Schiit at the least should answer the darn phone and explain issues. It's called customer service. I would have walked a month ago, then again I would have never got involved with company who's name is a joke.
I ordered my Freya+ 6/26/2020, shipped on 8/10/2020, received 8/13/2020(CA resident). I was under the complete understanding it would be delayed. For what it’s worth... It’s worth the wait IMHO.
When I had ordered mine months back, I also had to wait a few weeks before it shipped.. They’re having supply issues, they will ship it when it’s ready.. The OP needs to settle down and not be so quick to label them out of business... how ridiculously overdone.
I checked my order for a Freyga + today. Usually I see “in production 7-10 days etc etc”. Today I had a estimated delivery date of March something. Finally some communication !!!!
I checked my order for a Freyga + today. Usually I see “in production 7-10 days etc etc”. Today I had a estimated delivery date of March something. Finally some communication !!!!
Oh, no! When did you order yours? I placed my order on 10/30 and have been getting the shipping in 7-10 days runaround from customer service for over two months now. Did they email you about March 25th or did you just see it on their website?
No, they are backordered due to supply chain issues. They just did a live you tube video talking about their new CD transport which will be released sometime this year and various other things.
Op check your spam filter, they will email you order status and shipping updates and when it ships they will send your the FedEX tracking #. Wait till your order something from China. I wonder if he has heard there is a Covid problem in California.
Buying habits have changed. We stay home and music is easier on the ears than TV. i am sure they are busy. They sell equipment that performs way above the price point. All their literature states use email. This is much lower cost and all issues are documented. I for example touched the speaker wire together and took out the right channel. Fixed for nothing in a week. Call Macintosh for repair and wait for months. Just an example not trying to stir up the Mac people.
I ordered my second Aiger and it was delivered in the time frame just as the site stated. The thing with Schiit you need to understand they are in the business of making quality equipment not marketing and holding the hands of people who buy from them. When you place your order don’t expect an ass kissing and twenty emails on the status that is not how they operate. You get a confirm of the order then one when it ships that is it. Straight forward no bullshit. I have emailed question on my equipment and have always received an honest reply not always what I wanted to hear and not going down ten rabbit holes just straight to the point. That is why I like them and will buy more gear from them in the future.
Schiit has ALWAYS said to email because they do not use the phone much. That has always been their policy. Keep in mind California us under neo-nazi control of its population because of the Corona Virus political tool that the power mad love to use to oppress the people. They are stuck in the mire of that system. Its got so bad its why Elon Musk said Tesla is moving out of California and going to Texas.
They could offer amazing customer service, a dealer network, etc...but then you wouldn’t pay $900. What is PrimaLuna and Rogue audio charging for their tube preamps? Give Kevin Deal at Upscale Audio a call he will talk your ear off and overnight you a preamp...but it will cost you
I think a lot of companies are backlogged now because of the pandemic. I ordered something 3 months ago made by another company and just cancelled it. It seems none of the dealers I order from have stock. They are waiting for their orders to be filled.
Jason writes an article about once a month on Head-Fi. From his latest on 1/13/21
"
Backorders have been a part of Schiit since inception, but they’ve been particularly painful this year. Especially Freya+. But seriously, we’ve done double runs of Freya+ and we’re still not getting ahead. And when we have chassis, we may not have boards, and when we have boards, transformer lead times have gone up, meaning we may not have transformers, and even if we have boards and transformers, we have repeatedly run two different tube manufacturers dry on new production tubes, and even if we have all of the above, right now, the custom-sized box we use to pack them in has now gone far, far out in lead-time, thanks to (apparently) Amazon buying every cardboard manufactory in the USA. You can’t make this Schiit up!"
The quality of the Freya + is such that when one appears in the used market, it is sold that same day. When you do get your unit, do your ears a favor and treat them to some Melz1578 & KenRad VT231. In fact, since you have to wait, go ahead and order since the good ones come from the Ukraine and take a bit to arrive. That will make the waiting easier.
