@hiend2, Thanks for the info. Much appreciated. please see below:
For those who are not able to see the original Krell Owners & Enthusiasts Group, here is the full scoop given by Wil Buhler.
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JF Bicking & Co
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Before diving into the questions, here’s some background on JF Bicking & Co. and myself. JF Bicking is the advisory arm of our family holdings company, a little over a decade ago we began offering the same services to other businesses and organizations, entrepreneurs and families. If anyone would like to know more about our firm visit our site https://www.jfb.fyi/who-we-are. We don’t deal with a specific industry or type/size of business; our only criteria is family owned businesses and no public companies. That leads us to myself and Krell.
I will be the first to say when we first engaged Krell as a client I was by no means an audiophile. For those of you who have found a reason to hate me yet, here’s one; before working with Krell I thought Bose was definitely in the top 3 Hifi companies. Frankly the first time I heard the phrase was when one of our Analysts who introduced Krell called himself one. I still don’t quite consider myself an audiophile today but I’m getting there, I feel like it would be like someone who had been to a car show once joining the Porsche Club of America. Since first hearing in the arms of the angels on a Krell system I was hooked. I played classical cello when i was younger and all of a sudden i could hear cello throughout the whole song that I never could before. Since then every Krell listening experience has been a unique one. Quite fittingly; one of the last in person experiences I was able to share with Rondi was listening to Ella Fitzgerald in her family room with her and her husband who was also a huge audiophile as well, it was part of every aspect of Rondi’s life.
Q -What is your position within Krell? Are you full owner, Minority stake holder, Majority stake holder, Managing partner, Etc.? And when did that position come about? There are many rumors that lead back to the late Rondi D’Agostino not having a succession plan so, to many, it was unexpected that an investment firm claimed ownership instead of a family member, for example.
A - I’m bound by several confidentiality agreements that bar me from even discussing most of the question, being completely honest even if I could I would not disclose that information, no company in my position would, not for nefarious purposes but simply because it’s literally none of your business. Please tell anyone who feels they have an ownership claim to contact us or our attorneys rccblaw.com. A family member is still involved in ownership along with ourselves. Growing up I was taught to not look at things like I own them but rather that I’m a steward for the next generation; I apply that same philosophy to our position at Krell. Hopefully this answers your question.
Q -When can we expect Krell to reopen? And upon reopening, when can staff be expected to return to the factory to resume work?
We technically never closed just our facility, we’ve tried as best as possible to make ourselves available via our firm and email. 610 894 0692 or Service@krell.industries. Here’s the less annoying part of my answer. As an attempt at full transparency after much delay due to the courts insistence on a particular family member’s involvement in the matter, approximately 3 weeks ago the courts gave us permission to proceed ahead with the probate process without the individual. Since that point we have been working with all parties involved to move forward. Unfortunately death is a fickle bitch and our Firm experienced a profound loss the weekend we received the courts notification so that delayed our forward progression just a few more days. That brings us to now, we are hoping in a perfect world we will have received court approval to proceed with opening before the holiday weekend or immediately after. Once received we intend to have our Repair manager start on that same day to begin to address all of your issues immediately. We hope to be back to 85% operations within the first week and back to 100% by the end of the month.
Q -What will take priority? Service, warranty, new order fulfillment, etc.?
Service and Warranty will be concurrent and new order fulfillment will be only when we can guarantee the quality control is 100%
Q -Will your team be reaching out to all of us that have units in service, and if so, what is that time frame to do so?
Yes, within the first several days of opening, it would be incredibly helpful if anyone who has something in for service could send an email to the Service@krell.industries. Please provide your information, ie: contact, name, etc./ the unit in for repair/ what the issue is/ and whether you still want it repaired or just returned. We will not take it personally, and can recommend an alternative temporary repair facility until we are back to 100%
Q -Has a plan been put together for any of us in service that may wish to have their equipment either shipped back or picked up at the factory without repair? What is the timing for that looking like?
Refer to the answer above.
Q -Can you discuss what happened with Krellhifi.com and how another website was developed and launched during a time when the company was thought to not have ownership?
We had been working on developing a new website with a more modern look and user-friendly functionality and design which is the krell.industries that exists now. That was also the point of the store was to test and see if there was any demand for merchandise and DTC access for certain products. Rondi, much like myself, wasn’t the biggest fan of change and was quite reluctant to take down the old site so the new site’s 100% completion wasn’t an absolute priority at the moment. Due to the unauthorized lockout severely hindering our ability to access key information such as email along with trying to help confusion we shut down the old site. Unfortunately certain features still need to be completed on the new site and will as soon as we are finished with probate.