Beware of audio equipment demonstrated with unaccompanied guitar music. No disrespect to Tommy Emmanuel, Slava Grigoryan or (hush) Andres Segovia, but unaccompanied guitar is to audio what digital animation is to screens; it’s great on anything.

Bass is always a big seller with both music and movie systems and if a speaker seems to be creating a lot of powerful bass, bass out of all proportion with its size, investigate what’s actually playing. It’s often impossible to pick where deep bass notes are coming from and a subwoofer may have been wired into the system to add the kind of kick that little speakers simply can’t achieve. If there’s a sub nearby put your hand on it to see if it’s vibrating.

Loading

The easiest trick in the audio demo book is adding volume. If salespeople are trying to steer you into a particular speaker they’ll play it louder than the others. It’s a quirk of human hearing that louder sounds better. This can also be used as a deal closer; if you’re hesitating they’ll turn up the volume and you’ll go… ahhh. The favourite closing line for a deal, by the way, is “I’ve got one of these at home.”

But the most important advice I can offer is to check prices before buying. By far the most common stitch-up I’ve seen, and I see it all the time, is pricing above the recommended retail listed on the product’s Australian website. In a major retail chain I recently spotted a DVD player marked down from $125 to $105. The RRP was $94. I was once offered a digital-to-analogue converter, RRP $549, for $920, but if I bought it then and there he offered to knock $100 off that price.

What can you do? Shop at places with the best reputations. Read the online reviews avoiding the big raves and the big whinges, which may be fake. Do your homework. Most of all exercise eternal vigilance. And if your main purchase is genuinely discounted watch the prices of the extras; they’ll likely be at full tilt.

rodeasdown.com.au