hello all
As buyers of consumer electronics we inhabit a world where trust is crucial, especially when purchases are made online.
we hope that our transactions will be honoured, and usually they are.
but not always
i am going to share with you my cautionary tale in the hope that you will not be caught out by an unscrupulous trader; from the UK, The Emporium.
some time ago i decided to rejoin the ranks of vinyl spinners. thedeck i had my eye on was VPI's TNT, and i had a choice between one held by my regular dealer (Alain Abensur of Choice Hifi) and one offered by Nick Besley, proprietor of The Emporium.
regrettably i plumped for the latter.
I paid by installments over 4 months and then delayed delivery to coincide with the arrival of phono stage and equipment rack. I also requested they convert it to balanced output. I paid the full asking price of GBP £4800 as i wanted to receive proper service including installation.
When the deck arrived it got here before my phono stage. Despite knowing this the installer did not bring one with him to confirm that all was well. And they had previously declined my offer to send down my cartridge to check it all worked ok before delivery.
So the chap assembled the deck and went away.
A week later my phonostage arrived. this is when the first fault became apparent. the conversion to balanced output had been done incorrectly; the grooves in the xlr connectors did not align with the male and female pins, making it physically impossible to make the connection. while attempting the impossible i broke one of the soldered connections.
I informed the Emporium of this and they sent someone, not an engineer, to reassemble the xlr plugs correctly.
This he did, then i breathlessly played my first record.
It sounded dreadful
the mid and treble was very faint and distorted, while the bass was loose and flabby. This was when playing an mm cartridge through the mc input on my brand new Boulder 1008 phono stage, when playing through the mm setting it was barely audible at all.
Since i could not vouch for my cartridge i was told this was the problem.
So i spent another month saving for a new cartridge, a Van Den Hul 'The Crimson' mc.
This was then installed by the supplier.
Moment of truth; first record.
And it sounded appalling, even worse than before. Really thin, no bass but massive distortion at both frequency extremes.
now my phonostage fell under suspicion and i was sent one to check. no doubt they hoped to sell it to me.
but it revealed the exact same issue.
Up until this point Mr Besley had behaved reasonably, but this now changed. he began to give me the run around, not returning calls or responding to emails.
He then said he would send a qualified engineer to fix the deck but that I would have to pay. And would i return the phonostage immediately as they did not have a balanced one to check my deck with
It took me all of 5 seconds to look on their website and see that this was a lie and they had several.
It was at this point, with evidence of a lack of good faith and their intention to charge me to fix goods that had been supplied to me defective, plus the lack of any confidence on my behalf that they were actually capable of correctly diagnosing or resolving the issue that i asked for my money back.
He point blank refused.
he did however say that he would send someone to collect the phonostage.
at which point i promised to defend my home from intruders in full accordance with the law and that he could have his phonostage when he returned my money.
Again he refused. Then he promised to come and fix the deck....on december 31st 2019.
i informed him that this was completely unacceptable and that i would seek legal redress
So to get a second opinion i took the deck along to the uk distributor for VPI, Renaissance @ Loud and Clear of Edinburgh.
They were appalled at what they found. they were able to repeat my findings with a cartridge of their own.
the unipivot for the arm was no longer a sharp spike but a rounded hook
the arm base was incomplete and lacked the locking mechanism that secures it to the plinth. also the lowering mechanism was broken.
the main bearing was so worn down that instead of two flat surfaces there was a dome. both bearing and platter needed to be completely replaced and the originalparts were no longer available
the conversion to balanced output was so incompetently carried out it would never have worked and was performed, in their view, by someone who had no business working in hifi
and that all of these faults would have been readily apparent to someone competent if they had assembled the deck as the emporium had done.
overall the deck required £4000 worth of remedial work but out of sympathy for my appalling treatment by nick besley and the emporium they would cap the cost at £2350
i forwarded this report to nick Besley who has refused to return my money or pay for the repairs.
so today i have instructed lawyers to begin proceedings against him.
i write this to share my experience so you may avoid similar happening to you
best wishes
gavin
ps
i managed to get locked out of the forum for 6 months after my computer broke. my apologies to those whose pm's i have not replied to...i will respond presently!
luvgav
As buyers of consumer electronics we inhabit a world where trust is crucial, especially when purchases are made online.
we hope that our transactions will be honoured, and usually they are.
but not always
i am going to share with you my cautionary tale in the hope that you will not be caught out by an unscrupulous trader; from the UK, The Emporium.
some time ago i decided to rejoin the ranks of vinyl spinners. thedeck i had my eye on was VPI's TNT, and i had a choice between one held by my regular dealer (Alain Abensur of Choice Hifi) and one offered by Nick Besley, proprietor of The Emporium.
regrettably i plumped for the latter.
