I went into Circuit City tonight for the first time in 2years and came out depressed.

VR3

Now for my "theory" to be complete...

All we need is to get rid of the 5.1 HTIB and replace them all with 5 speakers in one + a sub and we'll be "there"..

And this will take over the Low Fi market completely. No more "cheap" speakers as the norm, but 5 in 1's as the norm. Its so headed in that direction and you can call me a fool if you want, but the market is heading that way...

The question is...how far will that trend extend?

Funny part of this is, audio companies put theirself in this situation, more so Bose put everyone in this situation. Smaller = Better. So companies made smaller speakers, and people wanted smaller speakers. So speakers got smaller. Bose made a 123 setup, 2 speakers gave you surround sound AND they were small. Thats even cooler, so then someone made a center, left, right all in one speaker - so now Polk made one of the first 5 in 1 speakers. Is this going to be the new fad? Im not sure, but in 2-3-4 years I wouldnt be surprised to walk into CC and find a bunch of 3 in 1 or 5 in 1 speaker + a sub package.

Sad...

heiney9

ND13 wrote:

What's a Circuit City???

Walmart of audio

ND13

Does anyone remember Hi-Fi Buys? We had a couple of them in Nashville in the 80s and into the early 90s. They carried some pretty nice gear. They had ML, Maggies, PDime, etc, etc..

krabby5

Whatever Bose did....it worked

they have brain-washed a lot of people

my mom and step-dad can't wait until they can afford a Bose system

I am trying to sway them

but they like the small size and reputation (how did they get that reputation?)

george daniel

ND13 wrote:

Does anyone remember Hi-Fi Buys? We had a couple of them in Nashville in the 80s and into the early 90s. They carried some pretty nice gear. They had ML, Maggies, PDime, etc, etc..

Yep,, heard my first pair of carvers there(Atlanta),polk sda's,,great place,upscale mall,,it was the kind of place that you could go and really listen to equipment,,no pressure,,also befriended a sales rep,, always got a discount,heads up on clearence sales,great place,,really miss it,,now it's a totally different atmosphere,, ,,,time marches on :rolleyes:

How's the parasound? Still have it?

shack

Hi-Fi buys was acquired by Tweeter just in the last few years. I visited the ones in Atlanta and Nashville quite often. They were a good store.

george daniel

shack wrote:

Hi-Fi buys was acquired by Tweeter just in the last few years. I visited the ones in Atlanta and Nashville quite often. They were a good store.

GREAT stores with great folks,return and upgrade policies were outstanding.

aaharvel

Zero wrote:

Harvel,

Between all the responses in this thread, you should have a good idea of why you see what you are complaining about. Please bear to mind that Polk Audio is not taking this route to spite its customers, to put their foot-down just to say “me too”. They are doing what any business would do in an industry that is dieing (or changing, depending on your perspective) more each year – just trying to keep their doors open.

Yeah, it really does suck that people don’t give a **** about better sound. 4-5 years ago, I remember walking into their show room and seeing Polk for the first time. Those big, beautiful rosewood 3000’s sitting out there, actually reasonably set up – along with the rest of the Polk setup. Even Infinity had a great showing for itself. But, 4-5 years ago, Best Buy wasn’t putting Circuit City out of business – and people still had a remaining hint of interest in audio. Now there are other places to spend your money as more toys and fads hit our culture. Audio is old, its technology is the **** child of all electronics, and people just aren’t interested like they once were.

It sucks, but “that’s just the way it is”.

no, I pretty much understand now. I didn't realize that Best Buy was forcing C.City into this position. I always thought City was the go-to guy. Until a few years ago, I lived in a town where there was no BestBuy and CircuitCity (North Wilkesboro). That's why when I would go make the trip to Hanes Mall in Winston Salem, being interested in the audio thing, but not experiencing anything past Radio Shack I would go into the Circuit City (never a best-buy until i moved to Greensboro) and become floored. I fell in love with the place as soon as I walked through the door.

another thing that affected me was the fact that i never learned the internet until 2003. That had alot to do with it. Small town, no internet.

Audio-Snob Andrew

F1nut

"Audio-Snob Andrew"........hehe, love it.

deepinya

So what if CC didnt carry the LSi line? The RTi line was plenty good for most people. I would have NEVER even heard POLK if not for CC. I wasnt much into home audio until 5-6 years back.Thats where I went to make side by side comparisons and decided what kind of sound I liked. rti 12/10/8/6/4 fxi3/5 rti70 csi40...where was I gonna go to listen to all these units before deciding which to buy?

Now all thats left is a few monitor series and one or two r series. SELLOUTS!

aaharvel

maybe not sellouts, but certainly a drop in quality.

i mean i'm no fan of infinity speakers, but now the R's/M's have to compete with primus, and the monitors have to compete with Beta. Imo that's just not a fair comparison. It's a shame that City can't go back to carrying the RTI's to better compete with them, both at quality levels and pricepoint.

Jose_L

I went in Friday, and got a CSi5 for $178..

Made a gigantic difference going from a cs350, I'm biamping the CSi5 w/ 110w/ch ... sweet.

