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  1. #1
    Class of the clown GMichael's Avatar
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    Martin Logans at Best Buy???

    I stopped at a Best Buy yesterday. Just out of curiosity I wanted to see what they were selling in their HT room. As soon as I walked in I spotted a speaker that looked just like a Martin Logan. I told my wife, "look, those look like Martin Logans! When did Best Buy start selling these?" OK, I guess I had this coming. She gave me the look, the one that says, I don't know, or care, what your talking about. So I went back to looking at the speakers. Yes, in fact they were Martin Logans, the Clarity line. They want 1399.00 for them.
    I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Did Best Buy pick up the Martin Logan line? Did they maybe take them in as a trade in for a set of Bose? What's going on here? Where's the camera?
    WARNING! - The Surgeon General has determined that, time spent listening to music is not deducted from one's lifespan.

  2. #2
    Forum Regular anamorphic96's Avatar
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    Magnalia sells Martin Logan and is owned by Best Buy. So who knows what might be happening. Could be a new line from Martin Logan though. Do you see any construction or renovations going on. They might be adding a Magnolia room. I also notice they are selling the Denon 2.1 HT set up. But it seems to be the only Denon product they sell. Might just be testing the waters with ML.

  3. #3
    Forum Regular paul_pci's Avatar
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    Man, where you been? We've had a number of threads about Best Buy and stand alone or in-store Magnolia stores and the implications of integrating higher end products into a mass market space and what it means to have 19 yr. old morons trying to answer complicated product specifications problems, etc.

  4. #4
    Class of the clown GMichael's Avatar
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    Oh, here and there. Mostly there I guess.
    I heard about Denon going the way of Best Buy. But I didn't know about ML. Seems like a whole new level to me.
    WARNING! - The Surgeon General has determined that, time spent listening to music is not deducted from one's lifespan.

  5. #5
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    Yeah the magnolia in my BB also sells Vienna Acoustic speakers and some others as well. As far as recievers they sell more than just denon, off the top of my head they are also selling pioneer elite. Its been awhile since I was in there but I do remember these.
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  6. #6
    Class of the clown GMichael's Avatar
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    Yeah, they had some top Elite's and Denon's lined up in the HT room. Still no projectors though. That's what I was hoping to find.
    WARNING! - The Surgeon General has determined that, time spent listening to music is not deducted from one's lifespan.

  7. #7
    Super Moderator Site Moderator JohnMichael's Avatar
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    The only high end audio store in my city closed. To think I may have to stop in to BB and see what they have. What is this world coming to!
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  8. #8
    Forum Regular Woochifer's Avatar
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    That sounds like a Magnolia Home Theater ministore got added to your local Best Buy. They're relatively new on the east coast. Magnolia's a long-time Seattle-based audio retailer that BB bought out four years ago. Their product lines include Martin Logan, REL, Sonus Faber, Krell, Pro-Ject, McIntosh, Vienna, Boston, Def Tech, Primare, B&K, M&K, Denon, Marantz, Sony ES, and Pioneer Elite. The ministores carry a small portion of what the stand-alone Magnolia stores carry (the higher end stuff from Martin Logan and Krell, and most of their two-channel products are not sold at the Best Buy locations), and they have a dedicated sales staff (more experienced and wear button-downs and ties rather than blue polo shirts). They were test marketed in California early last year, and apparently it was successful enough to roll out the concept in most of their California stores and start taking it national.

  9. #9
    Class of the clown GMichael's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JohnMichael
    The only high end audio store in my city closed. To think I may have to stop in to BB and see what they have. What is this world coming to!
    What's the world coming too? What's next, Maggies at Walmart?
    WARNING! - The Surgeon General has determined that, time spent listening to music is not deducted from one's lifespan.

  10. #10
    Listener MikeyBC's Avatar
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    Origionally posted by GMichael
    What's the world coming too? What's next, Maggies at Walmart?
    Gee...that would be nice to see...maybe that would get the general public to start caring about sound quality again and give the high end market a kickstart. Lots of people have the money but are ignorant about quality audio.
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  11. #11
    Class of the clown GMichael's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by MikeyBC
    Gee...that would be nice to see...maybe that would get the general public to start caring about sound quality again and give the high end market a kickstart. Lots of people have the money but are ignorant about quality audio.
    The general public is ignorant? When did this happen? You mean there is a good reason for Bic to put a warning on their lighters saying to make sure that the flame is out before you put it back in your pocket?
    WARNING! - The Surgeon General has determined that, time spent listening to music is not deducted from one's lifespan.

