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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.

 

 

joezz
ditusa's avatar
ditusa
1,927 posts
 

@mm1tt77, + 2

ozzy62's avatar
ozzy62
3,287 posts
 

I understand them not wanting to take the woofer back. That's common with most things that have current going through them.

So you are saying that they want to charge 70% of the retail value of the speaker for one replacement driver? Did I read that right? Or is this for all the drivers? Or just the dented ones and the bad one?

In any event, I'd live with the dented tweeters and order ONE replacement woofer. If that fixes the issue, you are golden. If it doesn't, then you have a spare woofer for anyone who buys the speakers "as is". Might increase your value slightly.

 

smer319's avatar
smer319
139 posts
 

I am baffled by this. Did you consult your Vivid Audio dealer from whome you purchased these speakers ?

sounds_real_audio
1,019 posts
 

Hope you didn't burn the driver by running them too loud. 

posbwp55
13 posts
 

OP,

 

 I haven’t posted on this site in at least a decade. I need to make an exception in this case. I bought a pair of Vivid Giya G1 after hearing them at an acquaintance’s house. I had nothing but blown midranges, This could be a very long post but since retelling it raises my blood pressure, I will condense it. I went through at least six midranges and finally a midrange and tweeter. The waiting time for replacements on average was one to three months. Finally, Vivid changed policy on replacing drivers (I suspect for me only). I also had crossover damage on one occasion. Everything the OP stated about service is correct but it is much worse than that in my experience. All of these problems were experienced with gear that drove several other speakers flawlessly for years. I make this point because the initial response from Vivid (US distributor) was it was caused by something upstream in my system. The new driver replacement policy was they would not replace the driver with a refurbished driver ($500). They needed to “evaluate” the driver and if it couldn’t be repaired they needed to sell a new driver ($1,500). I knew long before this point they were scammers and this was the last straw for me. I believe they designed the drivers to fail. This was a cottage industry for them. My guess is that they used a coil wire diameter that would fail when the speakers were driven beyond moderate listening levels. The drivers were cheap aluminum that could be stamped out like at a machine gun rate. I am a retired tool and die maker so I understand this intimately. I also know many people have had similar experiences with Vivid. I look forward to the day this company no longer exists. It is the Trump University of audio. The full story is much longer and revolting. If you PM me and provide a phone number, I will share it. Now let’s see how long this post lasts before it is taken down It is 100% truthful and accurate.

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