Today Jeremy (from work) and I went to Albany to do a little geeked-out guy shopping. Our goal? Well, for a living we both sell speakers and televisions and other high tech electric do-dads, but as us about other high end systems other than Bose and Philips and we don’t really know a whole lot. We love to pick up the new Sound and Vision when it comes in the mail at the store, but aside from looking at all of the pretty photos we’ve never seen or heard any of this stuff in person. So after we got the last Sound and Vision, I suggested that the two of us go out the next time we had a day off together.

First stop: the mall. I don’t know if you’ve ever been in an Apple store before, but you should go because they are really cool. They are really modern looking, very hip place to shop. Apple is doing wonders with their marketing, because I already felt like a much cooler person just for walking in the door. Some of their computers are really sweet. If I ever decided to start making movies or music I would totally pick a G5 up.

The sound systems they had for the iPod were interesting. Some of the just sounded like crap. Others sounded pretty good. A lot looked really weird. Bar none though the Bose SoundDock gave the best performance. Score one for us!

Next on to Best Buy. We tried to get a look at the new PSP, and Best Buy had plenty of them, but the only one they had out to actually look at was sequestered by some little kid who didn’t look like he was going to give it up any time soon. We looked at some TVs and speakers and that Dyson vacuum cleaner. Apparently it is a little confusing to figure out at first. Not as pricey as I thought it was going to be. I swore to myself that I wouldn’t buy anything today.

I walked away with two new CDs. Sigh.

After that we had some lunch at Unos. Had some beers. Talked it up. Had a grand ol’ time. Our waitress looked like my good ol’ Ex, except with glasses. Try as much as I could I couldn’t stop staring at her. I drew the line at actually asking her for her phone number. Good job, Ben! (I think her name was Whitney.)

Then we went off to Hippos. A little note to all who are reading this: Don’t EVER go to Hippos. The two of us had never experienced worse customer service in our lives. We walked around that whole store for over an hour and NOT ONE person said hello to us or asked us if there was anything they could help us out with. It was amazing. Even when we directly asked them a question it seemed like they couldn’t wait to get away. No one tried to sell us anything. They just barely answered our questions with the bare minimum of words.

If the customer service sucked, the store itself was pretty cool though. They had all sorts of different separate rooms filled with TVs and speakers. The television we were most impressive was Sony’s 70” LCOS TV. Oh god was it beautiful. Even up close it looked amazing. The best speakers we heard were a pair of these B&Ws that just sounded so smooth, like buttah. We got one of the sales reps to turn on the best B&Ws (there was a mistake) and honestly I didn’t think they sounded that hot. You had to be sitting right in the middle of them to even have them sound right, and even then they didn’t blow my mind.

After that we went to Tweeters, which was a completely different experience. Within a minute of walking in the door someone came to say hello to us. Fifteen/twenty minutes later someone else came to talk to us and actually spent the time talking with us about the product. He even tried to close us on the sale. COMPLETELY different from Hippos. There we listened to some NL speakers that were really impressive. Just the two of them created a really rich soundstage. They’re really weird too: instead of having speaker cones they have like this electrostatic filament that creates the sound through vibrations. It was pretty cool.

When all was said and done though (and I say this with all honesty and with as little personal prejudice as possible) there was very little I heard today that I would say was better sounding than Bose. I heard speakers that cost 5 grand for just the pair that I didn’t think really sounded that great. Other than the two speakers I mentioned above I don’t really believe that anything sounded better than our stuff. And our stuff cost SO MUCH LESS and it is SO MUCH EASIER TO USE! Every time I hear someone say that our speakers are too expensive I just want to rip my hair out. That they sound nowhere near as good as an audiophile’s dream system, I want to rip my hair out. Bose just kicks so much ass that I’m glad I’m working for them and not somewhere else. Our customer service is better, our customer experience is better, and for the most part our products are better. Now at least I can say that to our customers with a greater degree of confidence, having experienced it first hand.

All in all it was a very fun day though. Jeremy is a really awesome person to hang out with, and definitely the person you want with you if you are going to buy some speakers. I can appreciate sound, but jeez, start talking about amps and my eyes glaze over.