One bitter cold Saturday morning I bundled up and headed for mid-town Manhattan with Judy Rubin who works with Lisa and myself when she’s not going to high school. Judy is into the Dead and the Allmans and our destination was 45th Street, between 5th and 6th Avenues, where all the hi-fi stores are located, one next, to the other along both sides of the street. Our objective was simple: find a reasonably priced stereo system for Judy.

We’d set an upper limit of $500 on our purchases. Before shopping, Judy ;had looked through the numerous catalogs 1 keep in the house and was prepared to pass on a radio receiver (AM/FM stereo tuner) in order to get the-best basic system possible. Our first stop was Harvey Radio, /probably the biggest retail store in the city. We shuffled into Harvey’s listening room with a young salesman who identified himself as “Ritchie” and mumbled a good deal, under his breath, about Db’s and separation and wattage at eight ohms resistance. I explained that we wanted a turntable, speakers, and an amp, and that if we spent any more than five big ones we were going to be in a lot of trouble. Ritchie nodded, bit into his danish, slugged down some coffee out of a cardboard cup, and motioned towards a wall of speakers. On four shelves, from floor to ceiling, were lined up sets of speakers in various shapes and wood finishes. Judy and I went into a huddle and I told Ritchie that we'wanted a set of speakers that were good for rock music. He disappeared out of the listening room arid returned with a Chicago album.

Ritchie started fiddling with a patch board to inter-eonnect a set of speakers, amp, and turntable. I said “About five hundred dollars” and he fiddled some more. Suddenly the room was full pf horns and drums. Judy pointed at a pair of Advent speakers marked down from $120 each to $102 and Ritchie patched them in. He then showed us the Kenwood amp that was powering them. I raised an eyebrow over the top rim of my sunglasses and he reported that for about $650 it was ours. And he’d throw in the cartridge for free. I moved the other eyebrow up into view and he reported that there was a less powerful Kenwood amp that would do the job just as well and would bring the whole system price down about $150.

Well, it sounded good, but we said we’d-think about it and left. I haven’t bought any hi-fi equipment for a couple of years but J saw quickly I hadn’t missed a thing; salesmen were still into the old rip-off game, trying to sell JBX speakers (no relation, either in sound or manufacture to the excellent JBL’s), Kamikazi amplifiers, and other items that were guaranteed to work for at least a month or so. And the looks we got when we shook our heads and said we’d like to stick to name brands — like we’d just pissed all over their shoes or something.

Six stores later I was beginning to get the idea. We had two choices: either we bought a Kenwood amp with a pair of Advents or a Dynaco amp with Dynaco speakers (recombining Kenwood with Dynaco or Dynaco with Advent didn’t sound as good). That was it, plus a Dual turntable — the cheapest one they make. If we got any fancier we’d have to get into time payments for two or three years. Leaving a trail of exasperated salesmen in our wake (“Look kid, we got these speakers made just for us and they’re the best for rock,” was the typical comment for a 55 year old potential coronary as he put 101 Strings Play The Theme From Shaft on a turntable.), we finally decided to go back to Ritchie and beg him to sell us the Kenwood/Advent/Dual system. He agreed and Judy is now at home playing her Dead albums.

Me, I’m not so happy. What's going on in the hi fl biz? Buying a stereo system these days is as traumatic as buying your first house. And as far as all the wonderful things you see in the ads in the magazines, well I’d like to know where they keep them in the stores, like the new AR rock speakers. (I found one pair, not hooked up, and die salesman told me to come back in a month or two when they got some speaker wire.)

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REWIRE YOURSELF

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The truth is that home entertainment electronics, at the retail levels is still a business run by slobs. It’s, real Americana, chauvinistic, rip-off oriented, where the consumer has to do more than just beware — he or she has to be warned that the concept of value for money doesn’t exist. Even Ritchie, nice as he was to take our money, wasn’t above trying to sell me a stereo cartridge that was a piece of shit — after all he was throwing it in “free.” I managed to get him to change it to a Shure M44E — about half the price of his freebie at retail ^ although he kept looking at me like I was strange.

The manufacturers of electronics equipment have to oversee the sales of that equipment. They understand that if two billion dollars worth of records are sold every year and about eighty percent of those records are purchased by folks under 30, then those must be the folks who buy record players to play those records. Retail outlets haven’t gotten that far yet. Judy and I would have been just as happy to buy any of the other big name brands, but a) we couldn’t find them and b) if we did run across them either the salesman didn’t think they were “right” for us or the prices were astronomical.

And I don’t want any of you manufacturers writing me letters because of this column telling me that if I’d just bought your system A208 for only $375 I’d have the best in rock and roll. Tell that to the people who sell your equipment.