I spoke with a friend in the industry who is also close to Schiit's Mike Moffat recently. He told me that due to the DAC chip shortage, production has been greatly slowed down. He mentioned this because he is getting the latest iteration of the Yggie in the near future.
I ordered a Sol turntable on Monday this week.....received it on Thursday.....They definitely are in business, but Covid is creating serious world wide percussions,... (beyond health issues.)....
So it just took me 10 seconds to find a pre owned freya + for $800...
@emergingsoul, you said you’d pay 150% for a pre owned unit. If you’d like to venmo me $1350 I’ll buy the freya + listed at $800 and have it shipped to you within a week.
P.S. I have no issues e-mailing you and calling you daily until the unit arrives to you safely. Please let me know quickly though as that Freya + will be gone tomorrow...
I ordered a Ragnarok amp only in early December. At that time it said "Ships in 5-7 days". After a couple of weeks I emailed Schitt to inquire on status. I got a prompt reply indicating it would be a couple more weeks. In all honestly they could have let me know that before I inquired, but so be it. Two weeks rolled around and I sent another email, to be notified it would ship "around Feb 25th". I checked the website and that is what it did in fact say. Ok, cool. I now look at the website and it says "Ships on Feb 25th". No "around" anymore. That's progress imo.
Apparently they are updating the website regularly, but are not sending out emails regarding the issue. They may assume customers can check the website. Remember, Callifornia, especially Southern California, is still experiencing a very severe Covid surge right now, and they are probably short-staffed.
My take is that Schiit products are in high demand, and they are also likely dealing with delays from other vendors as well as their own internal challenges. Everything in my world, from work, to the mail, to the bathroom contractor etc etc etc are running behind and experiencing unexpected challenges to their businesses.
So what to do? Wait and be patient. Or cancel the order. That's all there is to it.
After a 3 month wait and one too many boilerplate emails from Schiit, I decided to cancel my order today.
It feels good!
While waiting, I’ve narrowed down a few other directions I might go in and figured why not take the plunge. While I’m sure I would’ve been happy with the Schiit gear, I think the communication sucked and I got disenchanted with their “rebellious upstart” image extending to how they informed buyers about months long delays. Why not just email out the info from HeadFi that @gnaster posted above to everyone waiting for a Freya+?
Strangely, it was the fastest and clearest communication I’ve had with Schiit. Within 25 minutes of writing to cancel, I had a reply and $600 going back to my PayPal. That was money I’d sent them to get a Bifrost in my order instead of a Modi.
There you go, pip! Doing something about an unsatisfactory experience. Nothing wrong with that, and so much better than the "hurry up and wait" mode that get some to complain endlessly as if that will cause the needed parts to be manufactured any faster.
People respect honesty. Schiit appears to need to be more candid. Maybe being candid is believed to impact order flow, so they are guarded about what they say. At least they are now being more open about ship dates, at least for those who check website.
2020 was simultaneously an amazing and terrible year for Schiit Audio and 2021 has started off the same.
Schiit has backorders on about half of our product line. This includes Lyr, Hel, Vali, Magnius, Ragnarok, Modius, Gungnir, Yggdrasil, Loki, and Freya+. Amps like Vidar and Aegir are taking us longer to build. We have placed orders for all of the components we need to build these products- in most cases the orders were placed more than six months ago.
The reason we are out of stock is a combination of expanded demand, difficulty getting parts delivered as per schedule, limited capacity at our board house, limited capacity at our own shop to build quickly enough, extended lead times for packaging, and we've had several employees out at various times for quarantines.
What are we doing about it? I am in Texas working on opening a second production facility that will give us access to more space and more employees. We've added a second board house to add capacity and our primary board house is working to do the same. We have increased run sizes and frequency of run sizes where possible. Some of the items we have no control over- when we place a capacitor order six months ago and they tell us just before shipment that the order is delayed or the order is cancelled we're stuck scrambling to find an alternate part. When that happens the Freya+ that we were hoping to build and ship in two weeks gets indefinitely delayed while we look for parts. Freya+ has been hardest to keep in stock because demand it high and its supply chain is more easily broken. Please understand that we are working hard each day to solve these problems and get out of backorder. We don't like backorders either. It is a constant stress and pressure that we don't want.
