Definitive Seattle Experience Center — Local services in Bellevue

My vinyl journey began a few years ago when I was streaming music with my five-year-old. Parenting her, I am constantly reminded that we are living in an age where everything is on demand. As she continuously requested songs across a spectrum of artists, I finally told her, "No, we're going to listen to the rest of album." Genuinely bewildered, she turned to me and sincerely asked "What's an album?". At this moment, I felt an intense yearning and duty to return to a physical medium of music. A few years and a couple hundred records later, our family now has a lifetime collection and new pastime.

Naturally, maintenance of our turntable was in order after a few years of spinning and I stumbled across the Definitive Seattle Experience Center. I can honestly stay, without any hesitation, it was the definitive experience in customer satisfaction. When I called in, I was promptly routed to their turntable expert, Mel, to address my concerns. Mel quickly got me on the schedule and I brought my turntable into Definitive's immaculate store space.

While I was half expecting the employees to take my turntable back and let me know when the work was done, Mel kindly invited me back to his turntable laboratory where he walked me through every step of the maintenance. It was great educational experience and Mel is a consummate gentleman and a scholar. It is clear he has a passion for turntables and his knowledge was impressive. Mel had several sophisticated turntable tools in his lab to ensure proper calibration and he even had me look under the microscope to observe my former stylus had been essentially reduced to a moon crater. Mel was not only extremely personable to work with, but the maintenance was promptly completed within in hour.

In the immortal words of Winston Zeddemore, Definitive has "the tools and the talent"; but, more importantly, they have an unparalleled, personal customer experience which is so rare in the golden age of big box stores and online retailers. Definitive has made a lifer out of me; and, when the next maintenance or audio upgrade comes due, this will undoubtedly be...

This is a special type of place. You can tell from the moment you walk through the door that you’re in rarified air.

While I consider myself an audiophile and general nerd for that sort of thing, when I arrived to demo some amps with a local speaker maker (something he made arrangements for) I was presented with a quiet room and a perfect A/B test environment. After purchasing, they hand delivered the amp and configured it with me. Mark provided stellar service throughout – true white glove delivery, I didn’t do a thing. I recently bought a new BMW and the luxury shopping experience was no where near as polished.

That said, this can be a double edged sword. This might be my anxiety talking but there is definitely a ‘nose in the air’ type elitism that I detected in some members of staff. Again, might be my own worries projecting (I bought the second cheapest amp there @ $8k+), but I could see suggestions from other employees that there were interlopers present. I am still giving the store a rave review, it obviously didn’t put me off, but maybe something to be aware of. Plus side, I did get to listen to a multi-hundred-thousand-dollar stereo, an experience I found to be really special. ;)

Writing this review with four months distance between now and delivery of the amp and continue to be impressed with definitive and the solution they provided. Highly recommended.

Edit: believe the first thing I listened to was “Hey Laura” by Gregory Porter....

Very disappointed and frustrated with the lack of tact and understanding from the staff here. We specifically made the 45 minute drive from home to visit one of a vanishingly small number of stores with audio demo rooms. We had a better experience at what's left of Magnolia inside the Best Buy in Bellevue than we did at Definitive.

Sound systems are such a subjective product that I don't want to purchase anything without giving it an honest listen. What I received here was a terrible experience of being talked down to and made to feel like I wasn't welcome in the store because my pocketbook wasn't deep enough.

The demo rooms are well set up, but they only carry 5-6 speaker brands, with one or two that were in our budget, and seemingly only had knowledge of the brands they carried. Don't you dare mention other brands, because they're obviously trash for the poor, because they don't carry them. When asked for recommendations for other stores that might better fit our budget, we were given a shrug and no information.

I would have liked to discuss room automation, projectors, and content delivery devices but my experience was so bad I didn't want to spend much more time in the store. We won't be coming back and wouldn't recommend this store to anyone. Not when Best Buy has a wider selection of speakers (including multiple of the same brands that Definitive carries) and better sales attitudes...