[Whazzzup]

No doubt my journey with antipodes has seen ups and downs. my dtgs had a power outage reboot problem, my dx3 couldn’t download 3.1 and got stuck in the process, my dx3 when upgraded to oladra had the wrong fuse installed and wouldn’t work. Antipodes made good with me at every step. Course I always had a positive attitude and just looked for help. I was more disappointed then angry cause I knew what good sound was achievable. There isn’t a company I’d stake reputation and service on that equals antipodes. but life a box of chocolates, you never know what your going to get.

 

[Ciggavelli]

The tone you use makes me wonder if maybe you have been choosing to be part of the problem instead of part of the solution. I don’t know the details in your case, but I just don’t see how anyone benefits from complaints expressed in this fashion.

I was actually taken aback by your assertion that @12grayclouds would defend them for “no good reason”. That he would come forth suggests that he feels that they‘ve given him a good reason to. That’s true for me and I’d suspect it‘s true for most of us who participate here. What I’ve consistently seen from Antipodes is desire to do right by their customers. That’s not always an easy thing to do because these are complex products and they are a small company.

Clearly you aren’t happy with their products. That’s okay, because we all have owned products that have pissed us off. But if you’ve reached the point where you are lashing out at not just them but also at their customers who support them, maybe you are already past the point of no return and it’s time to make a change. I like to think that everything happens for a reason, so maybe that bad RAM was just the universe’s way of nudging you on. This hobby is supposed to be fun. Life is way too short to allow an aspect of one of your hobbies to rob you of your joy.

I’ll keep my fingers crossed though that somehow you end up sticking with your K50 as all your issues get ironed out. The K50 that’s on loan to me has been bringing me so much joy. I’d like to see that be the case for you too.

I guess to distill my problem with Antipodes, it would be that they didn’t take my problems seriously. They didn’t listen to me and didn’t believe that their product was at fault. That is very frustrating.

Also, I can understand you being happy with Antipodes. However, your good experience doesn’t invalidate my bad experience.

 

[kennyb123]

Also, I can understand you being happy with Antipodes. However, your good experience doesn’t invalidate my bad experience.

No it doesn’t invalidate it, but we shouldn’t limit it to two datapoints. There are many others who seem very happy with Antipodes. While some have certainly expressed dissatisfaction over hiccups encountered, several of the accusations you’ve made haven’t been expressed by anyone else that I recall. You’ve been the only one using an accusatory tone with remarks like “Antipodes did fukc up” and they “bricked” your K50. If your private exchanges with them were tinged with the same tone might that have possibly contributed to them eventually leaving you with the impression that they weren’t taking your problems seriously?

Obviously I can’t know whether that was the case. I can only speak from my personal experience. When the K30’s second drive bay wasn’t recognizing the drive, Mark was quick to take action. He asked me to check that all the connections were good and after I confirmed that he arranged for it to go to their repair guy. When I encountered issues with the AMS upgrades, I was able to quickly arrange a support call and have the problems resolved. And while both Nick and I struggled a bit to figure out how to get Squeeze to play PCM up to 768k, once the solution was found, with last few AMS updates Mark has made sure that this capability would be preserved. He proactively reached out to me to ask for a file he could test with and to understand how I had configured it. In fairness, it did bother me that AMS 3.1 took so long to get to us and bring with it updates to the apps. I vented here and even complained to Mark about it. He was quick to respond and was forthcoming in his explanation for why it was taking so long. This is my long-winded way of saying that my interactions with them have left me with an impression that’s exactly the opposite of yours. They are good guys who really do care about us having a great experience.

 

[Ciggavelli]

No it doesn’t invalidate it, but we shouldn’t limit it to two datapoints. There are many others who seem very happy with Antipodes. While some have certainly expressed dissatisfaction over hiccups encountered, several of the accusations you’ve made haven’t been expressed by anyone else that I recall. You’ve been the only one using an accusatory tone with remarks like “Antipodes did fukc up” and they “bricked” your K50. If your private exchanges with them were tinged with the same tone might that have possibly contributed to them eventually leaving you with the impression that they weren’t taking your problems seriously?

Obviously I can’t know whether that was the case. I can only speak from my personal experience. When the K30’s second drive bay wasn’t recognizing the drive, Mark was quick to take action. He asked me to check that all the connections were good and after I confirmed that he arranged for it to go to their repair guy. When I encountered issues with the AMS upgrades, I was able to quickly arrange a support call and have the problems resolved. And while both Nick and I struggled a bit to figure out how to get Squeeze to play PCM up to 768k, once the solution was found, with last few AMS updates Mark has made sure that this capability would be preserved. He proactively reached out to me to ask for a file he could test with and to understand how I had configured it. In fairness, it did bother me that AMS 3.1 took so long to get to us and bring with it updates to the apps. I vented here and even complained to Mark about it. He was quick to respond and was forthcoming in his explanation for why it was taking so long. This is my long-winded way of saying that my interactions with them have left me with an impression that’s exactly the opposite of yours. They are good guys who really do care about us having a great experience.