  12. #12
    Listener MikeyBC's Avatar
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    I mean ignorant about good audio...seems most people (people that dont know this site exists) out there listen to music through York rack systems or a JVC all in one system with 4 bass ports in the speakers. they all seem to think that this is good enough, and the worst part of it is that a lot of recording engineers mix the recordings opitmized for these junk systems that the majority of people own. People need to know that there is better and that it does make a difference. Most people I know think that MP3's are CD quality. The fact is the an the average MP3 file contains about 10-15% of the original data that the CD had.
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  13. #13
    Forum Regular Woochifer's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by GMichael
    What's the world coming too? What's next, Maggies at Walmart?
    Well, it's not exactly the same thing given how much off-brand stuff Wal-Mart carries. You might not have noticed, but over the past three years, Best Buy has moved away from the no-name bargain basement stuff. They've been gradually adding more midmarket items, and the addition of the Magnolia ministores pushes their product range well into the higher end of the middle market.

  14. #14
    Forum Regular paul_pci's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Woochifer
    Well, it's not exactly the same thing given how much off-brand stuff Wal-Mart carries. You might not have noticed, but over the past three years, Best Buy has moved away from the no-name bargain basement stuff. They've been gradually adding more midmarket items, and the addition of the Magnolia ministores pushes their product range well into the higher end of the middle market.
    Maybe for us in CA they can make up for what we're losing in the midrange audio market with the loss of Good Guys.

  15. #15
    Forum Regular Woochifer's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by MikeyBC
    I mean ignorant about good audio...seems most people (people that dont know this site exists) out there listen to music through York rack systems or a JVC all in one system with 4 bass ports in the speakers. they all seem to think that this is good enough, and the worst part of it is that a lot of recording engineers mix the recordings opitmized for these junk systems that the majority of people own. People need to know that there is better and that it does make a difference. Most people I know think that MP3's are CD quality. The fact is the an the average MP3 file contains about 10-15% of the original data that the CD had.
    I don't think that practice of optimizing recordings for the prevailing playback systems is all that new. I remember reading about how in the 50s, Buck Owen was one of the first recording artists to purposely mix his records so that they would standout properly when broadcast over AM radio. Rock recordings in the 70s were largely monitored thru JBL studio monitors, and sounded optimal when played through big bassy floorstanding speakers. By the late-80s, the prevailing playback systems had morphed into car audio systems and sub/sat systems.

    If you think about it, the mass market has never been about sound quality first -- it really about price point and convenience. Just think about how those all-in-one compact systems (with those BSR record changers dropped into the top of the cabinet) or boom boxes or suitcase-like record changers with the detachable speakers, etc. sounded. I think that the average MP3 player or mini system will deliver far better sound quality than those entry level systems of yore.

    And MP3 CAN sound as good as CD if you bump the bitrate high enough. However, most files are encoded at 128k, which is definitely inferior sounding.

  16. #16
    Forum Regular Woochifer's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by paul_pci
    Maybe for us in CA they can make up for what we're losing in the midrange audio market with the loss of Good Guys.
    In a way, the entry of Magnolia and Tweeter into the California market over the last few years is the major reason why Good Guys! is going out of business.

  17. #17
    RGA
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    This is where the bucks are -- I have a cynical view of what these companies are carrying but if I look at the more positive side of it I could say that this is a good thing and that the public may finally be expecting better and demanding more than Bose and JBL. So in this regard the higher avilability of better product lines is a blessing. The only thing that could cause a concern for Martin logan is that they probably were driopped or will be dropped by the small high end stores because the last thing they want is to sell the same stuff as Best Buy. If in a few years the sales of their lines diminishes then Best Buy (which owns Future Shop in Canada) may dictate price to ML. They have done it before. They may say well ML you have model X for $3k but we need to sell it for $1200.00 to sell enough of them to meet our shareholders interested. So ML either pulls out (but the high end dealers say go fly a kite we found a replacement) or they cheap out and build it to $1200.00 -- then they probably sound like crap as a result (and they are not exactly free of obvious sonic issues). A dealer here dropped them simply because many who really are audiophiles find them impossibly difficult to sound right in normal listening spaces -- buyers of MP3 at Best Buy probably don't know the difference and hey they look cool so why not.

    I doubt if this will work in the long run -- though it did for Polk Audio which was a fringe high end seller and then were basically forced due to terrible sales to get out of the boutique stores and into Future Shop -- and They proved me wrong in that they're still in business.

    totem has done the same thing here in Canada -- When you sell 6 pairs of speakers in an entire year at the upper scale store where competition is very veyr stiff - you pretty much have to go to A&B Sound where all you have to do is impress people against Bose and Energy. And even then I bet they sell less Totem than those two by a huge margin. Seeing the Totem line drop in price 30%-40% in one year is noteworthy. The company has now brought out several new lines, cheaper speakers, to not give this impression.

    Still thank heaven that those box chains will be carrying something remotely decent and that is a good thing.

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