i think a good entertainment system is still a status symbol, just not to the same degree it was.
snooty sales staff in hifi is nothing new and still prevails today, right up to the point where you ask them a question they cant answer, which for about 95% of sales staff is guaranteed.
i remember going to view a hifi in a discount electrical store a number of years back for/with my mum, snooty 20 year old started talking unbelievable sales pish, to cut a long story short i noticed the display model wasn't wired up, i asked for a display, winked at my mum and said this should be fun, after watching him struggle severely for at least 20 minutes to wire it up, i casually asked do you want me to do it, snootiness fast disappearing he said can you?,
after i stopped laughing 5 minutes later it was all wired up, you should have seen his face when i said it sounds pish after wasting the best part of an hour of his time, just out of badness i asked him what compulink was, the fool tried to convince me it was to input a pc's audio,pmsl.
he made the classic mistake of assuming the customer was as dumb or dumber than he was, i can't help wondering how many customers he left disappointed after selling them gear that couldn't do what they wanted it to do.
