As the owner of Upscale Audio, I spoke to this fellow yesterday. Let me make a few points:
A: He bought it over a year and a half ago. He needed to contact us in a reasonable time.
B: The unit serial number he has I have no record of owning, buying, shipping, whatever. Having said that, maybe we screwed the pooch and made a mistake.
C: The unit he bought and paid for had damage, having a dented transformer cover. It was discounted and priced as a damaged unit. It evens said that on our used listing which is copied directly onto his invoice. He fails to tell you this. What he received is mint. He conveniently leaves this out.
D: Check the Audiogon bluebook, and the V12 and V12i are not even listed seperate. They retail the same and share the same listing on the bluebook value. Why? They have the same topology. The V12i used a front end tube with less gain, making it harder to drive. This was changed back when the V12i became the V12R.
We have thrived over these last 17 years and enjoy a pretty good reputation. We're the largest tube dealer in the nation. We stock ten times more gear than most dealers. But when you deal with tens of thousands of customers, you will for sure either make mistakes or deal with the unreasonable.
Best to all of you
Kevin Deal