Recommend Southern California (LA) Audio Stores

Hello, there are a few stores in the South Bay area. Systems Design Group in Redondo Beach carries Paradigm speakers and more. There is also a place called Home Theater Doctor in Manhattan Beach that carries Ushers and Totems and others.

If you want to hear Monitor Audio speakers, check out Magnolia Audio Video on Wilshire and Harvard in Santa Monica. They also have Sonus Faber, Vienna Acoustics and Martin Logan.

Home Theater Doctor is actually in Redondo Beach....in the area that many get confused with being part of Hermosa Beach or Manhattan Beach.
The website is a bit out of date:
http://hometheaterdoctor.com

Also in Santa Monica near the Magnolia is Sound Factor.....among other brands, they carry Era Designs, B&W, Dynaudio, and NHT.

DMC Electronics in Garden Grove - ask for David

LA Audio Video is a good store, very nice and patient people. Huge selection. The only negative in my opinion is that the speakers are not always set up optimally.

Shelly's on Topanga in Woodland Hills was a pleasure to deal with.

Scott

Nice place and people, I thought.

My favorite is hometheaterdoctor in Redondo Beach.

I like Sound Factor.

I am not very fond of the products the Magnolia in Torrance carried, but their return policy (30 days, no questions asked) was outstanding. I have not been in the Santa Monica store.

In addition to a number of stores, there are a number of members here who are happy to have you come over to listen. This is especially useful to hear brands like Ascends and av123.

I know LA Audio and Video is a great place, if you want to hear the extreme high-end. They also have my love, the S-1ex on display, as well as the Paradigm Signature and the Studios in the same room, so you can do a side by side comparison. I like Definition Audio. It's right around the corner from System Design Group. Wow are'nt we lucky to have so many choices so close.

ED

HT, try some of these guys (posts 1542 and 1543). In that price range you should not be feeling as though you are getting ready for a sacrificial offering of your bank account on the first phone call (I usually walk out on anyone that talks to me in that way).
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...9#post11537339

Contact Audio Architect and owner Matthew Eiser, who originally started that "Focal" thread, and see what you think. You might want to add Focal to your list also BTW - it's quite a unique product and makes a lot of other stuff seem as though it came from the audio equivalent of Wal-Mart.

Another spot is Audio Concept in Long Beach (Belmont Shore area). They carry Snell, McIntosh, Paradigm, Marantz, Definitive, NHT, Lexicon, and some others. They have quite a few things in their showroom. They're pretty much a custom shop but I've auditioned things there in the past and they're quite knowledgeable.

Also, Ken Crane carries Rotel & B&W. Depending on the store, they usually have the full B&W line in store hooked up to Rotel to audition.

And one last place is OC, is Genesis Audio & Video in Irvine.