Evolution Acoustics MMMicroOne

I definitely agree with Byroncunningham’s 4 observations and comments. I’m a recent owner of the MMMicroOne having taken delivery last week. I would add a 5th comment to his list.

5. Lack of transparency, lack of trustworthiness and deception damage trust.

I live in Tokyo, Japan and ended up having to pay $925.00 USD to have these shipped to me. That’s not what I thought I was getting into and led to believe. $925 shipping for a pair of $2500 speakers is mightily outrageous and I would not have done that had I know clearly upfront. But by the time it became obvious it was too late.

When shipping was invoiced to me I asked Jonathan if that was door to door. He indicated he thought it was and would check and call me back if it wasn’t. Anyway, I never got a call, the speakers arrived in Tokyo and that was when I was informed by the local shipper that the goods had been shipped only to the airport and I was liable for the delivery to my door.

I called Jonathan, sent numerous emails and he then indicated that apparently his agent decided in the last minute to charge only to the airport as apparently it would be cheaper for me to pay delivery from the airport versus having that included from the start.
This is exactly what he was supposed to check for me, but he obviously did not or he knew the charges would be large and decided to withhold the information such that I wouldn't pull the order.

I feel I was deceived and at a minimum, if that wasn’t the case, he did not follow through on his promise to validate the total shipping charges for me. I also found it odd delivery would only be charged to airport. I have purchased a lot of things overseas and shipping charges were always door to door.

I wonder if EA and their shipper are in cahoots and making unnecessary margins on shipping and deceiving perspective buyers. I bet had this been shipped by FEDEX or DHL the door to door charges would be a lot less than $900.

Anyway, on a scale of 1-10 I rate the customer service as a 1. Especially after the shipment invoice was paid and leading up to the shipment and during this payment crisis many many emails and phone messages went unanswered.

No matter how good a product might be, customer service and trust comes first and had I know it would end up this way I would not have purchased these speakers.

I caution all overseas buyers to look at your shipping charges very carefully and ask for DDU or DDP charges that pay for the charge door to door.

Bryon,
Your advice is well reasoned and thoughtful.
I heard the Micro One and it is a very natural and good sounding speaker(as are their larger models).
I wish the company sucess with this smaller model which many music lovers will find relatively affordable.
Regards,

Very good advice.

The whatsbest thread is pretty divisive. Most speaker's do not measure well like electronics, but it would be interesting to see the Micros measured and compared to the Magicos....

Hi Agear,
There seem to be quite a number of audio components that measure average(sometimes even poor) yet reviewers and listeners say they sound excellent(the converse occurs also).All I can say is under show conditions at RMAF 2011 the Micro one system/room clearly sounded much better than the Magico system. Why? who knows.Don`t know if measurements would explain this, I doubt it.
Regards,

I think Jonathan has been a victim of two factors. One getting a new product into production often runs into totally unanticipated problems. I have personally know several small companies with great new products that have run into just incredible obstacles, such as small manufactures saying they cannot make more of a vital component. Fortunately for most of these companies, their sales developed slowly. This is Jonathan's second major problem, too much success. I too was wowed by what I heard in the prototype long ago.

I would not have purchased a pair based on the prototype given my experiences above. In fact I have equipment that I still use and like that is mine forever given the failure of the small company involved. I can say nothing about transparency, of course. I guess we will see if the more expensive speakers will succeed. I have heard no one say they are awful, so I guess they will survive, although they might not be a great bargain.