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PSA: Be Careful Dealing With Uptone Audio

Just a cautionary note for anyone wishing to purchase anything from Uptone Audio.

 

Over the past 3 or so years I have owned an ISO Regen, two LPS 1’s and two LPS 1.2’s. When they work they are OK. However, when they do not, you cannot really count on any meaningful support from Uptone Audio – under warranty or not – and even more so if you are not in the US. One of my LPS 1’s failed during the warranty period after less than a year of use. It would not output anything. I contacted Alex Crespi of Uptone who arranged for a replacement. I shipped the faulty LPS 1 back (costly). I received a replacement in about a month. The replacement I received had dings on the case that were not there in the first place. I just chalked it up to shipping issues. Two months later, the replaced unit failed again. It would not light up. It had more than a year left under warranty. I contacted Uptone again who requested I ship it back again for replacement. However, they discouraged it and proposed a credit of US$185 towards the purchase of a new LPS 1.2 in lieu of the warranty on the unit which faltered so quickly after it was replaced. Upon further questioning and correspondence with Uptone, it came to light that they had not repaired the unit I had sent in for warranty replacement with new parts. Instead they had replaced the board with parts culled from used and returned units previously sent in for trade in or repair purposes. In short, the warranty is tantamount to having your unit replaced with a used one which may or may not have been faulty in the first place, which they claim to have “tested”. It is no surprise that the unit faltered so quickly after their supposed warranty replacement then. As such, their so-called warranty replacement is pretty much flawed. Alex got defensive and quoted some self-derived metric about the failure rates of their products being extremely low and put the cause of successive failure in my units down to my bad luck. He also said that I had electrically damaged the unit which is baffling since I had used it only with their supplied OEM Meanwell switching power supply which still works fine up till today. To date, in the last 20 or so years of being in the hi fi hobby, these Uptone products are the only ones to have malfunctioned so badly.

 

Wishing to cut my losses and to avoid having to ship the faulty unit back to the US at costly charges when the “warranty” replacement would most likely fail again shortly, I paid the remainder towards a brand new LPS 1.2. Alex made it clear that he would not assist with repair of the faulty LPS 1 and I disposed of it.

 

I received a shipment of the LPS 1.2. However, when I unpacked it, the unit had a clear rattling noise when removed from the box. Upon closer inspection, there was a slight scratch on the front chassis plate and the screws were badly stripped. It was pretty clear that Alex had shipped me a used unit or one that had escaped their seemingly lax quality control. I contacted Uptone immediately and requested that they make arrangements for their carrier to collect the unit from me for return to them and replacement of a brand new unit to me. Alex admitted to their negligence citing size slippages and disparities in their OEM case specifications which caused the misfit and rattling noise and worn out Torx screwdrivers stripping the screws. He was certainly aware of the issues affecting the unit I was shipped. However, he refused to do anything about it. He suggested that he would send me some screws and that I open up the unit myself and mount some electrical tape inside the case to stop the rattling noise. Again, he seemed to be fully aware of the issue and how to fix it. Unfortunately, I am not technically inclined nor do I own a Torx screwdriver. To render those fixes I would have to pay a technician to do so. This is rich considering that I had paid for a new and finished product and was shipped a used and/or damaged one. I wrote back to insist on a replacement unit being sent to me and that Uptone arrange to cover the return shipping costs to themselves. Again, Alex refused steadfastly and got hostile, saying that I was taking advantage of them. How exactly am I taking advantage? I paid full price for a new and finished product – that is all I expect, no more and no less. Alex also stated that he did not wish to lose any money on this sale even though Uptone offers the best customer service possible. His final offer was that I return the LPS 1.2 to them at my own cost and that he would refund me the US$250 I had paid meaning I would have to write off the US$185 credit value on the disposed LPS 1 which he is contractually obliged to repair but had refused to assist me with.

 

In this whole experience with Uptone, Alex strikes me as someone who is simply full of excuses. He pays lip service to providing good customer service but it is really just marketing talk. When it comes to the crunch, he fails to deliver but instead makes excuses and puts the blame on anyone but Uptone and himself. Outrageously, he even believes in his own self manufactured press. I recall earlier correspondence with him on why the Uptone ISO Regen would disconnect from my DAC for no reason, requiring that I unplug and replug the DC cable from the Uptone LPS 1.2 for it to work again. Not knowing that I was powering it with a LPS 1.2, he began by questioning the power supply I used. When told it was a LPS 1.2, he blamed the issue on the Silanna chip Uptone used in the ISO Regen – after all, it was an Uptone supply and he could not blame that anymore. I mean you manufactured this product, sourced and supposedly tested the parts and then sold it to the customer as a finished product for good money. The sheer lack of responsibility, ethics and professionalism!

