Tell us your worst audio dealer or mfr. experience.

Jtinn, what did the guy at Audio Research say to you?

With the best of intentions, I dealt with David Wasserman, the owner of Stereo Exchange in NYC - I bought a pair of used Eggleston Rosa speakers from him here on Audiogon.
He was VERY patient, professional and accommodating. I took weeks to finally pick them up due to my business schedule and me not being readily available. It was a very positive experience - he established my trust and confidence.
I highly recommend David.
I am sincerely sorry to hear about Zd542 slipping and falling - we've all had that unpleasant experience. Not fun :-(
Only good wishes, TJF.

I don't want to get started on Tim Paravincini, but I needed
a replacement part and his personal behavior (not the amp) caused me to fix it and dump it because I didn't ever want anything in my system that reminded me of his incredible
behavior over a simple broken part for one of his amps.

I hear ya! In this cottage industry, I dump anything if not happy with the company.

I'm a big fan of EAR and glad never had to deal with Tim Paravincini directly.

"He was VERY patient, professional and accommodating. I took weeks to finally pick them up due to my business schedule and me not being readily available. It was a very positive experience - he established my trust and confidence.
I highly recommend David."

At least Dave's starting to figure out how to take care of customers. He almost went out a few years ago when a new Best Buy opened up near the store. He's one of the few owners in the entire industry, that doesn't know anything about audio. For him, its just a business. Its very rare in that most people that open an audio store do so because they're really into the equipment.

Sonic Frontiers and Chris Johnson.
I paid big dollars for their CD transport. I think at the time it was $1800.
But, once I received the unit, it would play maybe one CD out of 5.

I sent it to Canada at my cost for repair and after many months of pleading to him to repair/return the unit, it was returned just the same way that I sent it.

Chris Johnson claimed I was using defective CD discs.

I found out later, Sonic Frontiers was using a Phillips transport that was known to have problems.

I can see why Sonic Frontiers went out of business...