I paid by installments over 4 months and then delayed delivery to coincide with the arrival of phono stage and equipment rack. I also requested they convert it to balanced output. I paid the full asking price of GBP £4800 as i wanted to receive proper service including installation.
When the deck arrived it got here before my phono stage. Despite knowing this the installer did not bring one with him to confirm that all was well. And they had previously declined my offer to send down my cartridge to check it all worked ok before delivery.
So the chap assembled the deck and went away.
A week later my phonostage arrived. this is when the first fault became apparent. the conversion to balanced output had been done incorrectly; the grooves in the xlr connectors did not align with the male and female pins, making it physically impossible to make the connection. while attempting the impossible i broke one of the soldered connections.
I informed the Emporium of this and they sent someone, not an engineer, to reassemble the xlr plugs correctly.
This he did, then i breathlessly played my first record.
It sounded dreadful
the mid and treble was very faint and distorted, while the bass was loose and flabby. This was when playing an mm cartridge through the mc input on my brand new Boulder 1008 phono stage, when playing through the mm setting it was barely audible at all.
Since i could not vouch for my cartridge i was told this was the problem.
So i spent another month saving for a new cartridge, a Van Den Hul 'The Crimson' mc.
This was then installed by the supplier.
Moment of truth; first record.
And it sounded appalling, even worse than before. Really thin, no bass but massive distortion at both frequency extremes.
now my phonostage fell under suspicion and i was sent one to check. no doubt they hoped to sell it to me.
but it revealed the exact same issue.
Up until this point Mr Besley had behaved reasonably, but this now changed. he began to give me the run around, not returning calls or responding to emails.
He then said he would send a qualified engineer to fix the deck but that I would have to pay. And would i return the phonostage immediately as they did not have a balanced one to check my deck with
It took me all of 5 seconds to look on their website and see that this was a lie and they had several.
It was at this point, with evidence of a lack of good faith and their intention to charge me to fix goods that had been supplied to me defective, plus the lack of any confidence on my behalf that they were actually capable of correctly diagnosing or resolving the issue that i asked for my money back.
He point blank refused.
he did however say that he would send someone to collect the phonostage.
at which point i promised to defend my home from intruders in full accordance with the law and that he could have his phonostage when he returned my money.
Again he refused. Then he promised to come and fix the deck....on december 31st 2019.
i informed him that this was completely unacceptable and that i would seek legal redress
So to get a second opinion i took the deck along to the uk distributor for VPI, Renaissance @ Loud and Clear of Edinburgh.
They were appalled at what they found. they were able to repeat my findings with a cartridge of their own.
the unipivot for the arm was no longer a sharp spike but a rounded hook
the arm base was incomplete and lacked the locking mechanism that secures it to the plinth. also the lowering mechanism was broken.
the main bearing was so worn down that instead of two flat surfaces there was a dome. both bearing and platter needed to be completely replaced and the originalparts were no longer available
the conversion to balanced output was so incompetently carried out it would never have worked and was performed, in their view, by someone who had no business working in hifi
and that all of these faults would have been readily apparent to someone competent if they had assembled the deck as the emporium had done.
overall the deck required £4000 worth of remedial work but out of sympathy for my appalling treatment by nick besley and the emporium they would cap the cost at £2350
i forwarded this report to nick Besley who has refused to return my money or pay for the repairs.
so today i have instructed lawyers to begin proceedings against him.
i write this to share my experience so you may avoid similar happening to you
best wishes
gavin
ps
i managed to get locked out of the forum for 6 months after my computer broke. my apologies to those whose pm's i have not replied to...i will respond presently!
luvgav
