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Post by Johnkenn on Aug 16, 2016 21:13:53 GMT -6
Dear Friends, We are excited to announce that our microphones will be represented by a number of dealers nationwide. You will still be able to purchase them directly from us. However, effective on August 31st, we won't be able to offer our $799 'Introductory Special' price for the Samar VL37, and $999 for the Samar VL37A. The prices for those microphones will be raised to 'retail' prices, which are $949 and $1149, respectively. From now until August 31st will be the last opportunity to have those microphones at the discounted price. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to contact us. Best regards and thank you for all of your support and inquires, Dr. Mark Fouxman www.samaraudiodesign.com |
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Post by ragan on Aug 16, 2016 21:21:33 GMT -6
I probably would have bought one a good while ago but I'm not up for the wait/communication situation.
I'm sure they're lovely mics. Maybe things will get a bit less chaotic with dealers involved.
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Post by EmRR on Aug 17, 2016 6:08:56 GMT -6
It appears to be a supply/demand issue.
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Post by ragan on Aug 17, 2016 8:57:31 GMT -6
It appears to be a supply/demand issue. No doubt that's most of it. Communication has been wacky too though. |
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Post by drbill on Aug 17, 2016 14:10:50 GMT -6
It appears to be a supply/demand issue. I don't think so, but if it is, it will get worse with more dealers..... |
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Post by ragan on Aug 17, 2016 14:16:26 GMT -6
I emailed them a couple years ago and it took weeks to get responses. Lots of stories like that out there.
I believe Samar's mics are really high quality, but there are a lot of people (I'm one of them) who don't want to deal with that kind of communication situation.
I hope it gets better at least on that front. I'd like to buy one of their mics sometime.
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Post by EmRR on Aug 17, 2016 14:32:13 GMT -6
I never had any problems, but I bought in early several years ago. If it's the supply/production issue I suspect, dealers won't actually have them.
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ericn
Temp
Balance Engineer
Posts: 14,978 
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Post by ericn on Aug 18, 2016 11:55:01 GMT -6
It appears to be a supply/demand issue. I don't think so, but if it is, it will get worse with more dealers..... The one advantage is dealers can put in large orders that might help cash flow and carry stock making it easier to increase production. The negative is dealers means extending credit and that can kill you. |
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Post by sopwith on Aug 19, 2016 17:53:36 GMT -6
Argh, I should just go ahead and buy the vl73 on this trip back to the states.
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Post by Johnkenn on Aug 20, 2016 11:42:31 GMT -6
It really is a great mic. I actually have a VL37a coming.
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Post by markfouxman on Aug 23, 2016 12:32:43 GMT -6
I emailed them a couple years ago and it took weeks to get responses. Lots of stories like that out there. Hello Ragan, Sorry you had that experience. As I wrote you then, I was out of country (we are always closed entire July for summer vacations) and had only occasional access to email. Even though, I answered your email within a week (you wrote July 7, 2015, I answered July 14, 2015) and asked you to contact me once I am back, but you never did... Normally, we answer emails in 1-3 days (especially about our products). Longer answers mean whether I don't have an access to email, we do not know the answer at the moment and need more time to figure things out, or somehow email gets lost in the pile (we receive dozens inquires a day)... Usually, once a week I carefully go through all the emails to check if any unanswered left... If people have trouble reaching us by email our phone number is listed on our website and you can ALWAYS reach us by phone 12pm-5pm Mountain Time. Regarding the shipping delays--indeed, we had it in the past. There were two reasons: 1) When we introduced our mics we did not expect such an avalanche of orders and from the very beginning did not stock enough parts. Unfortunately, we were dependent on local machine shops and very often had huge delays (sometimes up to half a year!!!). After having that experience we just decided to do everything in house (including machining work) and now we are setup for full scale production. 2) Earlier this year we had a very unfortunate hiccup--because of marital problems our employee of some 5-6 years had to move out of town. To do what we do here need exactly the right person--dedicated, interested in music and microphones, very patient, detail oriented, and just... perfection freak--only such person would be able to offer our clients the highest quality standards of Samar Audio. It took us over 2 months to find such person and then another month of intense training and learning curve until we could start producing the microphones again. Basically, our entire business was stalled for 3 months because of that. In any case, right now we are back to speed and have even more people on board to protect from such hiccups and ramp up the production. We should send all the outstanding orders by the end of this month and starting 3rd week of September will have the microphones in stock for immediate shipping. The lower price of "Introductory Special" was a compensation for the waiting period. To compensate for additional delivery delays we offered life time parts warranty and 3 years re-ribboning (maximum 3). The normal warranty is 5 year parts and 2 year ribbon (2 max). The next step will be putting into production our new line of condenser microphones, which we introduced last year at the AES in New York. Best, M |
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Post by ragan on Aug 23, 2016 13:35:43 GMT -6
I emailed them a couple years ago and it took weeks to get responses. Lots of stories like that out there. Hello Ragan, Sorry you had that experience. As I wrote you then, I was out of country (we are always closed entire July for summer vacations) and had only occasional access to email. Even though, I answered your email within a week (you wrote July 7, 2015, I answered July 14, 2015) and asked you to contact me once I am back, but you never did... Normally, we answer emails in 1-3 days (especially about our products). Longer answers mean whether I don't have an access to email, we do not know the answer at the moment and need more time to figure things out, or somehow email gets lost in the pile (we receive dozens inquires a day)... Usually, once a week I carefully go through all the emails to check if any unanswered left... If people have trouble reaching us by email our phone number is listed on our website and you can ALWAYS reach us by phone 12pm-5pm Mountain Time. Regarding the shipping delays--indeed, we had it in the past. There were two reasons: 1) When we introduced our mics we did not expect such an avalanche of orders and from the very beginning did not stock enough parts. Unfortunately, we were dependent on local machine shops and very often had huge delays (sometimes up to half a year!!!). After having that experience we just decided to do everything in house (including machining work) and now we are setup for full scale production. 2) Earlier this year we had a very unfortunate hiccup--because of marital problems our employee of some 5-6 years had to move out of town. To do what we do here need exactly the right person--dedicated, interested in music and microphones, very patient, detail oriented, and just... perfection freak--only such person would be able to offer our clients the highest quality standards of Samar Audio. It took us over 2 months to find such person and then another month of intense training and learning curve until we could start producing the microphones again. Basically, our entire business was stalled for 3 months because of that. In any case, right now we are back to speed and have even more people on board to protect from such hiccups and ramp up the production. We should send all the outstanding orders by the end of this month and starting 3rd week of September will have the microphones in stock for immediate shipping. The lower price of "Introductory Special" was a compensation for the waiting period. To compensate for additional delivery delays we offered life time parts warranty and 3 years re-ribboning (maximum 3). The normal warranty is 5 year parts and 2 year ribbon (2 max). The next step will be putting into production our new line of condenser microphones, which we introduced last year at the AES in New York. Best, M Actually Mark, I emailed you back on the same day you responded (Jun 14th last year) and asked several questions and never got a response until this post. BUT I am not trying to drag your company through the mud. I was just saying that the quality of your mics turned me on, the communication turned me off. Best of luck with the new dealer arrangements. I'd still like to try one of your mics at some point. Several people whose opinions I respect seem to love them. |
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Post by ragan on Aug 25, 2016 23:03:39 GMT -6
At least part of the communication issue with Mark and I was the fact that I didn't get back in touch when Mark was back in the saddle a month later. My memory of the communication hijinks was more dramatic than it actually was, just want to cop to that.
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