2. misc-audio
  3. 1041348528

HELP Electrocompaniet stole Christmas

What a mess:
After finally deciding that spending money on the latest EMC-1 parts mod, I contacted Electrocompaniet's distributor back in October to arrange to bring my EMC-1 MkII to him directly in PA so as to avoid RT shipping risks and expense for this 50 pounder. All was set for a Christmas week mod, as I was to be in NJ visiting my relatives that last week.
I called on Christmas eve to arrange a drop-off time, and was told that Christmas Day noon would be fine, but that I had to arrange the deal through a dealer! Yikes! So I remembered Fathers & Sons and called them, arranging for the paperwork and profit to be credited through/to them. Fine. So I drove 2 hours through a nasty winter storm to arrive at Warshaw's house, where he said he'd NOT perform the mod if my EMC-1 didn't have a serial number on it, as there was a grey-market guy in New York who sold a few of these this year. I assured him that mine indeed had a serial number, was produced in spring '01, and bought used by me in summer '01. He said OK, and lugged the player into his house, saying he'd call me in a couple of days to pick it up. Great!..............
I returned to NJ and watched the storm intensify....
Two days later I called to arrange a pick-up hour, and Alan told me that he did NOT perform the mod because the player had been originally sold by a Danish dealer, and NOT through him, so he had made a decision to NOT support any players not originally sold thorough him. No warranty repars, parts, nor mods!..............
I was stunned, couldn't convince him to make an exception since he had never asked me to provide a serial number beforehand, and I went through a total of a half-day of driving through a storm to accomplish this mod.
He just told me to come pick it up at my convenience. I glumly arrived on Saturday and retrieved my untouched puppy, where Alan said that unfortunately I had to share the victimization of the gray-market. I asked if I should contact a Danish dealer to see if a board-swap could be done (of course thinking he didn't really know the answer), but he thought that Electrocompaniet wouldn't support my player either! I asked with some incredulity what was going to happen with all the players that people have when they move from one country to another (!), but he said that this policy was the only way they have of penalyzing the gray market.... I suggested that in THIS CASE he should have installed the mod because of his lack of due diligence in assessing the production/sales history of this particular CDP, ESPECIALLY given my enormous effort in delivering it to his doorstep on Christmas Day.... I left sadly but gracefully.
WHAT SHOULD I DO? I contacted the Danish dealer but he's not responded. Should I contact Electrocompaniet directly and try to arrange a board swap or purchase the parts mod "kit" and instakllation directions (I'm pretty familiar with boards and soldering)? Should Alan have acted differently? Isn't the world getting small enough so that internationally-sold products should have protected lives independent of sales point?
PLEASE HELP!
A Happy and safe New Year to all!
Ernie
subaruguru

Showing 5 responses by paulwp

paulwp
585 posts
 
Yeah, Mike, Tom (Twl) believes in tweaks and mods. I am the one who said, and believes, that mods are just a way to get more money out of consumers, unless there was something wrong with the design in the first place. But, let's not detract from the purpose of Ernie's thread. It's hard to disagree with anyone here.

Paul
paulwp
585 posts
 
Ernie, it took me a couple of reads, but I think I got it.
It seems like you asked the US or NA distributor to perform a service on a cdp that the original owner bought from a European dealer. The distributor is within his rights, even if it is a paid service. I don't know of a distributor who would touch a product that wasnt imported by him or a predecessor. This is one of the risks of buying second hand imported goods.

Of course, he was a jerk to not make sure he would take care of it before you left it with him. (But, maybe he was in the middle of Christmas dinner - or a football game?) And after he discovered the problem, he might have called you. Did he know that you weren't the original buyer? Hifi component distributors are often really nice guys, but some of them are real jerks.

If you want the mod, it seems to me you should ask a local dealer to sell it to you and refer you to a service center that will perform the work. If you have to buy the parts and do it yourself (if that's even possible), again, I would buy from a local dealer. I don't think the issue of the manufacturer providing service comes up, because all they can do is refer you to their contractual partner in the US or one of his dealers. If the distributor has told the dealers they cant sell the mods to you either, then you just can't have it, and you have to make a decision about keeping the unit.

Otoh, you havent spent the money on the mod yet. Mods are generally just a way to get more money out of you unless there was something wrong in the first place.
paulwp
585 posts
 
Just out of curiosity, if the unit was bought new in Europe and then moved here with the buyer's household, how do you get around the voltage issue? Do these things just have a little switch? If the manufacturer is supplying US spec components to European dealers, that maybe looks a little sleazy, but, otoh, maybe he has no distributor in other parts of the world where they use the same electricity we use? (That stuff is all very confusing to me, so speakers are the only things I would buy from abroad.)

What if the unit was purchased new in Denmark and shipped to an American as a Christmas present? What if you're on vacation and go into a hi-fi store in Denmark and spend a lot of time and the dealer does a real good job with you and you buy the unit from him there to be shipped back home? There are a lot of legitmate ways to acquire a new component from abroad without cheating the US distributor, so maybe the manufacturer will be helpful. I just wouldnt expect the distributor to help service a product he didnt sell in the first place.
paulwp
585 posts
 
Man, I am itcing to get my hands on an Electrocompaniet. At first, I was only atttracted to their products because of their mellifluous brand name - if the name sounds good, the products gotta sound good is my theory. But now it seems, they are so hard to get ahold of and so exclusive, if I get one I'll be pretty special.

Oh, hmm, how did those cdps get into the hands of that gray market dealer?
paulwp
585 posts
 
Jeez, Ernie, $2000 plus your old one for a new model sounds pretty good to me. How much does the new one sell for? How much is your old one worth now that you've driven down the market value of used Electrocompaniet cdps? My guess is that Mike at F&S is offering to take a loss on the transaction.
More to discover