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Post by jtc111 on Nov 27, 2018 12:02:58 GMT -6
On their Facebook page, Audio-Scape says they have "big things in store for 2019." I asked for a hint but their lips are sealed for now. Anyone care to make any guesses? I'd love to see them jump into the microphone game.
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Post by jtc111 on Nov 27, 2018 10:38:10 GMT -6
I've jumped ship. My refund was dealt with promptly and my mood is greatly improved.
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Post by jtc111 on Nov 26, 2018 12:08:53 GMT -6
stam , that's not protection. How do I get a refund on the $200 deposit I made for an ADG and the $700 deposit I made for the NOS SA67? You are protected on PayPal for 180 days After that, there is no protection but my word. I am sure that if you come here and say I never gave you something back nobody would ever buy from me again on this forum and others... It's quite simple. Will I get a full refund, including the $500 for the NOS upgrade on the SA67?
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Post by jtc111 on Nov 26, 2018 11:57:43 GMT -6
I don't know what his procedure is for it. Better to ask than to do what I think should be done to find out in a month that I did it wrong when no refund shows up. I understand, but he has told us here numerous times if we want a refund just to email him ? A week or so ago, Joshua seemed to sweeten that offer by implying you could cancel your order but jump back into the que at your original spot when product started shipping and get a 25% discount on a future order. To date, I have four different email addresses for Stam. I have no idea which is the correct one to use for a refund and I'd like to avoid the confusion of sending it to the wrong email or any problems that could occur by sending it to all the emails. I'll be more comfortable with the process if stam tells me directly which email address to use. Also, I'd like some public confirmation that I'll receive a FULL refund, including the $500 extra I sent for the NOS upgrade for the 67. I don't want to request a refund thinking my full $900 is coming back only to find out later some amount was withheld due to the NOS upgrade being a special order.
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Post by jtc111 on Nov 26, 2018 11:12:02 GMT -6
Don't you just ask for it, if you cancel your order ? I don't know what his procedure is for it. Better to ask than to do what I think should be done to find out in a month that I did it wrong when no refund shows up.
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Post by jtc111 on Nov 26, 2018 10:48:38 GMT -6
That is true, however I have never refused nor not paid a refund, even past 180 days to any client, ever, in 6 years. I am not going to start changing that, that would be stealing money and the end of my business. stam, that's not protection. How do I get a refund on the $200 deposit I made for an ADG and the $700 deposit I made for the NOS SA67?
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Post by jtc111 on Nov 26, 2018 10:12:12 GMT -6
When I ordered the SA67, this was the price on your website: So the $1090 plus the $500 I sent you adds up to $1590. Now you're telling my that for my $1590, I'm getting the mic that you're now selling for $1390 or $1490. stam , how is that right or fair? Did you mic ship yet? If not you will get discounted to the current price. No stam, the mic has not shipped nor have I received an invoice. And at this point, if I can, I'd prefer to get a refund of my $200 deposit on the ADG and my $700 deposit on the SA67.
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Post by jtc111 on Nov 26, 2018 10:09:18 GMT -6
If he was shipping on a regular and steady basis, and if there was some evidence that he was catching up rather than falling behind, I'd agree with you. But right now it feels like we're not getting a truthful and accurate picture of things. Meanwhile, he holds our money and we're essentially unprotected should this house of cards fall. How are you unprotected and how am I holding your money? We're unprotected because your constant delays take us past the period where PayPal affords us buyer protection. PayPal has a 180 day limit to begin a dispute. As of today, you have had $900 of my money for much longer than 180 days. Your original promised delivery date, had it been met, would have been within the 180 day limit. The delays take us outside the limit. That is how you are holding my money and how my money is unprotected.
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Post by jtc111 on Nov 24, 2018 21:12:05 GMT -6
I want to call that the R2D2 edition.
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Post by jtc111 on Nov 24, 2018 17:47:57 GMT -6
I've decided to bite on the Apollo X8p. I'm taking advantage of the trade-in with Vintage King. They're giving me $925 for my FW/TB2 card combo. I could probably get a little more if I sold it online, but I figure fees and shipping would eat up most of the difference. I didn't ask outright, but my impression from my conversation is that the trade-in deal won't be around much longer so if anyone is thinking about it, it's probably time to move on it. nice, I think you will still get the UA surprise registration pop up deal too ? I already have the SSL. I wonder what they'll let replace it with.
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Post by jtc111 on Nov 24, 2018 15:09:53 GMT -6
I've decided to bite on the Apollo X8p. I'm taking advantage of the trade-in with Vintage King. They're giving me $925 for my FW/TB2 card combo. I could probably get a little more if I sold it online, but I figure fees and shipping would eat up most of the difference. I didn't ask outright, but my impression from my conversation is that the trade-in deal won't be around much longer so if anyone is thinking about it, it's probably time to move on it.