Jose

F1nut

deepdodo wrote:

Now all thats left is a few monitor series and one or two r series. SELLOUTS!

You really are clueless. Polk decided a change was needed, a step up if you will, and moved their better stuff elsewhere. Not wanting to be out of sight of the bottom/entry level buyers, they made the Monitor series for the likes of CC. Get your facts straight before mouthing off.

Drumingman

I don't really give a Rat's Rump about CC because the stuff is crap and salespeople as smart as RS staff-Doh!

When I sent my warranty info to Polk and they asked for my opinion,
I told them that their products being made in China sucked.

Polk products are not cheap-price wise, MSRP.
They must be paying slave labor assembly prices in China
and I don't want to purchase every product for my home
from China.

Please don't think I'm picking on Polk because
when I bought my H-K and saw it was made in China too,
it pissed me off.

That is All.

Have a Nice Day

Holydoc

So because of this thread, I went to both CC and Bestbuy today. As far as audio gear goes, both stores are completely useless to me. There was nothing in either store that would appeal to me for receivers, amps, dvd players, or speakers. Kind of a waste for me to even be in there.

However if we want to talk about televisions, I was thoroughly impressed with CC's selection. Once the new Panasonic Plasma's come out in late March, early April timeframe, I may have to take a little trip back to CC to spoil myself again.

On a sad note, my town is so small that we do not have any places here that carry quality audio gear. Luckily my lady lives in a large city so I do my research, talk on forums, and when I go to see her, come up for a breath ever so often so that I can go further indebt.

krabby5

Drumingman wrote:

I don't really give a Rat's Rump about CC because the stuff is crap and salespeople as smart as RS staff-Doh!

When I sent my warranty info to Polk and they asked for my opinion,
I told them that their products being made in China sucked.

Polk products are not cheap-price wise, MSRP.
They must be paying slave labor assembly prices in China
and I don't want to purchase every product for my home
from China.

Please don't think I'm picking on Polk because
when I bought my H-K and saw it was made in China too,
it pissed me off.

That is All.

Have a Nice Day

Welcome to America...outsource capital of the world..it keeps prices down

aaharvel

Zero wrote:

Otherwise, there is nothing to worry about. Next year should prove pretty interesting.

What's on the itnerary for next year?
Sorry to have made you waste gas money today HolyDoc.

Drumingman

krabby5 wrote:

Welcome to America...outsource capital of the world..it keeps prices down

Does it really keep prices down? You outsource to China, have the labor there and send it back on a slow boat from China. How much does all that cost? All the shipping And handling.

Do you really think your Polks would be more if built in the U.S.?

Are the $3000 LSi25's built there?

How much more would you spend on them?

Plus it puts Americans out of work. Headquartered in BalTimore, made in China. I think a lot of American manufacturers should rethink what is good for this country.

What say you?

aaharvel

i say it sucks. But China polk is better than No polk.

think it's bad now? The Chinese are invading our auto industry very soon, and to be honest with you, the Koreans (Hyundai) have improved on their cars so much that If you asked me whether I would rather have a Chevy Impala or a Hyundai Sonata, I'd pick the Sonata any day of the week.

F1nut

I'd say we're in BIG trouble.

D-man, thanks!

venomclan

The problem is that many companies are slaves to thier stockholders who only care about the bottom line. Most American companies only care about the next quarter, while Japanese companies look 10-20 years ahead. Manufacturing in the U.S. is dead and dying. China manufacturing quality is very good.

I am in the export business and represent over 40 U.S. compaines for export. Many have factories in China and ship direct from there. They control the quality.

Though they were created and needed for a different cause at a different time, it is the unions that are killing the U.S. manufacturing industry. Unions lock them in to contracts they can not get out of or make changes to stay competitive. Products in general are made with planned obsolesence. Nobody cares about quality anymore, if it is cheap enough they will just buy another one. So the companies that did care about making good products were forced to change or go out of business. Why does that auto industry push leasing? Because they make more money doing it. They try to convince people that cars are only good for 3 years, or they build them that way. I would take a Hyundai over any American car any day.

Buying "American" means nothing. My Honda was built in Ohio but U.S. workers. A lot of the big 3 cars are built in Mexico, Korea, Canada etc...
Venom

bringit167

I've been working at CC for about 3 1/2 years now and have seen how the audio department has been changing, and to an extent I agree with it. When we carried the RTI line up, we never sold them... people could never justify spending that much money on a sound system. Some of you love your audio systems, and want the best, unfortunately a lot of the population could care less. Now that we sell the monitors as our best line up of Polk, its even hard to sell those. Right now we dont have anymore Infinity Beta speakers at my store either, and I'm not sure if we are carrying another line up of those speakers.

And to those of you who think CC employees do not have any knowledge about products... I guess thats your own CC. Out of about 8 entertainment employees at my store, I would say 5 of them could answer just about any questions that you may have. Myself and another associate have rti systems, with onkyo receivers.

Oh, and Circuit City is starting to carry some higher end receivers like the Onkyo TXNR1000 and HK AVR7300.

Btw, this post is probably very biased to those of you, since I actually like my job, and most of the products we sell.

F1nut

Nothing wrong with taking pride in your job or the company you work for.

