why are salesmen such idiots?

[SEVEN SEVILLE]

Looking for an MP3 player for my recently acquired truck I went to the local
electronics store which shall remain nameless. I asked the the car stereo guy
(just last week he was working the television department) about MP3 players and
he showed me a few and told me all this riff raff and suggested that I would be
happier with XM radio. I was like WTF, i outta just stick with the stock AM/FM
that's in there right now. Not much difference between XM and FM you know,
they even had a sample in the showroom and you can hear the compression
artyfacts.

Does any of you own an car MP3 player?

Who makes it?
How much did it cost?
How well does it play MP3's?
How does the FM tuner come in?

 

[Joseph Oberlander]

Looking for an MP3 player for my recently acquired truck I went to the local
electronics store which shall remain nameless. I asked the the car stereo guy
(just last week he was working the television department) about MP3 players and
he showed me a few and told me all this riff raff and suggested that I would be
happier with XM radio. I was like WTF, i outta just stick with the stock AM/FM
that's in there right now. Not much difference between XM and FM you know,
they even had a sample in the showroom and you can hear the compression
artyfacts.

Does any of you own an car MP3 player?

Who makes it?
How much did it cost?
How well does it play MP3's?
How does the FM tuner come in?

Kenwood makes a whole line of good MP3 capable players without
satellite radio. They work very well in fact.

 

[Tim H.]

Looking for an MP3 player for my recently acquired truck I went to the local
electronics store which shall remain nameless. I asked the the car stereo guy
(just last week he was working the television department) about MP3 players and
he showed me a few and told me all this riff raff and suggested that I would be
happier with XM radio. I was like WTF, i outta just stick with the stock AM/FM
that's in there right now. Not much difference between XM and FM you know,
they even had a sample in the showroom and you can hear the compression
artyfacts.

Hmm, interestin thing about compression. I understand you're not interested
in XM, but I have to "rant." I picked up my XM radio a year or so ago. It
was Alpine's XMA-T200RF unit. It came with an FM modulator to make it
co-exist with stock systems easier. I, too, could hear the compression
artifacts. I believe some stations are dynamically allocated bandwidth and
suffer from compression less.

Anyways, I decided to crack open the XM receiver and tap into the line
outputs (that go to the modulator) and run them to my stereo. It could be a
placebo effect, but it sounded better. Going direct got rid of the FM
bandwidth limitations. Again, this could be purely subjective, but I didn't
notice the compression artifacts as much.

Just my two quid,

-Tim

 

[Jerry G.]

You can get car radios that are FM/AM/CD that will play MP3's. The one in
my car will do all of these but not play MP3's. There are many models of
cars being sold with standard FM/AM/CD car radios that will play MP3's. MP3
is just another standard that requires its own type of decoding. Many of the
new CD and DVD players for home use will play MP3's.

As for the satellite radio, I would not want this myself. I like to hear the
local news and traffic reports when going around. I also like our local
rock and jazz stations. With XM radio, you pay and just get music. Because
of the quality of most of these radios, and the way that they compress the
signals, I found them to have some artefacts to my perception when
listening. I personally would not go to the bother of doing a detailed test
on one of these. Another thing, in my personal opinion, I don't think the
subscription fees for satellite radio are worth for what I would be getting.
For the amount of time that a person spends in their car, or even to listen
to radio at home, I think these fees can be put for something more useful.

--

Where you went for your radio, I have to say that the salesman is not really
an idiot, if you know what I mean. He wants to make his commissions. He
probably gets paid mainly on his sales. If he can sell you a subscription
for the XM service, he and his employer will have a continuous commission
for each month your are paying for a period of up to 1 year (from what I
have read).

Many of these services pay the vendor a commission for the sale, and then a
commission for each month that the subscriber stays with his plan. This is
how it works over here with the sales of satellite TV and telephone
services. I the area where I am located, our telephone company pays the
vendor about $15 for each contract subscription that they sell. They then
get about 3% up to about 10%, depending on the type of contract of sale, of
the subscriber's payments for up to one year as commission of sale. The
dealers usually split this with the employee who did the sale. I know of
some salesmen who have many hundreds of these types of sales under them.
They are making a good income from this alone.

I have seen situations where the salesmen will lie about the availability of
a product, because he wants to make a bigger commission from the one that
the already has. Or, he does not have the one you want in stock, and he is
too anxious to sell you another type that he has in stock.

In your case, I am very sure that the salesman wants to suck you in to
taking the services so that he can make extra cash for himself, and have
more points from his employer. If he is the owner or a partner in the
establishment, he probably even makes more for himself. There are many
stores where I will not go in to because of the pressure to buy from them.
They come after you like hungry dogs!