I was nothing but nice to them with my interactions. They were never able to fix my problems and blamed it on me for having "bad" internet. I was skeptical, but eventually better internet came to my area. The problems still occurred. Then I find out yesterday that it was my ram the whole time. I could have avoided a year of problems with my K50 (I have complained about my K50 crashing in this thread multiple times) had Antipodes did the right thing and tested my ram in the beginning. Once I learned that it wasn't my internet that was the reason for the problems (which was yesterday), I became pretty upset, as can be seen by my posts in here. I have written a complaint to Mark about my issue. I think most people would be upset that their very expensive server hasn't been working for a year. Then to find out they could have fixed this issue a year ago, makes me upset. They spent a year telling me it was my internet, didn't offer to get my unit examined, etc.

I am upset, but I was always nice to them up until yesterday. To learn it was an issue with my ram, after being told for a year that it was my fault for having bad internet, leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

 

[kennyb123]

I am upset, but I was always nice to them up until yesterday. To learn it was an issue with my ram, after being told for a year that it was my fault for having bad internet, leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

That’s fair. I think you might even be handling it better than I would if that happened to me. I hope it all has a happy ending.

 

[Ciggavelli]

That’s fair. I think you might even be handling it better than I would if that happened to me. I hope it all has a happy ending.

I have written Mark, he responded once for me to clarify the issue I had. I responded to that, and I'm awaiting his response (it's the weekend already for them). All I expect is an acknowledgment of their error, an apology, and a solution. If they do that, I will be happy with Antipodes again.

 

[naynay]

My issue is now fixed. The source setting on EX player settings was set wrong.

 

[Ciggavelli]

I just upgraded to AMS 4.0 now the EX is not seeing any of my music library stored on the CX. Anyone have any ideas?

There is a problem with AMS 4.0. They said it had something to do with incorrect names. They couldn't fix it on my end when I had a session with them. Antipodes claims a fix is coming this weekend though. Basically, AMS 4.0 is broken for some people, and you and I happen to fall into that category.

 

[F208Frank]

All this reading of updating fails, I am just not going to update, hah.

My Roon works fine.

 

[Progisus]

I actually preferred the original sonicorbiter software. I felt I was more in control and that programs were actually being unloaded. I also liked the frequent application updates. It feels sometimes that app updates are being held back. It does look more polished and removes the sonicorbiter branding which I imagine Antipodes was aiming for. Still great sound and first league tech support.

 

[andrewd01]

whoa boys nobody should made to feel bad about their server not working properly, and all I’m taking from this, is to wait a few months for the new op system to be tweaked before I’ll update.

I’m with you on that. I won’t go anywhere near major updates on day one. Having a bricked music system would be very stressful.

I really hope this is the last ‘major‘ update of AMS. I thought it was perfectly fine as it was. Small incremental changes are fine, but completely rebuilding it every year will cause inevitable bugs. I don’t want to be a beta tester.

 

[naynay]

There is a problem with AMS 4.0. They said it had something to do with incorrect names. They couldn't fix it on my end when I had a session with them. Antipodes claims a fix is coming this weekend though. Basically, AMS 4.0 is broken for some people, and you and I happen to fall into that category.

My issue is now fixed. The source setting on EX player settings was set wrong.

 

[Ciggavelli]

Well, no acknowledgment of their error and no apology from Mark. He responded to my email only to say he received my RMA request. He completely ignored the rest of my concerns. I think that speaks for itself. I will not be discussing this issue further on here, but needless to say I’m not pleased. Let’s hope the RMA process goes well…

 

[Clive101]

Hi All,

I had a day with the Oladra and the AfterDark Switch (fully loaded, fiber, in from a noisy 20 port poe network switch, ethernet out to server) SJ DC1.

I first tried the K50 with the AfterDark to remind myself of the sound and then switched to the Oladra with the AfterDark.

Firstly, without question, streaming sounds better than local files on both the K50 and Oladra with the AfterDark switch, I flipped back and forth between Qobuz and the same file on the SSD (Roon gives you the option of different versions).
After a while and a little practice, I could tell the difference without an AB. "Once" I was a little disappointed as I could not find a difference only to discover Qobuz had only two versions of the same album and I had no version on SSD!

So, I tried the Oladra without the AfterDark to see how the Oladra would sound, conclusion the AfterDark was an upgrade.

I have yet to switch back to the K50 (next week) to fully compare with the Oladra.

But for the moment the Oladra has more detail but relaxed (not dark, bloated) and more musical than the K50 and I can tolerate poorly recorded tracks with the Oladra whereas with the k50 can find it a little irritating by comparison.

The AfterDark gives better timing, separation, lower noise and cleaner sound ie it seems to unjumble the music but does not add any brightness.
It does this to the K50 and the Oladra. Even on SSD with the AfterDark there is an improvement.

More to follow next week

 

[andrewd01]

Clive, have you tried the Jcat M12 Gold switch? I have not, but from what I have read on WBF it is an end game solution. Looking at the after dark web site I see they sell audiophile cable lifters for £115 each - that makes me skeptical about anything else they sell