Joey_V

aaharvel wrote:

What's on the itnerary for next year?
Sorry to have made you waste gas money today HolyDoc.

The new LSi... that's what.

Time for the good stuff baby.

Holydoc

aaharvel wrote:

Sorry to have made you waste gas money today HolyDoc.

Well worth the gas to understand what the ruckus was all about. Plus I am rubbing my hands together in anticipation of the new TVs coming out soon.

LessisNevermore

venomclan wrote:

The problem is that many companies are slaves to thier stockholders who only care about the bottom line. Most American companies only care about the next quarter, while Japanese companies look 10-20 years ahead. Manufacturing in the U.S. is dead and dying. China manufacturing quality is very good.

I am in the export business and represent over 40 U.S. compaines for export. Many have factories in China and ship direct from there. They control the quality.

Though they were created and needed for a different cause at a different time, it is the unions that are killing the U.S. manufacturing industry. Unions lock them in to contracts they can not get out of or make changes to stay competitive. Products in general are made with planned obsolesence. Nobody cares about quality anymore, if it is cheap enough they will just buy another one. So the companies that did care about making good products were forced to change or go out of business. Why does that auto industry push leasing? Because they make more money doing it. They try to convince people that cars are only good for 3 years, or they build them that way. I would take a Hyundai over any American car any day.

Buying "American" means nothing. My Honda was built in Ohio but U.S. workers. A lot of the big 3 cars are built in Mexico, Korea, Canada etc...
Venom

I'm new here, not looking to start a fight, but wearing my heavy-duty american made flame suit.

Your first paragraph was alot more on target than the rest of the post. Let me preface this with: I am neither repub. nor democrat. I had a good paying job as a tool and die maker. (manufacturing) This trade is almost completely dead as a result of chap Chinese labor. While the Chinese are steadily improving the quality and skill of their work, they still can't seem to do proper machining. I say this because I have used Chinese made machines, and it is very, very difficult to do precision work on any of them, but they are cheap enough that shop owners keep buying them. To get to the point, the large companies that are buying the stamping dies that I used to build, are buying them from China. They are cheaper, so that's ok, right? Well, the problem lies with the fact that a good majority of these precision tools (dies) don't work properly upon delivery, so the company that purchased the die, now has a 45,000 pound boat anchor. The more highly skilled diemakers here have to go through and correct the shoddy work, and engineering mistakes that a skilled tradesman would have caught in the building stage. After all the re-work, this tool ends up costing the company even more than what it would have producing it here. This is no fluke, it happens so often, that since most of the diemaking shops in my area have folded. The ones that still exist, mostly are dedicated to reworking these tools built elsewhere, because they can't compete with the almost free labor in China.

Now before anyone says how lazy these "overpaid" diemakers must be, not to be compettitive, when I started my 5 year apprenticeship, it used to literally take 4 months to produce a progressive stamping die that makes, for example, a seat track for a car. Now with the lean manufacturing that is prevalent, that same die can be produced in just over a week. These companies are still stretched so thin, that 90% of them have very few fringe benefits left to offer, yet the worker efficiency is at an all time high.

Now how does this disprove the theory that "unions have killed manufacturing"? Almost zero of these die shops are union. I'm guessing less than 1%, based on how many there were in my area. (which used to be the largest machine tool-based manufacturing zone in the US)

heiney9

Really have nothing to add LessIsNeverMore. Just wanted to say welcome as I notice you are in my neck of the woods. I'm in Rockford. Good to see you here, stick around and have some fun.

H9

aaharvel

welcome to the forums 'Less'.

venomclan

Less, How Dare you!! Just kidding. Welcome.

As far as my ramble, I think a lot faster than I can type and tried to say too much at once. Though there is a lot of problems facing the American workers these days, there is no cure that will help everyone. While I think that some Unions are destroying themselves and their industry and workers in the process, some are fine and within the realm that they should be. I am not saying that any of this outsourcing is right, it is just reality and U.S. companies need to be able to react enough to stay in business.

I see it everyday in my business. Countries like Mexico have a moratorium on Chinese products and put a 40% import tarriff on China goods, while at the same time Japanese products have a 5% tariff in Mexico. If the U.S. imposes something like that on China, manufacturing will move to India, Malaysia or anywhere else that does not have the tariff. It is a game, but needed in this competitive environment. Brazil has high import tariffs, so goods are sent to Uraguay and shipped by ground into Brazil.

I do not belive that the government should bail out every industry that has been asleep at the wheel. The US auto industry did this to themselves over years of greed, pride, mismanagement and just blatent disregard.
Venom

SKsolutions

Polkmaniac wrote:

As long as they keep making stuff like the LSi line, I don't give a rats **** what else they sell.

....where do you think that money goes? Could it be in to R&D so that they can continue to improve on their design and offer stuff like the Lsi and RTi at good price points???

I agree. If Polk can make a margin on the cheaper lines that furthers their ability to R&D new products like the LSi, then bravo.

If the cheaper lines embarrass you as a Polk owner, do you regret your purchase? I know I don't. I haven't found better for less. The R series and the like has made sure of that by balancing the volume to margin profit ratios.