When purchasing at any store, make sure that you understand their return
policy. This is important in case you buy something, and you are not happy
with it. Always check out a number of places for the same type of item
before putting down your money for it. Carefully compare prices and options
available for what you are buying.

--

Greetings,

Jerry Greenberg GLG Technologies GLG
=========================================
WebPage http://www.zoom-one.com
Electronics http://www.zoom-one.com/electron.htm
=========================================


Looking for an MP3 player for my recently acquired truck I went to the local
electronics store which shall remain nameless. I asked the the car stereo
guy
(just last week he was working the television department) about MP3 players
and
he showed me a few and told me all this riff raff and suggested that I would
be
happier with XM radio. I was like WTF, i outta just stick with the stock
AM/FM
that's in there right now. Not much difference between XM and FM you know,
they even had a sample in the showroom and you can hear the compression
artyfacts.

Does any of you own an car MP3 player?

Who makes it?
How much did it cost?
How well does it play MP3's?
How does the FM tuner come in?

 

[Jerry G.]

You can get car radios that are FM/AM/CD that will play MP3's. The one in
my car will do all of these but not play MP3's. There are many models of
cars being sold with standard FM/AM/CD car radios that will now play MP3's.
MP3
is just another standard that requires its own type of decoding. Many of the
new CD and DVD players for home use will play MP3's.

As for the satellite radio, I would not want this myself. I like to hear the
local news and traffic reports when going around. I also like our local
rock and jazz stations. With XM radio, you pay and just get music. Because
of the quality of most of these radios, and the way that they compress the
signals, I found them to have some artefacts to my perception when
listening. I personally would not go to the bother of doing a detailed test
on one of these. Another thing, in my personal opinion, I don't think the
subscription fees for satellite radio are worth for what I would be getting.
For the amount of time that a person spends in their car, or even to listen
to radio at home, I think these fees can be put for something more useful.

--

Where you went for your radio, I have to say that the salesman is not really
an idiot, if you know what I mean. He wants to make his commissions. He
probably gets paid mainly on his sales. If he can sell you a subscription
for the XM service, he and his employer will have a continuous commission
for each month your are paying for a period of up to 1 year (from what I
have read).

Many of these services pay the vendor a commission for the sale, and then a
commission for each month that the subscriber stays with his plan. This is
how it works over here with the sales of satellite TV and telephone
services. I the area where I am located, our telephone company pays the
vendor about $15 for each contract subscription that they sell. They then
get about 3% up to about 10%, depending on the type of contract of sale, of
the subscriber's payments for up to one year as commission of sale. The
dealers usually split this with the employee who did the sale. I know of
some salesmen who have many hundreds of these types of sales under them.
They are making a good income from this alone.

I have seen situations where the salesmen will lie about the availability of
a product, because he wants to make a bigger commission from the one that
the already has. Or, he does not have the one you want in stock, and he is
too anxious to sell you another type that he has in stock.

In your case, I am very sure that the salesman wants to suck you in to
taking the services so that he can make extra cash for himself, and have
more points from his employer. If he is the owner or a partner in the
establishment, he probably even makes more for himself. There are many
stores where I will not go in to because of the pressure to buy from them.
They come after you like hungry dogs!

When purchasing at any store, make sure that you understand their return
policy. This is important in case you buy something, and you are not happy
with it. Always check out a number of places for the same type of item
before putting down your money for it. Carefully compare prices and options
available for what you are buying.

--

Greetings,

Jerry Greenberg GLG Technologies GLG
=========================================
WebPage http://www.zoom-one.com
Electronics http://www.zoom-one.com/electron.htm
=========================================


Looking for an MP3 player for my recently acquired truck I went to the local
electronics store which shall remain nameless. I asked the the car stereo
guy
(just last week he was working the television department) about MP3 players
and
he showed me a few and told me all this riff raff and suggested that I would
be
happier with XM radio. I was like WTF, i outta just stick with the stock
AM/FM
that's in there right now. Not much difference between XM and FM you know,
they even had a sample in the showroom and you can hear the compression
artyfacts.

Does any of you own an car MP3 player?

Who makes it?
How much did it cost?
How well does it play MP3's?
How does the FM tuner come in?

 

[ReEfErMaDnEsS]

why not grab a Nomad Zen player and a $20 FM modulator?