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Post by jtc111 on Nov 24, 2018 12:31:28 GMT -6
It would be helpful to know how many outstanding orders there are in total. It appears the 20-units-shipped-per-day limit that others have talked about is true. That means in any given month, he can only ship about 600 units or less. At that pace, I wonder how long it would take to clear all existing orders. I understand your frustration, but really that falls under the area of private company information and isn’t really anybody’s buisness but STAMs. Plus if I were on the list I honestly would prefer the time spent giving and updating those figures was spent figuering out how to ship 21 units a day. If he was shipping on a regular and steady basis, and if there was some evidence that he was catching up rather than falling behind, I'd agree with you. But right now it feels like we're not getting a truthful and accurate picture of things. Meanwhile, he holds our money and we're essentially unprotected should this house of cards fall.
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Post by jtc111 on Nov 24, 2018 12:03:56 GMT -6
It would be helpful to know how many outstanding orders there are in total. It appears the 20-units-shipped-per-day limit that others have talked about is true. That means in any given month, he can only ship about 600 units or less. At that pace, I wonder how long it would take to clear all existing orders.
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Post by jtc111 on Nov 23, 2018 20:50:53 GMT -6
I've been wondering about this for a while, and assumed I knew the right answer, but indiehouse 's question in the EPQ1A thread makes me think it's better to get verification now instead of opening myself up for disappointment later. I ordered the 67 with the $500 NOS upgrade back when there was only one version of the upgrade. stam 's description said, "The NOS has the Heiserman HK-67 capsule, AMI BV12 tranformer and NOS EF86 tube. I also added Allen Bradley Carbon resistors."
Now the Stam website has three different NOS upgrade versions at three different prices: I'm guessing the $1390 NOS version is actually the Tung-Sol tube and not the Telefunken tube. So my first question is whether that's a correct assumption. Next, since I paid a $500 premium for the upgrade, am I getting the NOS Telefunken tube as well as the Heiserman HK-67 capsule and AMI BV12 tranformer? The math tells me I should since I'll be into the mic for $1590 in the end. But I'm asking because I don't want any surprises like the EPQ1A folks are getting. Hello NOS upgrade is a NOS EF86 tube (Philips, Valvo or similar) with the AMI BV12, not the Telefunken EF806 tube, this has recently become an option but it was not one at the time and it is a much more expensive and rare tube. I suggest going with the Philips EF86, they sound just as good and very close, almost if not identical to my ears. Thanks Josh When I ordered the SA67, this was the price on your website: So the $1090 plus the $500 I sent you adds up to $1590. Now you're telling my that for my $1590, I'm getting the mic that you're now selling for $1390 or $1490. stam, how is that right or fair?
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Post by jtc111 on Nov 23, 2018 13:34:00 GMT -6
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Post by jtc111 on Nov 22, 2018 15:15:19 GMT -6
I wish you had as much time to answer customers' questions as you do for snide remarks to customers who have every right to be pissed at you for a variety of reasons. Do you have an non answered email from me? If so kindly re-send (stamaudio@gmail.com is my email) Since my questions are about an issue that concerns more than just myself, I'd rather you answered it on this board and saved others the trouble of having to ask the same thing again. Here's a link to the post:
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Post by jtc111 on Nov 22, 2018 15:01:47 GMT -6
Oh really
This is life buddy. Wake up !
Stop wasting peoples time and money.
Thanks for your advice I wish you had as much time to answer customers' questions as you do for snide remarks to customers who have every right to be pissed at you for a variety of reasons.
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Post by jtc111 on Nov 22, 2018 10:58:33 GMT -6
Have a wonderfully indulgent day, friends!
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Post by jtc111 on Nov 22, 2018 10:25:05 GMT -6
I have two pieces on order and they'll be the last things I order from Stam. This experience is starting to feel like a couple of others I've been through in the past.
The first time was back in 2008 when I participated in a pretty big "group buy" under the product name "TNC." I think it took around 9 months (longer than originally promised) for the gear to come in and at the end there was a problem that almost caused the entire thing to blow up when Paypal deemed it a scam and wouldn't process the final payment to the manufacturer in China. The guy running it was having no luck convincing Paypal that it was a legit business transaction. Luckily, I had a cousin who was a VP at Ebay back then and he did me a favor and helped move things along. Without my cousin's help though, I think we all would have lost our deposits and the gear would never have shipped. During the long wait, my patience grew short and I wound up buying better gear than I'd ordered through the group buy so I never even wound up using that gear when it finally got to me.