 

As an example of Alex being purely a marketing act, you can see on the Computer Audiophile forum how he derides Sonore’s optical module and Optical Rendu, since Uptone now makes a competing product. Recall, Uptone came into existence making derivative products such as USB fixers and power supplies to be used with Sonore’s series of streamers – the hypocrisy of it all.

 

I appreciate that others may have had a good experience dealing with Uptone Audio but unfortunately, that hasn’t been the case with me. Uptone strikes me as a bucket shop. There are lots of cottage industries and artisanal products in hi fi and that is fine and good, so long as they are run with honesty, integrity and professionalism and not at the expense of unsuspecting customers. Pete of Triode Wire Labs is a great example of a fine one man show company who provides great customer service. Uptone is definitely NOT - YMMV!


mikey8811
three_easy_payments's avatar
three_easy_payments
2,097 posts
 
@glupson  

Is it really not worth taking a risk selling there just because some buyer may want to get what they paid for under the terms they paid for it?

I think the NBA has already vetted this calculus ;-)
rsf507
2,222 posts
 
Wow 3200 views on this thread.....how is this affecting Uptone? All over a $250 sale!
glupson
7,842 posts
 
.....how is this affecting Uptone?
Live and learn.
Post removed 
the_treble_with_tribbles
43 posts
 
Ummm, no @thyname , the warranty on the old LPS-1 was definitely not void and thus worthless as thyname implies, "when the OP agreed to pay $250 for the new LPS-1.2 in lieu of any warranty claims / work on the LPS-1."

You may have read the entire email exchange, but unfortunately didn’t understand it.

It was apparently stated on one of UpTone’s emails, to which the OP agreed to, contrary to what thyname states, that in LIEU of performing the warranty work, a NEW LPS-1.2 would be sent, with the price differential of $250 to be paid by mikey8811, which meant a DISCOUNT of $185 because now Uptone didn’t have to perform the warranty work on the junky LPS-1 that Alex had sent him.

Alex says (according to thyname) "I could spend a couple of hours unpacking his long post and replying point-by-point, but instead--for full transparency-- am going to paste the entirely of our 10 month long exchange.

…

and treated him with respect throughout more than a dozen e-mail exchanges.

…
Below is our ENITRE e-mail chain--with not a single word changed.

…

Anyone is free to ask me questions. I have zero to hide. Please judge for yourselves.
Thanks,
ALEX CRESPI "

But that isn’t the ENTIRE e-mail chain, it is only seven out of the twelve, so I’ll ask to see the other ones too, which apparently show the deal that Alex offered to mikey8811.

Quoting thyname "And then for some reason the OP disposed of the LPS-1 (??!) "and still asks for the money back on it." To explain again, once Uptone essentially purchased the remaining warranty of the junky LPS-1, that value, in this case $185 which was the amount set by Alex, becomes the property of mikey8811. Uptone didn’t ask for the LPS-1 to be sent back, it obviously didn’t have enough value to Alex to pay for the return shipping to him, so mikey8811 can toss it in the trash if he wants to, but of course would do the responsible thing and recycle it. Now thyname is correct, at this point the warranty is void, because mikey8811 agreed to the deal offered by Uptone. Anybody who would get that specific LPS-1 would have no warranty, and people would have to rely on the honesty of mikey8811 if he ever somehow sold it.

It really isn’t complex. A $435 item was sold for $250 with a $185 credit for the LPS-1 warranty voiding, Alex at Uptone is the person who offered the deal, so there is more responsibility on his end.

Quoting thyname again, "And then, the LPS-1.2 is somehow on a new box, but not new, at which point it becomes “he said / she said”, as we would never know," I am only in disagreement because I believe that Uptone did send a new one. It really wouldn’t make any sense at all to send a problem item to a customer who is already complaining. But then the fact that Alex says to just put a piece of tape in it to stop the board from rattling would be enough for me to want to return it for a refund.

So, in the end Uptone has an extremely unhappy customer, willing to spend his time pursuing this, since apparently the credit card company did not reimburse him for the $250 charge. And all this is just for the price of return shipping of the new (or used?) LPS-1.2, which as thyname stated, is a "he said / she said" situation, but nonetheless Alex refuses to pay that, because in the end Alex is hoping to be the $185 ahead for not performing the warranty work of the original LPS-1, and only offering the $250 as a refund, which is unfair.
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