 

[michael turner]

Looking for an MP3 player for my recently acquired truck I went to the
local electronics store which shall remain nameless. I asked the the car
stereo guy (just last week he was working the television department) about
MP3 players and he showed me a few and told me all this riff raff and
suggested that I would be happier with XM radio. I was like WTF, i outta
just stick with the stock AM/FM that's in there right now. Not much
difference between XM and FM you know, they even had a sample in the
showroom and you can hear the compression artyfacts.

Does any of you own an car MP3 player?

Who makes it?
How much did it cost?
How well does it play MP3's?
How does the FM tuner come in?

All I do to play my MP3s in the company car is, I just burn them onto
CDRWs as audio-CDs (the Ford CD-player that's fitted, plays CDRWs OK).
When I'm tired of the selections, I just re-format the CDRW and start
again.

 

[(remove)sound]

You can get car radios that are FM/AM/CD that will play MP3's. The one in
my car will do all of these but not play MP3's. There are many models of
cars being sold with standard FM/AM/CD car radios that will play MP3's. MP3
is just another standard that requires its own type of decoding. Many of the
new CD and DVD players for home use will play MP3's.

As for the satellite radio, I would not want this myself. I like to hear the
local news and traffic reports when going around. I also like our local
rock and jazz stations. With XM radio, you pay and just get music. Because
of the quality of most of these radios, and the way that they compress the
signals, I found them to have some artefacts to my perception when
listening. I personally would not go to the bother of doing a detailed test
on one of these. Another thing, in my personal opinion, I don't think the
subscription fees for satellite radio are worth for what I would be getting.
For the amount of time that a person spends in their car, or even to listen
to radio at home, I think these fees can be put for something more useful.

Personally, i do not own one and would not pay for a subscription.
BUT, there are many people who spend a lot of time in there cars where
it would be beneficial. A few trucking companies i do work for have
these in there cross country trucks. Going across the mountains, radio
sucks. The XM works. They love it. Is it for everybody? NO.
It would be good for background music in commercial establishments too.
(rights issues aside)

Bob

 

[Kirstin Cogdill]

Looking for an MP3 player for my recently acquired truck I went to the local
electronics store which shall remain nameless. I asked the the car stereo guy
(just last week he was working the television department) about MP3 players and
he showed me a few and told me all this riff raff and suggested that I would be
happier with XM radio. I was like WTF, i outta just stick with the stock AM/FM
that's in there right now. Not much difference between XM and FM you know,
they even had a sample in the showroom and you can hear the compression
artyfacts.

Does any of you own an car MP3 player?

Who makes it?
How much did it cost?
How well does it play MP3's?
How does the FM tuner come in?

Can't a salesman give you some advice without you getting all huffy about
it?

 

[michael turner]

Personally, i do not own one and would not pay for a subscription. BUT,
there are many people who spend a lot of time in there cars where it would
be beneficial. A few trucking companies i do work for have these in there
cross country trucks. Going across the mountains, radio sucks. The XM
works. They love it. Is it for everybody? NO.

Here in the UK we have a free digital radio service, this is terrestrial
based rather than satellite. Gives about 40 stations, some of them are
pure-music (with some commercials), no DJs, no spoken-word.

It would be good for
background music in commercial establishments too. (rights issues aside)

I thought commercial establishments stateside already had a commercial
satellite music service, DMX: www.dmxmusic.com. They tried DMX here in the
UK via cable a few years ago, but the company went bust.

 

[dave weil]

Here in the UK we have a free digital radio service, this is terrestrial
based rather than satellite. Gives about 40 stations, some of them are
pure-music (with some commercials), no DJs, no spoken-word.

Don't you guys pay a radio license fee as you do for TV? I'm pretty
sure that in Germany, they do and they sort of operate on the same
paradigm as you do. I could be wrong about this, but I seem to
remember having to choose TV or TV/Radio when submitting the proper
paperwork.

I think that a commercial account would be covered in terms of rights.
It would be built into rental.

 

[michael turner]

Don't you guys pay a radio license fee as you do for TV?

Nope the radio license got abolished in the early '60s. We still have to
buy TV licenses however, this is used to fund the BBC, this includes BBC
national and local radio stations which are commercial free. BBC TV is
also commercial free.

I'm pretty sure
that in Germany, they do and they sort of operate on the same paradigm as
you do.

AFAIK most of Western Europe has some sort of TV licensing system, usually
to fund the national broadcaster.

I could be wrong about this, but I seem to remember having to
choose TV or TV/Radio when submitting the proper paperwork.

The license choice here is a Black & White (monochrome) or Colour TV
license, and it's been like that since the late '60s.
http://www.tv-l.co.uk/

I think that a commercial account would be covered in terms of rights.
It would be built into rental.

