Electrocompaniet owners

Subaruguru, it's been over a month and all you recieved were a couple of e-mailed photos of diodes and caps? They've got to be kidding! Recently, Thiel arranged for shipping for both my floor standing speakers to their factory where they tested them, repaired them, retested them, and shipped them back to me in less than a week. They arranged for a corporate discount on trucking rates. There was no charge for labor. Didn't bill me till I recieved them back. Oh yeah, my warranty ran out 5 years ago.

Subaruguru - quite frankly, I am shocked that the company is charging you for the mod. As an accomodation for all of the time, effort, and goodwill you have shown through your patience, I would have expected the company to comp. you the kit and send you a lengthy apology with an accompanied mention of the action they plan to take with the distributor to ensure that this sort of incident does not happen again to other consumers. Selling you a do it yourself mod kit after all of the crap you have gone through is an insult. How about billing them for your wasted time and effor at your hourly billing rate? That would seem to be fair to me at this point. I for one, after reading that thread, will never purchase a product by that company.

This experience and the mysterious thread shut-down have indeed cowered me into a position of being grateful for crumbs. Yet the upgrade costs only $82.50 (inc bank wire) for an $800 retail mod! But I'll report more fully AFTER I get the diodes and caps and get them installed. It had better go smoothly, eh? Keep in touch. Ern

Subaruguru: $800 retail for parts that cost less than $80!!! This should tell you something about EC. How much do you think are the parts for an entire EMC 1 mk2 UP?

Ernie, all I have to say is what are you going to do the next time they offer an upgrade (give em a year)? I hate saying this, but I think EC as a company handled this incorrectly. They should have asked you to keep this transaction ($80 for the $800 upgraded parts) private, and not post it on the net.

This sets a bad president for EC. Think of how owners of the EMC-1 mk2 are going to feel after they find out the specifics of this deal. First of all they are going to know that they would be paying around (including an hour of labor) five times the price of the parts for the upgrade + labor if they have the EC Distributor do this upgrade. This is a complete rip off. Second, they will be wondering (if they to have a grey market unit), if they can follow the same coarse of action you took Ernie to get the kind of deal from EC on this upgrade. Thirdly, people who bought their EMC-1 mk2's from a dealer in the US will probably wonder if their is any way for them to get the same deal as well.

If I were the EC Distributor, I would be a bit upset at EC for not instructing you Ernie to not air the specifics of this transaction to the audio public. I know it is going to cause him heart ache later down the road.

I beleive in being honest, but offering up information like you have Ernie is going to cost you down the road. If you ever have to deal with the EC distributor again, you may find yourself totally blacklisted (and for discussing the specific costs of the parts for that upgrade, he'd probably be justified).

If I were EC, I would have charged you $600 to $800 for the parts just to be fair to all the other US EC EMC-1 mk2 owners (or at the very least they should have made you sign a non disclosure agreement about the transaction).

But as I have stated before, EC gear is way overpriced, and Ernie has independantly confirmed it.

KF

Makes one wonder about the integrtiy of those charging $800 for a mod based upon $82.50 worth of parts. While there is a deserved profit for design and development, it seems to be a little excessive to me. For your sake and the sake of this firm I was really hoping this situation would work out, but the rate of progress is really discouraging. Thanks for the updates, you help us all. Good luck to all parties concerned.