Best Buy/Magnolia close-out deals.....

[LeRoy]

I strolled into my local Best Buy/Magnolia store earlier this afternoon and saw the entire line of Vienna Acoustics out of the showrooms and hugely discounted on the general floor area inside Magnolia. Also whatever remnants of the Mirage line were discounted and Klipsch was no where in sight. B&W is now getting the playing time in the Magnolia along with Martin Logan.

[Mr Peabody]

If you ever heard the Vienna you'd know why they were dumping them. Well, I doubt if that's really why, they probably don't have that much integrity.

[winston]

I strolled into my local Best Buy/Magnolia store earlier this afternoon and saw the entire line of Vienna Acoustics out of the showrooms and hugely discounted on the general floor area inside Magnolia. Also whatever remnants of the Mirage line were discounted and Klipsch was no where in sight. B&W is now getting the playing time in the Magnolia along with Martin Logan.

hi Leroy, same happening over here in the south, since the arrival of the B&W (Magnolia literally kick out the Vienna Acoustics,Energy and "as you the mentioned remnants of the Mirage line, we have lots of (best buy) from Miami to palm beach county

) I said kick out, because that's exactly what it was they were staged close to the front doors and in the middle of the stores drastically mark down! the Vienna Acoustics Mozart grand, the newest model with the dual 6" mid bass, they were $599 each, some were brand new in the box. other eye catchers were Pioneer Elite SC 25 & 27 $8 & $900 respectively.

[LeRoy]

If you ever heard the Vienna you'd know why they were dumping them. Well, I doubt if that's really why, they probably don't have that much integrity.

About 3 years ago I heard an Arcam integrated with the Vienna Acoustic Hayden and it was just okay to my ears. I thought the Hayden's were greatly overpriced, $1200/pr, at the time. I still think the Usher S-520's are a better speaker and only cost $400/pr. Of course, the MS 902i's blow them both away

[LeRoy]

hi Leroy, same happening over here in the south, since the arrival of the B&W (Magnolia literally kick out the Vienna Acoustics,Energy and "as you the mentioned remnants of the Mirage line, we have lots of (best buy) from Miami to palm beach county

) I said kick out, because that's exactly what it was they were staged close to the front doors and in the middle of the stores drastically mark down! the Vienna Acoustics Mozart grand, the newest model with the dual 6" mid bass, they were $599 each, some were brand new in the box. other eye catchers were Pioneer Elite SC 25 & 27 $8 & $900 respectively.

Ya, the Hayden demo pair was sitting on a table, $535/pr. I still think thats too much for them and had they been in the $250/pr price range then I probably would have snagged them up on impulse. I did not see any Pioneer on close out but then again I was only concentrating on the V.A.

[Mr Peabody]

Hey, don't worry about my feelings. I realize we all like different gear. Frenchmon and I were touring around a couple stores and neither of us thought much of the Vienna. We heard the pair that cost $3k. Nice to look at but not much to listen to.

If I had any room at all I'd love to snag a pair of Martin Logan on a close out. I saw a used pair of Scenario for $900.00, great price just no where to put them.

[thekid]

Hmmm..... the local Target takes unsold,opened returns or slightly damaged merchandise to one of the local Goodwills. Maybe I can convince someone over at the Magnolia store to do the same.........

[Patrick Butler]

If you ever heard the Vienna you'd know why they were dumping them. Well, I doubt if that's really why, they probably don't have that much integrity.

Mr. Peabody,

You are right, the real story is a bit different than you expect. Back in September we terminated our Distributor in North America of 15 years and decided that we wanted to take a different approach with Vienna Acoustics in North America. That different approach involved working exclusively with specialty retailers and necessitated that we end our relationship with Best Buy and Magnolia Home Theater. There are many fantastic people in their organization who walk integrity every day, and I've enjoyed working with them.

I'll tell you a little about integrity. Vienna Acoustics is a small company, and we have employees including myself who depend on the right long term decisions being made so we can put bread on the table. Being conservative financially meant that we could afford to make the long term decision to walk away from the enormous chunk of change that Best Buy/Magnolia Home Theater represents in order to focus on the future. That's integrity.

Best wishes,

Patrick Butler
Vienna Acoustics- North America

[Mr Peabody]

P Butler, My comment about integrity was more toward Best Buy. If what you say is true about Vienna I have to wonder why your speakers were there in the first place.

The way things are going no one can really fault a speaker company for selling in a larger store as long as the product was presented correctly. Independent specialty shops seem to be disappearing and the main market isn't 2-channel any more.

Is there any brand of gear Vienna Acoustics like to be driven with?

[Mr Peabody]

PS, Patrick, thanks for taking the time to post.

[Patrick Butler]

Dear Mr. Peabody,

Vienna Acoustics presence in Best Buy/Magnolia Home Theater can largely be attributed to Sumiko, the former Distributor of Vienna Acoustics. I can't fault the decision as it made a great deal of sense at the time and Sumiko was an integral part of training the huge number of salespeople. The concept was to take what made Magnolia Audio Video special (people, place, products, service) and to drop this inside of a select number of Best Buy stores nationwide. The shear number of customers who walk through a Best Buy store in any given week would guarantee foot traffic in the MHT stores and lead to business because of all of the hard work training people on the front end. The cost in time and money to pull off this relationship with Best Buy was huge commitment, and Sumiko did a fantastic job.

The majority of the independent stores that are left this far into the recession are going to be in business next year and the year after. However, there are still nowhere near as many specialist as there are generalist. Many have gone out of business over the years or migrating from offering only 2 channel to custom integration. It's a tough business to be in, and I don't think most customers understand how small the profitability is for these businesses. All the same, there are big opportunities for us in this marketplace because I think people want to be treated special and own special things in their life. That's where we come in.

Best wishes,

Patrick Butler
Vienna Acoustics- North America