Yup it's the same with pay-TV satellite/cable here.
www.sky.com
www.telewest.co.uk
www.ntl.co.uk

 

[Richard Crowley]

"Kirstin Cogdill" wrote ...

Can't a salesman give you some advice without you
getting all huffy about it?

Would YOU take sound/audio "advice" from someone who was
flipping burgers last week?

Redirection (from MP3 to XM) is always suspicious behavior.
Was he not listening to the customer? Did he not know what MP3
is? Is there a big spiff on selling XM this week?

 

[dave weil]

Nope the radio license got abolished in the early '60s. We still have to
buy TV licenses however, this is used to fund the BBC, this includes BBC
national and local radio stations which are commercial free. BBC TV is
also commercial free.


AFAIK most of Western Europe has some sort of TV licensing system, usually
to fund the national broadcaster.


The license choice here is a Black & White (monochrome) or Colour TV
license, and it's been like that since the late '60s.
http://www.tv-l.co.uk/

Thanks for the info.

 

[ec]

Looking for an MP3 player for my recently acquired truck I went to the local
electronics store which shall remain nameless. I asked the the car stereo guy
(just last week he was working the television department) about MP3 players and
he showed me a few and told me all this riff raff and suggested that I would be
happier with XM radio. I was like WTF, i outta just stick with the stock AM/FM
that's in there right now. Not much difference between XM and FM you know,
they even had a sample in the showroom and you can hear the compression
artyfacts.

Does any of you own an car MP3 player?

Who makes it?
How much did it cost?
How well does it play MP3's?
How does the FM tuner come in?

Alpine 98 series. I have the 9815. It was $350 ( $499 MSRP ). It can play
48KHz 320Kbps MP3's max which is near CD quality. ( if someone tells you
128K is, smack them ). FM tuner works great.

 

[Jim Hoff]

Bypassing the FM modulator and plugging direct will restore channel
separation, dynamic range, reduce distortion, reduce noise, and restore
freq. response (as you mentioned). Good move, that.

 

[Joseph Oberlander]

Alpine 98 series. I have the 9815. It was $350 ( $499 MSRP ). It can play
48KHz 320Kbps MP3's max which is near CD quality. ( if someone tells you
128K is, smack them ). FM tuner works great.

Btw - rough comparison:

128K - AM stereo quality.
192K - FM quality.(both with no hiss or artifacts, though)
240K - Tape or Vinyl.
320K - Good tape - Metal or Hi-fi VCR or R-R.

The quality jump from 128K to 192K alone is shocking. 320K
is half CD raw data in size, though with VBR compression and
a good encoder, you can get about 3/4 CD quality for about 1/3
the size - a nice compromise, IMO.

I'd consider 192K to be a bare minimum for a noisy environment.

 

[xmdude]

I have both XM and Sirius in my car and love both services. Personally I
think it's worth the $25 a month I pay since I'm driving quite a bit and FM
broadcast leaves little to be desired around here. The DJ talk in the
mornings is pathetic. Both of my systems are FM modulated and sound pretty
good. Hey... you can't take it with you and I can afford it, so why not?
It's not contract service like cellular phones, so I can cancel anytime.

About the MP3 player comments... Wal-Mart sells a FM modulated CD/MP3 6 disc
changer for 90 bucks. I have one and it works great. Best Buy sells an
identical CD/MP3 unit, but branded differently, for $229... so I think the
Wal-Mart version is a pretty dang good deal.

 

[Masterson]

Wal-Mart sells a FM modulated CD/MP3 6 disc
What is the name of the two different name brands?

 

[James Sweet]

Looking for an MP3 player for my recently acquired truck I went to the local
electronics store which shall remain nameless. I asked the the car stereo guy
(just last week he was working the television department) about MP3 players and
he showed me a few and told me all this riff raff and suggested that I would be
happier with XM radio. I was like WTF, i outta just stick with the stock AM/FM
that's in there right now. Not much difference between XM and FM you know,
they even had a sample in the showroom and you can hear the compression
artyfacts.

Does any of you own an car MP3 player?

Who makes it?
How much did it cost?
How well does it play MP3's?
How does the FM tuner come in?

I had a Jensen breifly that was crap, returned it and got a Kenwood, I
forget the model number but I've been pleased with it, I think it was $250
at the time but this was a couple years ago. The FM tuner works ok, but I
rarely ever use it since I've always got a couple CD's of MP3's in the car.
I haven't noticed any difference in tuner performance between modern head
units of at least reasonably decent quality.