Prime Day 2024 is almost here, and it’s brought with it more hi-fi and home theater deals than you can easily count.
And while this is great in many ways, it is also tricky for several reasons. First, because it is virtually impossible for one person to manage the sheer volume of discounts.
This is why the team of experts at What Hi-Fi? spends time combing through them to find the best deals that are actually worth your time and presents them in pages including our best hi-fi deals and best TV deals guides each year.
Second, because Amazon is huge for a reason. The retailer is incredibly smart about how it pushes you to click the buy button and creates a sense of urgency during the event. This makes Prime a very dangerous time to shop if you don’t go into it prepared.
To help you avoid these potential issues, we’ve put together a handy survival guide, in which our team details three key tips that they recommend any hi-fi or home cinema buyer follow if they want to make the most of Prime Day 2024.
1. Check the product’s price history before purchasing
Amazon and retailers in general are always a bit tricky when it comes to sales. That’s because most discounts compare the current price to the product’s MSRP at the time of launch. Our team has found this to be problematic over the course of many Prime Days and Black Fridays, as we’ve seen retailers offer “deals” during the events when the product was actually cheaper a few months or weeks earlier. So the deal isn’t really that great.
This phenomenon is particularly common in products with a long lifespan, where a new model does not come out for more than half a decade, such as separate hi-fi systems, AVRs and surround sound systems.
To add to the complexity of the offer, we’ve also seen stores increase the price of a product they want to sell a few weeks or even months before a big sales event like Prime Day, in an attempt to make the offer more attractive.
This is why we always recommend using a tool such as Keep a Or CamelCamelCamel that allow you to check the price history of products. Both are available as standalone tools or Chrome extensions, making it quick and easy to spot fake deals.
2. Have a list of hi-fi and home cinema products to buy and stick to it
Knowing a product’s price history is great, but trust us when we say that just because a product is cheaper than ever doesn’t mean it’s worth your money. Having reviewed hi-fi and home cinema equipment since the late 1970s, our team of experts can safely confirm that there are plenty of products in both categories that aren’t worth your money or time, no matter how much discount they’re on.
This is especially true in certain categories. Take cheap TVs, for example. Check out our guide to the TVs to watch this Prime Day and you’ll see that while this category is one of the biggest in terms of volume of discounts, very few of them are actually worth buying.
There’s a recurring problem in the entry-level TV market where, due to manufacturers’ clear focus on the high end, there are very few ‘good’ cheap TVs. This is evidenced by the fact that even in our guide to the best cheap TVs, only a very small number of them scored well enough to earn a five-star rating when our reviewers put them through their paces.
That’s why we recommend doing your research before you start shopping and coming to us with a list of products that you’ve already vetted and know will 100% meet your needs. As a bonus, this will also help you avoid two key and easy mistakes that even members of the community make. What Hi-Fi? the team did.
First, it will help you avoid making impulse purchases: Our editor (me) still has feet of useless Chord Company RumorX cable and a superfluous Chromecast with Google TV from impulse purchases on Prime Day last year.
In the world of separates, we always recommend doing your research and matching products when building a hi-fi setup. This is especially important because simply throwing together a bunch of five-star products isn’t a surefire way to get the best results.
To achieve the best results, parts should have complementary sonic characteristics. That’s why we recommend that you consult our system guides or do the legwork yourself and demonstrate how the product you’re considering works with your other gear at your local hi-fi store before making a purchase.
3. Keep an eye on specialists
Speaking of hi-fi stores, our third and final tip is simple: keep an eye on specialist retailers as well as Amazon.
Amazon is a huge site, but in the world of hi-fi and home cinema, it’s not always the best place to get a bargain. Specialist dealers exist for a reason, especially if you’re buying high-end hi-fi or a less mainstream category. That’s why our experts always check out what’s available at specialist stores, such as Richer Sounds, Sevenoaks Audio and Peter Tyson in the UK, or Audio Advice in the US.
Often, these stores not only have a better selection of specific categories, but they also offer discounts that are just as good, if not better, than what you’ll find on Amazon in many cases. That’s why we always recommend checking them out as well as Amazon, even during Prime Day.
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