New Polk Audio "Legend" Speaker Series shown at 2019 Hong Kong High End Audio Video Show

KenCustomerService wrote: »

From what I can find @VR3 there is no one in Charlotte that will have them to demo.

But like I said, we are updating the list daily as more dealers sign on.

If there is nobody in Charlotte that can show these speakers, it means the distribution model has some big holes to fill.

nooshinjohn wrote: »

KenCustomerService wrote: »

From what I can find @VR3 there is no one in Charlotte that will have them to demo.

But like I said, we are updating the list daily as more dealers sign on.

If there is nobody in Charlotte that can show these speakers, it means the distribution model has some big holes to fill.

It’s amazing. Charlotte NC is large enough to have an NFL team (Panthers) and an NBA team, (Hornets) but not big enough to carry Polk Audio. If it had not been such a great price on the LSIM speakers close out from Polk and Adorama, I would have not purchased Polk speakers. At the close out prices, I just took a chance of never hearing the LSIM line but willing to give them a try. I will never spend $6000.00 on a pair of the Legends without a demo.
Also, I have owned Polk speakers since 1985 but, I always had a demo until the last ones.
Please reconsider.

stangman67 wrote: »

“We are updating the list daily as more dealers sign on”.

Maybe we all just hold our horses until the dealer lists are finalized. These speakers were literally released days ago.

They are 6 to 8 weeks out. This is the time of year floor plans are being set for Christmas. If they don’t have a list yet, I don’t mind at all being the guy to sound that alarm.

The dealer search tool on the Polk front page shows me a Home Depot store some 40 miles from my home as the nearest Polk Dealer, when there is a Best Buy and a Fry’s that both carry the brand less than three miles away... I would say that tool is broken.

Kencustomerservice as I said in an earlier post in mn sd and nd I anticipate maaayyybe one dealer to potentially carry them and he has golden ear, Klipsch, focal, paradigm, Martin Logan, kef, paradigm svs, and we as distributors I’m told won’t have access. While there are a lot of “prosource” members nationwide there aren’t that many in this territory especially that would display Polk Legend, your missing potential dealers that may make sense who are not prosource and some prosource dealers are oddly just tv and appliance dealers who don’t do home audio or home theater. At least in this territory big loss for Polk by limiting yourselves too much. No exposure.

My zip code is 91367 Ken.... enter that into the locator and see what you get.

@nooshinjohn

A few Best Buys, Home Depots, Pacific Sales Kitchen and Bath, and Crazy Stereo.

All those make sense to me. Pacific sales sells our Kohler collaboration we did.

Then the Legend dealer locator shows the store in Orange County that I shared before.

The dealer locator for Polk and DT are both being re-worked.

As far as I can piece together, ProSource is not a distributor, vendor or supplier. They are a marketing tool for the home automation/home theater/integration business. They do not buy or stock product. They offer their members a wide list of companies from which their members can potentially buy product from, but do not pick and choose with whom they must do business.

https://www.prosourceinfo.com/

As a member, one can obtain product from any vendor they do business with, which is a huge benefit to the member, but I fail to see how, with Polk not selling the Legend lineup direct to consumers, how a closed purchase network is going to get these speakers into the hands of those that want them if nobody within that group will carry or demo them. I have contacted 17 members of the ProSource network of dealers within the Los Angeles market, and NONE of them are willing to get their hands on them for me to listen to if I wanted to make a purchase, but are more than happy to sell me what they want to sell. There are only 4 members of this group that even have a customer showroom for gear to begin with.

Again, all I am trying to do is raise the concern and I am 100% confident that Ken will come through with answers.

DSkip wrote: »

There is a reason they chose this company to work with. How about some optimism prior to pessimism for once about a Polk launch? We don’t know what all goes on behind the scenes - it’s a new structure so let’s see how it plays out.

If the pessimism gets the good folks at Polk asking the right questions and thinking of solutions, then it is a good thing. I want these speakers to succeed beyond their wildest expectation, so that maybe we will see more SDA-enabled speakers in all pricing categories.

I think everyone is forgetting about the length of the product lifecycle on products like the Legend series. I believe the LSiM series was announced 9 years ago. I'd expect the L800s to have a similar lifecycle. It's not like Bluetooth speakers that launch a model at CES and a new model before Christmas. They have time.

Honestly, for a big company like Sound United, reviews are going to hold more value than dealers for this initial launch period. A comparable product was the JBL L100 (and really the retro-revamp of the majority of the JBL Synthesis line). Those speakers were announced Jan 2018, taken to countless shows, advertised in all the big publications, and reviews were flowing like wild over the first 6-8 months. But you still couldn't find them anywhere for almost a year except for Harman's long term specialty installers (similar to what's happening with L800).
But the hype train was moving as the review units made their rounds while dealer and customer interest was growing.

Then Music Direct picked them up as a major ecomm vendor.
Then bigger chains of specialty dealers started to pick them up (Star Power, most places that carry Revel lines).
And now, about 18-20 months later, they are finally starting to trickle into specialty audio stores.

Give it time. If these live up to the hype, they will end up in more and more stores. Especially at their price point. It just might take a year or two to make it into places that seem like very obviously choices.

Nooshinjohn your perception of what prosource is is pretty accurate. Please don’t take what I’m saying is that they are bad in any way, it’s just there are a carrying degree of dealers many who are prosource who again aren’t candidates for this product. Furthermore if you look up avb BrandSource that is the parent buying group, prosource is designed specifically for electronics and CI channels, I got a list recently and there were dealers who were listed as prosource that by my count should be just BrandSource so the numbers can be deceiving. Again prosource equals CI and BrandSource is appliances and tvs.

DSkip up here McIntosh has hired a rep firm not too terribly long ago and trust me the protected dealers of which there were few are less than happy because the rep firm has been signing on new dealers left and right. And just this last week same thing happened with b and w but different rep firm.

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