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HELP Electrocompaniet stole Christmas

What a mess:
After finally deciding that spending money on the latest EMC-1 parts mod, I contacted Electrocompaniet's distributor back in October to arrange to bring my EMC-1 MkII to him directly in PA so as to avoid RT shipping risks and expense for this 50 pounder. All was set for a Christmas week mod, as I was to be in NJ visiting my relatives that last week.
I called on Christmas eve to arrange a drop-off time, and was told that Christmas Day noon would be fine, but that I had to arrange the deal through a dealer! Yikes! So I remembered Fathers & Sons and called them, arranging for the paperwork and profit to be credited through/to them. Fine. So I drove 2 hours through a nasty winter storm to arrive at Warshaw's house, where he said he'd NOT perform the mod if my EMC-1 didn't have a serial number on it, as there was a grey-market guy in New York who sold a few of these this year. I assured him that mine indeed had a serial number, was produced in spring '01, and bought used by me in summer '01. He said OK, and lugged the player into his house, saying he'd call me in a couple of days to pick it up. Great!..............
I returned to NJ and watched the storm intensify....
Two days later I called to arrange a pick-up hour, and Alan told me that he did NOT perform the mod because the player had been originally sold by a Danish dealer, and NOT through him, so he had made a decision to NOT support any players not originally sold thorough him. No warranty repars, parts, nor mods!..............
I was stunned, couldn't convince him to make an exception since he had never asked me to provide a serial number beforehand, and I went through a total of a half-day of driving through a storm to accomplish this mod.
He just told me to come pick it up at my convenience. I glumly arrived on Saturday and retrieved my untouched puppy, where Alan said that unfortunately I had to share the victimization of the gray-market. I asked if I should contact a Danish dealer to see if a board-swap could be done (of course thinking he didn't really know the answer), but he thought that Electrocompaniet wouldn't support my player either! I asked with some incredulity what was going to happen with all the players that people have when they move from one country to another (!), but he said that this policy was the only way they have of penalyzing the gray market.... I suggested that in THIS CASE he should have installed the mod because of his lack of due diligence in assessing the production/sales history of this particular CDP, ESPECIALLY given my enormous effort in delivering it to his doorstep on Christmas Day.... I left sadly but gracefully.
WHAT SHOULD I DO? I contacted the Danish dealer but he's not responded. Should I contact Electrocompaniet directly and try to arrange a board swap or purchase the parts mod "kit" and instakllation directions (I'm pretty familiar with boards and soldering)? Should Alan have acted differently? Isn't the world getting small enough so that internationally-sold products should have protected lives independent of sales point?
PLEASE HELP!
A Happy and safe New Year to all!
Ernie
subaruguru
fpeel
455 posts
 
Jond, an incident of this nature can cause great harm to a company's business and reputation, even if they do "the right thing" in the end. Once out news of this kind is hard to retrieve or stop, too. At this point it would probably be prudent to let the wheels of justice roll just a bit more before broadcasting the story to the rest of the world.

BTW, F&S Audio has made a very positive impression on me. They obviously understand the old adage "Always take good care of your customers. If you don't someone else will!" Can't say the same about everyone mentioned in or responding to this thread. A tip of the hat to Mike for going above and beyond the call of duty.
jond's avatar
jond
5,773 posts
 
Fpeel,
You're probably right. Besides AA would probably get to vitrolic anyway. I also concur FS Audio is coming through like a champ. Way to go guys.
taters
1,149 posts
 
I have read all the responces and as much as i feel for ernie,i think he needs to sell his cdp and move on.
How much abuse do you want to take over a cdp.There are plenty of great cdp on the market.Why ruin your health over this,it is not worth it.If i can help in anywaylet me know!
bob_bundus
1,834 posts
 
This all goes to show just how overpriced the US domestic EC equipment market actually is. There was one very telling remark above regarding their preamps' lack of quality for the high price, & I couldn't agree more. I once borrowed a demo EC 4.5 preamp from a dealer for home audition. A front panel indicator had already failed, a footer was broken, & when I was exchanging AC cords the power supply failed. I opened the top cover to check the fuses & was appalled at the throw-together internal appearance; that thing was not at all well engineered or built. I then realized that if it can't even handle a small power glitch without blowing up, then it's certainly not going to last for long in my rural electrical environment.
Erine I'm sorry about the way that you were treated, which is certainly contrary compared to the gracious manner in which numerous US high-end manufacturers have handled certain issues with me. Ayre Acoustics is mentioned above & I concur that their support & service is outstanding even to a secondhand owner. Same goes for Synergistic Research; they have treated me so very wonderfully.
Note that I WAS still previously considering the purchase of a new EC silverline component when they come available ... with an empahsis on WAS.
subaruguru OP
1,375 posts
 
Thanks, guys.
I need to repeat that I am in no way attempting to seek recourse through F&S. I repeated to Mike that I expect NOTHING of him, as his only link was to be a nice guy on Christmas Eve and offer to sell me the rights to a mod at a (claimed) small profit. He insisted on wanting to be creative about resolving this situation, for which I am extremely grateful. I suggested that he was under NO obligation to offer to buy my unit in exchange for cash and a new one, but he repeated twice that mine would be of perfect service as a permanent demo for him, and obviously cost him less (I'm suggesting $1000) than a new one. If he can do it for $1000 then I'll probably agree. If he can't then the next unknown chapter evolves. I told him that he needn't be a hero here, and he knows it. We NEVER talked about a money amount. He simply said he'ds get back to me by today, and perhaps has been too busy to. I'm really quite prepared to be patient about this, but as some have pointed out, eventually I'll probably not want to even own an EMC-1 if it becomes more painful to do so. For now I'm hanging in and appreciating your comments and suggestions.
I appreciate that EC offers an upgrade mod rather than a "new-and-improved" replacement model. The actual cost/value of the mod is unknown to me, but I eventually decided that it was worth $500-600 to me if I could trust dealers' comments on the sonic improvement. As I said above I'm willing to pay more if the only way to resolve this is to swap out entire units. But if it's going to cost me more than $1000 to "buy" an agreed-$650 upgrade I would feel too punished to proceed. It's not like I haven'y gone overboard in good faith already.
Ljgj: how can Heinz help? Does he know how to duplicate EC's cap 'n resistor mod prudently? Is there another path here? Sigh....
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