Cary cares and now I care about Cary.

Catman , nice observation. You must have been " feeling my pain" on a subconscious level. Maybe its the door handle imprint on my behind I still feel that makes me really appreciate the true great companies like Cary. To explain : I recently saw a dream speaker here on the Gon for one eighth the cost of a new pair. It was simply the deal of the century . I posted questions here and Audio Asylum trying to gather info on things like placement , related component synergy ect. I exhausted every known resorce but had to turn to the company for a few remaining questions. The reception was nice at first as I was assigned a rep who answered all my questions. The conversation turned 180 as I was repeatedly asked to just " send those old production models here and we will do a trade on a new pair". Well that trade was about 40k more. hummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm... well , not entirely out of the question but I wanted to hear them here first and if I wasnt satisfied , we would talk trade. Thats when I felt the unmistakable swishing sound of that door behind me. No return calls or return e mails. I felt like I was dealing with snobs. Plain and simple. I love the speaker and would in all probability have made an effort to fly out somewhere and audition the new models at some point but I would not buy from them in the future and would not reccomend them to you based solely on my experience.I do not claim to know that many owners of audio companies so my incredible , damn near life changing event at Cary Audio yesterday may well be the exception rather than the norm . I know one other owner while I am on it however. I met Mike Kelley of Aerial years ago when I was creating a system around his 10 t s . His genuine warmth and great attitude has in fact kept me with his company. Since then I have purchased the center { cc5 } two subs { sw12 } and the outrageous new {20 t } for my mains. Was it him , the speakers he produces or the combination? I dont know but here are a few exammples of buisness ethics that highlight how to and not to conduct a professional relationship.

Any company that sells a CD player for upwards of $5k and only warrants it for 1 year is not right (Cary only warrants their players for a year.). I had a Cary 306/200 CDP and something needed to be fixed on it about 1 week after the one year warranty was up. Cary still charged me about $90 for the fix which was merely a loose wire.

I also had a problem, a severe one, with mono-blocks I bought from Cary. They too was out of warranty but I spoke w/ Dennis directly and he made sure things were taken care of although I did have to pay shipping. Since these things are hand made, and and pretty much cutting edge, I was not upset with the breakdown (I did have two sets of Cary amps for a total of 4 yrs and this was only glitch, and obviously an isolated problem). Everything worked perfectly everytime, all the time, except for a bad factory tube choice.