE....just recently 3 major camera makers have announced they will no longer be making or selling camera's their scapegoat...cell phones have made far too hard to sell camera's.

EndersShadow

Yeah, its sad. We have a couple good hi-fi stores here in Indy and I try to stop in and frequent them as much as I can. When it makes sense I try to buy from them JUST to keep them in business.

Regarding the big box electronics stores..... well I go in there, make sure the salesmen leave me alone as I have yet to find one more knowledgeable than me (a couple get close but still not there yet)... and the few times I have interacted with sales people either because I have a question I cant find the answer to, or need them to get something off the shelf and we end up talking, management for that store tries to get me to apply to work there....

And we know that aint happening lol.....

pitdogg2

EndersShadow wrote: »

management for that store tries to get me to apply to work there.........

Lucky you I just get told to take a hike.....Maybe I should stop calling them out on all their BS they toss around.




no this is not the store Dan is referring to. Our only store is Best buy.

EndersShadow

pitdogg2 wrote: »

Lucky you I just get told to take a hike.....Maybe I should stop calling them out on all their BS they toss around.
No this is not the store Dan is referring to. Our only store is Best buy.

LOL... BB is the store I was referring to. Specifically the Magnolia guys keep trying to hire me.... I debated it for a while since we could use the discount on some items I do want to buy from them (Pio SC AVR, Entertainment Center, Power Conditioner) but realized I would be basically working for free since any money I make would be going toward buying those items and then I would just quit lol....

ZLTFUL

Was at my local American this weekend doing a bit of pre-scouting. Of course, they ain't got much of anything left in the home audio department.

Hofy

The only tears I shed are for the people who are going to be out of work. American lost my business years ago. In 1990 I went in to the big Madison store (south belt line). I was looking to put a good stereo into the Toyota I had just bought. They couldn't come up with a head unit that fit in the dash with out modification and then told me it would be a 2 week wait for installation. I said forget it, went home and ordered a stereo from Crutchfield for $100 less that was there in 2 days with complete installation instructions, no modifications needed. Took me less than 2 hours to install. This was in January too! Fast forward a couple of years. A coworker had purchased a VCR from American got it home and it was DOA. She made the trek back to American (70 miles one way). They replaced it but would not let her test it in the store. They said she could bring it back again if it didnt work. WTH?! Another 140 mile round trip? The final straw was a few months later when my wife's friend asked me to look at her car stereo because it wasnt working right. I found several wires including power leads that were just twisted together and taped with clear packing tape. Where did she have it installed? American!

Moose68Bash

The times, they are changing!

We all are guilty of going to the "bricks-and-mortar" stores to "test drive" stuff, only to go home and order on line at a discount to the store that has to pay for staff, hold inventory, and bear the overhead of plant and equipment.

Who knows how this will evolve.

Will we have audio stores that operate like Zappo's?

hochpt21

They must be running a skeleton staff, which makes sense. I've called four times and each time I get transferred to an endless ringing phone line.

Today I finally got someone in home audio, and he said they just sold out of all LSiM series.

He said they had one pair of RTiA5's for $299/ea.

ZLTFUL

The demo pair of LSiM707s that my local American had listed for $1000 each (I know, still kicking myself) now has them listed for $1700 each. :rolleyes:

I have heard several stories of folks going in recently to take advantage of the savings only to find that stuff is marked to prices the same as or higher than normal sale pricing.

dromunds

Yeah, my cousin told me he went into the Madison store and had the same experience of finding stuff actually marked up in his opinion. Checkered history for me. I bought stuff from them early on but stopped because of ... well, enough said.

pitdogg2

ZLTFUL wrote: »

I have heard several stories of folks going in recently to take advantage of the savings only to find that stuff is marked to prices the same as or higher than normal sale pricing.

Come on guys this stuff happens all the time. When ever a bank takes over a business that is closing their stores they always crank up the prices then put 50% off so people think they're getting a deal. When a local store went out of business some of the prices were 200% mark up from the week before so then they could run ad's that said 85%-95% off marked prices. That is what is called truth in advertizing they weren't necessarily lie'ing but they sure weren't telling the truth. I do not know how many people "thought" they were getting a deal. If you didn't go there often you'd sure think that you were getting a deal.

sucks2beme

I hate that liquidation model.
You get a narrow window to get a price, it kicks up to close to normal price, and they start
handing out discounts 10% at a time. By the time there's a serious discount, the good
stuff is either gone or damaged beyond belief.

xjghost

I haven't seen a decent hi fi audio store in my state in years. It's been dead here for a long time!

gudnoyez

I have been their twice for the going out of business sale and walked out empty handed most of the prices were not worth getting something I do admit they had deals on the RTIA series but that was about it. I might go back Sunday however and get another PSW 111 as they were priced well last week and had quite a few. I want to run dual subs

ZLTFUL

pitdogg2 wrote: »

Come on guys this stuff happens all the time. When ever a bank takes over a business that is closing their stores they always crank up the prices then put 50% off so people think they're getting a deal. When a local store went out of business some of the prices were 200% mark up from the week before so then they could run ad's that said 85%-95% off marked prices. That is what is called truth in advertizing they weren't necessarily lie'ing but they sure weren't telling the truth. I do not know how many people "thought" they were getting a deal. If you didn't go there often you'd sure think that you were getting a deal.

Oh, I know how it all works. I wasn't delusional enough to think that it would have worked any other way. But you should have seen the face of the sales guy trying to sell me into the 707s until I showed him a picture of the price they had them at before the going out of business sale. He suddenly had no interest in dealing with me anymore.

tonyb

Not that I consider them an Audio store per say, but Rat shack announced closing 1100 stores. Heck, didn't even know there was still that many. Looks like they will be going away quick, no big loss in my book.

pitdogg2

ZLTFUL wrote: »

But you should have seen the face of the sales guy trying to sell me into the 707s until I showed him a picture of the price they had them at before the going out of business sale. He suddenly had no interest in dealing with me anymore.

I love those looks... classic

sucks2beme

tonyb wrote: »

Not that I consider them an Audio store per say, but Rat shack announced closing 1100 stores. Heck, didn't even know there was still that many. Looks like they will be going away quick, no big loss in my book.

sadly, i know most of the local store guys.
At some point, they lost their way. The only stuff
i went in for is almost gone. It's now cell phone store
And not even a good one.