Martin Logans at Best Buy???

[GMichael]

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?

[anamorphic96]

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.

[paul_pci]

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.

[GMichael]

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.

[HAVIC]

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.

[GMichael]

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.

[Woochifer]

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.