Vivid Audio speakers, my experience
So I am sharing my experiences with this company, their product and services for those who may be interested or on the fence.
For those who do not know Vivid Audio, it is a speaker company based in South Africa, founded by previous B&W engineer Laurence Dickie who designed the famous 800 Nautilus series speakers and their distributor Philip Gottentag. Vivid speakers are unique to say the least.
I have a pair of B-1 speakers and they sounded good. While their products work, it is all good and wonders. But I have so disenchanted by my recent experience with their US customer service. I am quitting this company altogether.
The drivers on the B-1 (especially the tweeters) are completely exposed and easily subject to damages from, say, children’s poking fingers. That happened to my drivers. Also, one of the speakers started producing a distortion in the upper bass/lower mid range. I sort of traced the problem to one of the woofers. I contacted Vivid customer service in US about replacing these drivers. They put me in touch with one of their dealers (Supra HiFi, be aware!) who quoted me astronomical prices (so high that is about 70% of the MSRP for the 10 year old speakers). I did some research and found other people got their replacement for way lower prices. So I reached out to the Vivid Audio in South Africa. So it turns out Scott from Supra HiFi quoted me about 5x the correct prices!
So Vivid pointed me to their US rep again who was supposed to get the replacement drivers from Vivid to me. Because Vivid has no service facility in the US, they cannot provide any technical services like diagnosis, let alone repairs. So the customer needed to replace the drivers themselves, which is fine. But because I am not a professional, I may not have diagnosed the full scope of the problem with my speakers. So I asked their US rep Todd whether I could return the undamaged woofer to him in the case if replacing the driver alone does not fix the speakers. He said no because he was concerned about reselling the driver if it was returned. I was shocked. Since Vivid has not service capacity in the US, I though this is the minimum they can do to help. I was so disheartened by this response that I did not reply in a month because I was giving up on this company.
Today, I finally reminded myself to write the email to the owner and their US rep that I am quitting this company.
Anyway, this is my experience. YMMV.
In my humble opinion, if Vivid sets up resale distribution in a country, would not/ should not support go hand and hand? Maybe I have lofty ideals, but I don't believe that a high end dealer should be part of a supply chain with no support state side.
With that kind of support, you might as well be buying out of the back of a van. |
As a full disclosure, I received a response from the cofounder of Vivid, Philip Gottentag last night. He spent long words saying how Vivid would "bend over backwards" for its customers. Then he suggested that I could send the speakers to their facility in CT for repair. This is shocking because just a few months ago he said in writing that they do NOT have a facility or trained staff to do so. Over the months of communications with them, they have never once made such suggestions. I wrote back saying I was told that you did not have such capacities in the US. And he did not address that clear discrepancies during the couple of back and forths. I cannot even begin to speculate why. Then he went on to say that he sides with their US rep in not letting me return the woofer if it does not work out. This, in my mind, is exactly opposite to his portrait of them "bending over backwards" for customers. Because in a world where you can return most commodities in its original conditions, the idea that they are the exceptions just don’t jive with their claimed customer service standards. Especially this requires so little efforts on their part and they are taking back the damaged drivers for repair and resale anyway. So I thought enough was enough, without picking a fight I told them I am moving on. So my plan is to letting go of the Vivid B-1 speakers to whom interested in taking on Vivid’s offer to send them to their facility for repair. If you are interested and in driving distance to Raleigh, North Carolina, you are welcome to reach out to me. I can let you know the approx costs.
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@missioncoonery Hi, please PM me to discuss. Even though the mids and highs are dented, they sound fine. I think most likely the one driver that needs fixing is the woofer. |
