I was the guy in college in the mid 80’s who went to Federated and spent way more than I should at the time on a Yamaha receiver, Tape Deck, CD player and Cerwin-Vega speakers that I used for 25+ years until they were taken from my house in a burglary. I replaced them with similar quality components in the early 2000’s and lived with those until early 2025 when I decided to get new gear, so I am relatively new to the higher quality HiFi world and the team at Upscale have been really great to me. I started with buying what I then thought would my forever amp and cd player from Crutchfield. I was relying on Bluetooth/spotify and and frankly did not even know about higher quality streamers and services like Tidal. The internet algorithms noted that I was buying from Crutchfield and magically, ad’s for Upscale Audio started popping up on my computer. Turns out that their store in La Verne is 10 minutes from my house. I had probably driven on their cross street hundreds of times over the years. Not knowing much about them, I stopped by on a Friday after noon to ask about upgrading my amp to a more powerful option. The two younger guys that I first talked with, Jordon & Dylan were super nice and asked me about my gear and what I was trying to achieve. They also introduced me to Joel and together they suggested that I keep my amp and introduce a entry level bluenote streamer to my setup. Think about that - I went in mentally prepared to purchase a new amp and I knew that they don’t sell budget equipment - instead they steered me to a $300 solution. In my book that represents concern for a customer and relationship building.
Over the past 18 months, I have happily gone way down the audio rabbit hole. I have bought, sold, traded new and used gear such that I have assembled 6-7 systems. 90% of the new gear purchases have been from Upscale. All three of my adult kids now have pretty damn decent systems and my wife and I have primary and secondary systems in both our our houses.
Some of the commenters have noted that Upscale sales people seem rushed at times. I can attest that they are busy, particularity on Mondays and Saturdays. I have been in the store, sometimes without an appointment, and seen them juggling phone calls, emails, chats and walk in customers. Joel is the primary guy I work with and he will be very honest and tell me if he has time to chat, or not. If he does have time, he is very good about allowing me to sit in a listening room and demo what they have set up for 45+ minutes.
This is more long winded than I intended but the idea that I want to stress is that I have found Upscale’s customer service to be fantastic and a throw back to the day when retailers took the time to learn about the customer’s needs and they take pleasure in guiding the customer along their audio journey.
My most recent visit to Upscale was just last Friday. I traded emails with Joel in the morning asking about how to improve my system with introduction of a tube pre or power amp. I stopped by the store late that afternoon without an appointment. Daelan, Joel and Keven all took time to listen to me and in the end I am purchasing an open box Prima Luna EVO 300 to replace my SS amp. Kevin is taking my SS amp in as trade (even though I did not buy it from Upscale) and is giving me a VERY fair trade in allowance. This, my friends, is what I consider great customer service. While some may have a few perceived negative experiences, I would suggest that we are all human, sometimes small mistakes or miscommunications happen - but I find Upcale Audio to be a national treasure in a world of mostly impersonal retail experiences today.