What about distributors? We have been focusing on servicing Schiit.com customers. We have not been reliably supporting our distributors since the pandemic started. We are working on that too. If you have a backorder to a distributor they have no idea when they will be able to ship and honestly I don't either. We are building and shipping as quickly as we can and adding capacity as quickly as we can.
Why do you suck at communication? We aren't the best at this and we know it. We are working at getting better. First off, stop calling the phone number. We don't answer it. If you want an update on your order send an email. Our prices are lower than our competitors and part of the compromise is we don't pay for a dealer network and we don't pay for people to answer our phones. We have designated a person to be our backorder czar and she is responsible for making sure the website and status messages are more clear and up to date. She will also be responsible for getting backorders filled as quickly as I can build inventory.
The best answer I can give to this thread is I am sorry we haven't been better at this. We've really had to stretch as a company without a whole lot of warning or preparation. We are working on it and will do better.
a very nice letter. And near end I did note an apologetic tone, which is appreciated.
we tend to forget troubling service issues, in time, but great customer service is remembered and I am one to become a loyal follower as evidenced by me buying my 10th b&w speaker, also delayed.
I am very appreciative of schiit offering a true ht bypass for the freya +. It passes thru signal while limiting tube use and controls power, inputs via remote. A feat not found on any higher end preamps which sucks so I bought yours.
I look forward to using the freya+ soon. A tough business climate and I am empathetic. Good luck,
Alex....that was brilliant and thank you, even though I canceled my order.
It seems that Laura Z and George who answered my emails could only provide limited info...”We hope to ship in 7-10 days” and “So sorry for the wait”, “I’m sorry, the order isn’t ready yet” and whatnot over the last few months.
If the Schiit website had the same info that Jason Stoddard shared with folks on HeadFi then the people waiting wouldn’t be so salty about their wait. Myself included. Folks shouldn’t have to sift the tea leaves on Audiogon, HeadFi, and Superbestaudiofriends to find out what’s up with Schiit. Even if Jason and Mike post on other forums, why not front page that info on the Schiit site?
You’d probably get even more orders!
And of course that would increase the wait list for some items, but a well-informed wait list isn’t a bad thing.
People wait on Decware amps for 5-6 months because they have a well-defined waiting list that they post in their forums and people know where they stand and when to expect their items.
If anyone is reading this, the semiconductor supply chain right now is a disaster with exceptionally long lead times, and the change in supply chain happened really fast, so those without inventory or orders on the books with suppliers could be having a hard time getting parts. I am not saying this specific to Schitt, just a general comment. Even automotive suppliers are having issues.
This is correct parts supply is a real pain, but also is sending your finished product. I called off all my customer orders after one shipped 20th January to Sweden, he just got it yesterday, and tracking it was all over the place. But the up side is, I can go for surfs now when the waves/tides are good, with nothing but for "she who must be obeyed" holding me back
We ordered a GE Cafe fridge and GE garage freezer in August, for our new home. The fridge was delivered last week and the dealership has no idea when the freezers will become available. Both the dealer and the folks at GE tell me the supply chains for parts has been problematic for about a year now. I suspect that's the same for audio manufacturers.
I recently and finally received freya+. Sound is better than what I had. A well built nice looking unit, except for ......
ONE PROBLEM, it can be DANGEROUS to use. Gain setting for ht output must be set all the way up to enable sound to flow thru unit, before ht volume controls are used. WARNING, when u change inputs from ht to a dac u must turn gain all the way back. Otherwise dac will come on at full volume. USERS beware, freya can be dangerous to your health!
surprised this is allowed to be sold to consumers. It has a design problem and there are no warnings in their manual. I have restricted use of system. unfortunately, I will be scraping it and buying something else, too damn risky to users. Do not drink while changing settings.
Sounds like you are treating the Freya's "passive" mode option as a HT bypass.
That's not what the passive mode was intended for and nothing in their literature or owners manual indicates anything about its use as a HT bypass feature.
Sounds like you are blaming them for your off-label use.
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