The second time was around 2014 when I was shopping for a resonator guitar. I came across a selling what they called Hot Rod Steel Guitars. They looked good and they had some YouTube videos which sounded good. The owner, a guy named Lenny Gerthoffer who runs a site called "VintageNationals.com", said he was taking delivery of these guitars from a factory in China and then doing finishing work on them in his shop in California. I ordered one plus a case. Despite being told the guitar was "in stock," it took months before a guitar showed up at my door. And it turned out to be the wrong guitar. Lots of attempts to contact Lenny, leaving messages by phone and email, were unsuccessful but after many weeks of persistence, I finally got hold of him and he promised to ship out the correct guitar and a mailing label to return the mistake. The guitar came, the mailing label did not, but the setup was so bad on the guitar that arrived that it was unplayable. Many more weeks of attempted contacts. I finally get through and Lenny promises to fix it all. He eventually shipped me a third guitar.
Third time's the charm. The guitar arrived and it was the one I ordered and it was set up well. Now I have three of his guitars and have only paid for one, plus I'm still missing the hard case I paid for. More weeks of trying to contact Lenny and he finally sent me a shipping label for one guitar. I sent back the one with the terrible setup and waited for another shipping label to show up. By that time, the horror stories were starting to show up in various forums. People were complaining about orders not be delivered, vintage guitars being sold on consignment and the money never getting back to the owners, vintage guitars being double-sold, etc. A lot of people lost a lot of money with Lenny. In the end I just kept the second guitar. I had been asking for the hard case he owed me for months and it never showed up. I may have been the last person to come out of a deal with Lenny with something positive to show for it because from the comments I was reading back then, it only got worse for people after that.
This situation feels just like those others. In both of those cases I don't think it was the intent of the either person involved to create a mess. I think both were well-intentioned, and I have no reason to believe Josh (despite his terrible interpersonal skills) has bad intentions. But I do worry that Josh has created a business model that is unsustainable in it's current state. It's certainly not meeting the needs of the customers since it's very clear we can put no faith at all in the shipping estimates we're given. Buying a piece of new gear should be a positive experience. Unfortunately, for many Stam customers the experience becomes one of regret and I'd bet money it's not going to improve any time soon.
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Post by jtc111 on Nov 21, 2018 23:19:27 GMT -6
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Post by jtc111 on Nov 21, 2018 23:15:15 GMT -6
It seems to me Joshua is taking steps to improve things. We know he has more staff , is shipping product and have examples of increased responsiveness. He's saying things but I'm not seeing a large body of evidence that points to any broad overall improvement. His attitude towards his customers has certainly not improved, nor have the ridiculously overly optimistic shipping estimates. His last reply in this thread wasn't an example of "increased responsiveness." It was whiny and self-indulgent. I left a couple of questions in the SA67 thread for him to answer. He found time to come here to complain about how this is worse on him than on us, but he couldn't find time to answer the questions I left there.
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Post by jtc111 on Nov 21, 2018 18:20:58 GMT -6
I was just saying maybe he’s getting his shit together. There's little adhesion to those logs.
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Post by jtc111 on Nov 21, 2018 15:39:38 GMT -6
Can't help but to feel burned on this one, paying for something that I'm no longer getting. Josh hasn't replied offering an explanation or apology. Am I over-reacting here? I mean, I don't want to seem ungrateful or anything. But it stings. And finding out about this by piecing together different posts on a forum instead of a direct email adds salt to the wound. Thoughts? I'd feel burned too. There's nothing right about that situation.
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Post by jtc111 on Nov 21, 2018 15:28:10 GMT -6
I've been wondering about this for a while, and assumed I knew the right answer, but indiehouse 's question in the EPQ1A thread makes me think it's better to get verification now instead of opening myself up for disappointment later. I ordered the 67 with the $500 NOS upgrade back when there was only one version of the upgrade. stam 's description said, "The NOS has the Heiserman HK-67 capsule, AMI BV12 tranformer and NOS EF86 tube. I also added Allen Bradley Carbon resistors."
Now the Stam website has three different NOS upgrade versions at three different prices: I'm guessing the $1390 NOS version is actually the Tung-Sol tube and not the Telefunken tube. So my first question is whether that's a correct assumption. Next, since I paid a $500 premium for the upgrade, am I getting the NOS Telefunken tube as well as the Heiserman HK-67 capsule and AMI BV12 tranformer? The math tells me I should since I'll be into the mic for $1590 in the end. But I'm asking because I don't want any surprises like the EPQ1A folks are getting.
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Post by jtc111 on Nov 20, 2018 11:52:34 GMT -6
As long as we’re sharing good Stam news...my buddy who I mentioned was invoiced and paid for his SA-67 like 6 months ago just got tracking for it. Woohoo! I ordered the 67 about 6 1/2 months ago. Haven't heard a word about it since then.
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