On a whim, I went to Audiophile San Marcelino on my way home at about 6:30 tonight. I wasn't looking for anything in particular. I just thought I'd check the place out and find out if they have anything interesting. I was browsing for about 20 minutes and none of the half a dozen personnel or so went through the trouble of approaching me to ask if they could be of help.
Finally, I decided to ask this guy who was sitting behind a desk and obviously making a personal call on the store phone. He hung up right away when he saw that I was waiting for him. So, I told him that I wanted to see his connectors, He brings me to this cabinet and shows me some really low-end stuff. He thought I was looking for RCA cables for interconnects. However, I asked to look at some old stock Quantum bananas. He then tells me, rather exasperratingly, that these were banana plugs, and not RCAs. I felt like telling him: of course these are bananas, how stupid do you think I am? And since he wanted to show me the RCAs anyway, I asked him if he had any good audio interconnects.
So he leads me to another cabinet and shows me an old, worn-out (read: opened package) of a pair of Monster Interlink 200s. Also, a pair of US Audio Pros, which I frown upon. He then tells me that he's not sure if the Monsters still work. He connects them to the audio set-up that was near by, and in the process, one of the connectors gets plucked out of the cable. I told him to forget it, as he had the gall to sell me defective stuff.
In any case, I ask him if he had any good cables for custom-making. By this time, I think that he sensed that I wasn't going to be buying anything (but don't blame me....his merchandise was terrible), and all of a sudden he became lazy enough to just lead me to a part of the store where the cables were displayed. He didn't care to explain any of the cables to me. He just pointed out two Japanese made spools of wire. Obviously, he was no longer interested in helping out a potential customer. He turned his attention elsewhere. He turned his back on me and started making small talk with the other sales people in the store. He probably would have left his post if I didn't sternly ask him a couple more questions, to which he had no eager answers. What a jackass he turned out to be.
Good thing I didn't get his name. Or his manager would have heard from me.
The only saving grace of this overrated store was the security guard, who took the effort in helping me back out from a very cramped parking space onto a terribly busy San Marcelino.
As I left, I thought to myself. I had visited this store several times in the past (a couple of years ago), particularly when I was setting up my audio system. Now I remember why I never bought anything from Audiophile. The salesmanship sucks. I'll take my business elsewhere anytime.
I wasted a whole hour tonight.
