Hi,

I moved to from Europe to Canada about 4 years ago and I have to say that their is a huge difference in styles between North-America and europe. I work as an interior designer doing both residential and commercial projects that go well into Northern US.

As said before in this thread it is true that taste is relative and by default (a lot) more traditional in Northern America. B&O is mostly known here by the super rich here where money is no object. Do not forget they have more and sometimes better options available here in that respect.

It's also probably why B&O is deciding to go further into home automation here in order to secure their market share. This market that has sustained B&O well over the past decades is now in turmoil and it's effects must be felt undeniably by B&O.

Also the lack of the dealer (I can only speak of my local dealer) to help owners of older equipment is remarkable. I do fall in the 40 yr old catagory and should be considered a possible client and maybe I should start to dress like a hugely overpaid ceo when I visit my local store, cause when I go there I feel like an intruder each time. I have to beg them for some information as they are always 'too busy' doing nothing (surfing on the web).  A total letdown experience.  If you're not interested in spending more than 10000$, it's more of cash and carry kind of deal, and never mind the snooty service ..

I hope it changes soon as alot of people will drop B&O over this.

A couple of experiences... bought a Beosound 3 from a US ebayer. The price was ok, at the time, not too much competition. The player started to get wonky (technical term) and decided to bring it in to the local dealer. They scanned the serial and questioned why I had a EUR model. Anyways, paid for the diagnostics and surprisingly, the dealer pushed head office to cover it under warranty.

Bought a BL3500 from another ebayer, customs decided to 'see' what was inside of the case (hoping to find a stinger missile) and attempted to open the end of the speaker with a flathead, failing that, they dented the cover and one of the speakers. Took it to the dealer, and had it all fixed (for a few hundred $s).

 I rarely wear suits, so 90% of the time, I walk into the store wearing jeans....

It sounds like you have a much better dealer in your area than I do.

I am still waiting for the second beolab 5 box (I received the first one more than a month ago).  I got notice yesterday that the second box was accidently shipped to Canada so who knows when the second box will eventually show up.  I ended up transporting the speakers one by one with my single box about 45 minutes each way by car.  At least my listening experience is making up for all the dealer hassle so far.

It's disappointing to hear that there a few dealers like this. I have been in B&O stores in Europe, the US, Australia and Singapore. I too have come across the occasional rude and arrogant dealer before. Each time I swiftly leave the store.

I think it is natural for a dealer to make a quick judgement of each person who walks through the door. I do not think this is bad, so long as their judgement is not made visible in any way.

Returning to the initial topic of this thread however, I remember being told by a B&O employee that in the US many more vision products are sold than audio products.

In the states, a B&O connoissieur such as myself is a rarity. A great majority of people in America often go through life without ever hearing a B&O product. Its quite depressing. When someone hears the name for the first time they often think it is a dirty joke of some sort. I think this awful mentality and lack of recognition really disadvantages the brand. I think another big part of the problem is the scarcity of dealers and their nearly minimal advertisment.

Actually B&O's target market in the US is usually persons between age 30 and 50 who do use the internet. However generalizations about age just don't always work.  I am past 50 and have used computers and the internet for a long time.  I am also the one who in previous posts talks about the coming of the day when the CD players will be regarded like the turntable.....charming but out of date.

I would like the idea of a store like Lifstyle AV in the US but probably only one store will work maybe in the New York area.  Since I am planning on upgrading to Beolab 5's and maybe Beosound 5 this year, I will have some older B&O items to sell.  I dread putting items on ebay due to the hassle.  Being a buyer is easier than being a seller.  It would be nice to send everything to a Livestyle store to do the selling. 

Hi,

I totally agree about having a store like lifestyle AV in the US.

You can always list on this forum what you want to sell...

I live in Montreal, Canada now and secondhand B&O items are very hard to find here.

EBAY is my only option though not a lot of US ebayers seem to want to ship to Canada.... I am constantly looking to complement my existing set-up and I loose out on alot of deals because of that.

It would be nice to have a secondhand store, or have the offical shops with a preowned section. I have seen many shops in Europe that take trade-ins and sell the used equipment. That would be great.

As much as I am wary of ebay, I have done ok buying / selling there. I won my Avant on ebay, and it turned out to be a few blocks from my house, so that was very lucky. Something that may be useful would be to use the sales forum on the site and preface the subject with USA or CAN (or MEX, etc) so we can easily identify North American items. Every now and then something from the US pops up in the sales forum, but it takes some digging to know the location.