[john_jcb]

We have thought about it and decided that this thread will remain open. However, inflammatory posts, advertisements for other manufacturers or for that matter any post that we deem off topic will be deleted.

 

[pietenkees]

Ok, this situation is driving me crazy. Been ampless since december and my cans do need an amp (DT880)

The time ive been waiting for my amp i couldve figured out the whole DIY thing and designed and built myself a nice amp

Anyway, sent drew an email in which i give him until 1700 CET tomorrow (1-03-05) to come out with a plausible reason for all these stupid delays, and a shippingreceipt. If not, my CC-company has another case to solve. Think they should have a nice shellbrook-file by now.


UPDATE:

Apparently my email to drew had some effect, received one back within 2 hours. He stated it will be sent this morning, etc etc. Hopefully this is a true honest email. Ill post it here when i receive my trackingno

 

[Exileru]

There was a problem with tracking number , but it is fine now. As Drew promised, He sent out the amp for me by Fedex today, And it will be arrived at Mar,1. I think he is honest this time. Thanks god, after 6 months finally i can receive my amp. And I would like to thank Head Fi community who help me go through all this.

 

[Oski]

Exileru...the FedEx tracking looks fine now...estimated arrival March 1, 2005 to West Van, BC. FedEx and UPS occasionally recycle tracking numbers, that's why your number resulted in an old 2003 date earlier. I had this happen to me once shipping a preamp to someone, which freaked me out. I was about to refund the guy's money, but it arrived fine. Looks like your amp is on its way.

 

[Exileru]

Thanks Oski. I was so upset when i saw the tracking detail too.

 

[Imyourzero]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Genetic Since when this kind of «preselection» is a proper way to deal with problems about anything? If they want to prepare a «class action» (earlier joke) I will say that you're on the right track. If not, the «problem» is to be discuss by every member who can use the service of Shellbrook Labs. In my book it is a lot of people. Amicalement

Unfortunately, the problem when "outside" people become involved and insert their $0.02 is that they have no direct experience with the vendor and usually end up jumping on one bandwagon or another. A casual member may read this thread and decide to insert a very negative post that does not help the situation in any way, and the worst part is they would have absolutely no experience with the person/company being discussed. We don't need that IMO.

John_jcb, I support that decision entirely. Thank you; I think many Head-Fi'ers involved owe the mods a thanks as well for not letting this be closed and pushed aside like previous threads. After all, there are obviously many concerned/unhappy people involved, and it would only be a matter of time before another one was started.

 

[Genetic]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Imyourzero Unfortunately, the problem when "outside" people become involved and insert their $0.02 is that they have no direct experience with the vendor and usually end up jumping on one bandwagon or another.

Do I have to have lost tons of my own $ to have an opinion about bad commercial practices? Contributions, even truly positive ones, can originate from outside the circle of past customers. About the bandwagon... I'm always perplexed by the contributions of satisfied customers from whom we got the «you should not say this or that since I didn't lived the same thing as it happen to you».... I will admit if we follow your logic and we leave the subject entirely to the «mob» made from angry customers.... that could provide an interesting show...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Imyourzero A casual member may read this thread and decide to insert a very negative post that does not help the situation in any way, and the worst part is they would have absolutely no experience with the person/company being discussed. We don't need that IMO.

I will personnaly put more faith in the judgement of «casual members»...some are pretty bright individuals.

Also I dont fear negative posts but I'm pretty scared of the borderline dishonest neutral ones....

Amicalement

 

[12796]

Glad to see some of the protesters are getting some results - I live in hope I will be next!

 

[pietenkees]

Wll drew kept his promise, package is sent out and i have my trackingno. He even included a silver mini-mini interconnect, making up for the ridiculously long waiting time I suppose.

Cant wait to receive it

 

[jefemeister]

If Drew is really cranking these things out at the rate he implies, he should have positive cash flow by now and it seems ridiculous to have to pre-pay. You should only have to pay the moment before it ships. Seems like this might solve a lot of the problems encountered and may ease future customers' concerns?

 

[drewd]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jefemeister If Drew is really cranking these things out at the rate he implies, he should have positive cash flow by now and it seems ridiculous to have to pre-pay. You should only have to pay the moment before it ships. Seems like this might solve a lot of the problems encountered and may ease future customers' concerns?

An excellent idea, but one that is harder to implement than you might imagine. In fact, I've seen a number of good ideas in this thread, including the moderator's decision to not close it. Yes, what's been said in the thread has hurt my business and a lot of what's been said in the thread has been inflammatory and speculative, but a lot of what's been said is true.

Here's the stuff that's true:

Amps have been late. My lack of organization has caused what could be optomistically called "miscommunication". I've missed emails and I've lost emails. I've had a few emergencies and a vacation.

Here's the stuff that's not true:

I'm not a liar. I'm not a thief. I'm not taking anybody's money. Everybody who has sent me money for a product has either received (or is about to receive) his or her goods or got a refund.

If it doesn't fit into true or not true, then it's probably speculation.

The bottom line is this: as I said in another post in this thread, I'm essentially a one man band. I tried hiring a couple of people in December and that was a catastrophe that started this whole ball rolling. This is like a balancing act and once you start to lose your balance, it's remarkable just how hard it is to get back. Nonetheless, I'm working very, very hard to get this thing back on track.

