"Walmart isn't a dumb-pipe" Have you actually talked to walmart employees? Go to an upscale A/V audiophile class store and talk to a salesperson for awhile.

"Walmart isn't a dumb-pipe" Have you actually talked to walmart employees? Go to an upscale A/V audiophile class store and talk to a salesperson for awhile. They'll be a lot of green ink on CDs and thousand dollar speaker cable talk, but they'll also know at least some analog EE stuff, maybe not much, but more than their average customers. The sales guy almost certainly understands the features and UI and can teach you if you ask or put on a rather impressive demonstration and describe at length how to connect components together (with the hope of addon sales obviously). That is not a dumb pipe. Then go to walmart and ask any drone about that surround sound amp on the shelf. Good luck getting more than "I donno man, all I do is match up the UPC on the box with the UPC on the price tag" Now that, is a dumb pipe. We can do this all day with house paint, furniture, board games, firearms, camp gear, movies, video games, clothes, I think the only things where they're keeping up with the competition is the pharmacy, which is solely due to legal licensing stuff, and food, where the standard supermarket drone (I was one in high school) knows absolutely nothing about food or cooking. Another fun analogy in the famous HN car analogy theme, is a non-dumb pipe car dealership would have salespeople who can answer any FAQ or weird question about a car. Oh thats how you pair your bluetooth phone to the radio. The spark plugs need changing every 50K miles. It runs just fine on 87 octane gas although the more expensive stuff will burn just as well. A dumb pipe of a car dealership would be you walk up to a car on the lot, flag down an employee, ask them if the car has four wheels, and they're all "I donno man, I just park them in the correct spot as fast as I can and thats all I know about them."