Head-Fi has been a great resource, not only in letting me communicate with you, but for you share information about me, good and bad - and that's fair. If I do something wrong, it's not reasonable to expect to not hear about it and the philosophy of an open forum like Head-Fi means that information is going to be shared. However...the adage of beating a dead horse is a good one. While I appreciate the suggestions and the criticism and while I understand the speculation, at some point we have to reach common ground. There are five pages of accusations, claims, counterclaims, offtopic arguments, suggestions, praise and frustration. If the overall goal of the participants is to shrink or eliminate my business, then you're well on your way to achieving it. But if the goal is to work together to help fix a problem that I and my customers want to see fixed, then this thread isn't working out so well.

Believe me, I'm not playing the victim here. I've made some mistakes that mushroomed nearly out of control - the victims are my customers who had to endure long waits for their products. But in fairness, those customers represent a tiny fraction of the total number of amps and accessories that I've shipped in the past 10 months. It's still a problem - it's small comfort to know that you're part of a tiny fraction when you're waiting - and I understand that.

I want to address a couple of specific suggestions that were raised in this thread.

First, the suggestion that I've got enough cash flow to build amps on a non-prepay basis. That's true, for the most part. The problem is that I do not and will not process credit cards on my own. I'm not willing to assume the responsibility for the security of credit card information via Internet transactions. PayPal does an admirable job of processing credit cards without the security issues. Ordering over the Internet is cumbersome enough without adding more steps to the process, such as taking the order, sending a bill, waiting for and verifying the payment then shipping. That being said, if anybody is hesitant about paying in advance for an amplifier, I'll be happy to work with you to make an agreeable payment arrangement.

I think that somebody suggested using a delivery method that provided a "real" tracking number. I use Priority Mail which gives a delivery confirmation number. It's not a tracking number. It's also about 20% of the cost of Express Mail and an even smaller percentage of FedEx or UPS. However, anybody who would rather have their item shipped via a trackable service can make arrangements with me to do that - I'll update the web page to reflect that.

Finally, as I alluded to above, if anybody is uncomfortable putting up the money in advance for an amplifier from me, here's what I'll offer to ease your worries: email me with your order. I'll build it and ship it and you don't have to pay for it until you receive it. That applies to international as well as US orders. I don't know what could be safer than that.

OK, now, really finally - the email address above seems pretty spam-proof. Email me with comments, suggestions, complaints, flames, whatever. The bottom line? I don't want to abandon this hobby and business and I don't intend to. I want to work constructively with everybody here on Head-Fi and elsewhere to resolve this unpleasantness and move forward. Can we do that? I think so.

Thanks,

-Drew

 

[pigmode]

Quote:

Originally Posted by drewd If the overall goal of the participants is to shrink or eliminate my business, then you're well on your way to achieving it. But if the goal is to work together to help fix a problem that I and my customers want to see fixed, then this thread isn't working out so well. Thanks, -Drew

I disagree. There are at least a couple of your customers who have posted here, and have claimed to have been out of your communications loop. Did this thread help facilitate that communication? Only you and they can answer that question.

The most serious information to arise were the allegations that particular items were promised to have been shipped on several occasions, but had not. Unfortunately fustration levels had reached the point at which people felt the need, reluctantly it seems, to post such information.

The fact is, things appear to have snowballed to the point where all of this is now a matter of public record. This is not about "working together to help fix a problem", this is about the gamut of unfulfilled responsiblities that were taken on board once cash was received.

People vote with their wallets. If you rectify the problems that you have identified above, I can't see why previous business level won't return.

 

[Sean H]

Quote:

Originally Posted by pigmode This is not about "working together to help fix a problem", this is about the gamut of unfulfilled responsiblities that were taken on board once cash was received.

I agree. The customers are NOT part of the problem here. Sounds to me like most have tried to be patient and that is all that can be asked of them in working with Drew's problem, so their part has been generously given already. The claims of deceit have destroyed a platform of "working together." This is Drew's problem and it needs to be solved solely by him.

 

[drewd]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sean H I agree. The customers are NOT part of the problem here. Sounds to me like most have tried to be patient and that is all that can be asked of them in working with Drew's problem, so their part has been generously given already. The claims of deceit have destroyed a platform of "working together." This is Drew's problem and it needs to be solved solely by him.

Well, I thought that I was being clear in my previous message - please don't zero in on a quote taken out of context.

Let me be perfectly clear: This situation is my fault. I did NOT claim that my customers were part of the problem - in fact, I took great pains to point out that my customers were victims of my disorganization and mismanagement of my company. Please let me emphasize with a quote that follows the bit that pigmode focused on:

Quote:

Believe me, I'm not playing the victim here. I've made some mistakes that mushroomed nearly out of control - the victims are my customers who had to endure long waits for their products. But in fairness, those customers represent a tiny fraction of the total number of amps and accessories that I've shipped in the past 10 months. It's still a problem - it's small comfort to know that you're part of a tiny fraction when you're waiting - and I understand that.

pigmode took a quote completely out of context. Nonetheless, if I've offended anyone by suggesting that I would like to work together with the community to resolve the issues that are my fault, then I apologize and I withdraw the suggestion.

Please consider my previous post as a whole rather than analyzing details out of context. In the end, that's all I'm asking.

Thanks,

-Drew

 

[pigmode]

At this point, my impression as a consumer is that Drewd is on the up and up. If there was a product of his that I wanted, I would probably still buy it. Hopefully thing will work out for the best.