[Moogs]

  If you have any issues talk to Keith from Emotiva, either here or on their factory forum.

 
Thanks. I'll give them a few days and see what happens.

 

[Moogs]

  If you have any issues talk to Keith from Emotiva, either here or on their factory forum.

So I received a response from their support. They told me to deal with Amazon. They also asked for my invoice (again, a 3rd time) so they can register my product. I don't understand the support there at all. I'm not going to return the whole unit to Amazon because the remote is messed up. I would just return the whole unit and get something else at that point. I'll try Keith as a last resort and if I can't get a simple resolution which is to simply replace the remote, I'll just return the whole unit and find something else. Pretty disappointing. I'm not asking for much here.

 

[Sal1950]

Sorry to hear of your issues with Emotiva, I've never heard of anything negative before. 
If you haven't before I would post a thread on the issue over at Emotivas forums.
http://emotivalounge.proboards.com/

 

[Moogs]

  Sorry to hear of your issues with Emotiva, I've never heard of anything negative before. 
If you haven't before I would post a thread on the issue over at Emotivas forums.
http://emotivalounge.proboards.com/

 
Wow thank you for the fast reply. Seems they have a very active forum there as well. I'll head over.
 
Thanks again. Hope I can get this sorted.
 
Christian

 

[immtbiker]

I am afraid this is normal fare for Emotiva! 

 
I wrote them in June, and asked if I could get a review sample of their Dac for Guru. Their PR person, Jessica Laufman wrote me back, a couple of weeks later that they would gladly send me a sample.
 
Nothing happened for about a month, and I wrote Jessica back. She responded a couple of weeks later, saying that they were sending me their 2 new smaller dacs instead…the Big Ego, and Little Ego. Not what I asked for, but I figured, "what the heck…I'll check them out". She told me they were on their way.
 
Another month goes by, and I write her and Keith back to let them know that I never received them. And Jessica gave me an excuse, and told me "so sorry, they were sending them right out!"
 
Well, now it's September and I still haven't received a review sample, or any communication telling me what was going on. 
 
With so many good dacs out there, why give your money to a company that has no idea what they are doing, or how to maintain correspondence with people they've made promises to. 

 

[Lupino]

I was interested in getting a DC-1 but will think better of that now if one has to go through all kind of hassles over just a remote.
There are plenty of other choices instead.

 

[KeithEmo]

  So I received a response from their support. They told me to deal with Amazon. They also asked for my invoice (again, a 3rd time) so they can register my product. I don't understand the support there at all. I'm not going to return the whole unit to Amazon because the remote is messed up. I would just return the whole unit and get something else at that point. I'll try Keith as a last resort and if I can't get a simple resolution which is to simply replace the remote, I'll just return the whole unit and find something else. Pretty disappointing. I'm not asking for much here.

 
Hi,
 
And, sorry about the confusion.
 
Our relationship with Amazon is basically that they are one of our Dealers. Because of this, we don't have direct access to their sales records, which is why we need to actually ask you for a "proof of purchase" (receipt) to know that you're the original owner, the date you bought your product, and stuff like that. Also, since Amazon is the dealer, and we are the manufacturer, we handle any warranty service for any of our products that you buy from them, but, if you decide to return one of our products that you bought from Amazon (for a refund), that return must go back to Amazon (and doesn't come back to us).
 
In this particular case, if you send your remote back in to us for warranty service, we'll be glad to make the back panel fit a bit tighter for you (but we will need proof of purchase so we know you bought it and when). You will also, of course, need to call in (or e-mail support) and get an RMA number for the repair.
 
If there's any confusion after this, have whoever you talk to speak to me, or send them a copy of this posting.
 
Keith

 

[Moogs]

Thanks Keith but it's too late now. I provided the invoice in my initial email to support stating the
Issue. I never wanted to return the unit I just needed a good remote.

I decided to return the whole unit and go with a different brand. This experience while likely not the norm has soured me. You can talk to Debbie Baugher as she was the one I was trying to work with.

 

[Zoom25]

Great sound, better price = Emotiva.
 
*Just hope that you don't need to return anything. The customer service is horrible. That's why I didn't bother returning my DC-1 to get another pair. It sounds great in synch mode, but goes weird in asynch mode. Apparently many others have had this complaint on the Emotiva Lounge forum about DC-1. With customer service, they always tried to play it off as a problem with my equipment.

 

[Sal1950]

That's is a shame, mine has always functioned flawlessly in all modes and sounds amazing. You couldn't pry it out of my cold dead hands.By far the vast majority of the reports I've read have been 99% positive.
There are always instances where two pieces of equipment just don't agree with each other and you just have to move on two something else. Some years back I had hum issues with a VTL stereo amp, in the end I just had to return it and replace it with a set of monohblocks, couldn't eliminate the ground loop hum any other way. Great amp, just not compatible.

 

[Moogs]

  Great sound, better price = Emotiva.
 
*Just hope that you don't need to return anything. The customer service is horrible. That's why I didn't bother returning my DC-1 to get another pair. It sounds great in synch mode, but goes weird in asynch mode. Apparently many others have had this complaint on the Emotiva Lounge forum about DC-1. With customer service, they always tried to play it off as a problem with my equipment.

 
Thankfully I bought it from Amazon so returning the whole unit isn't a big deal and not what I wanted to do initially, now considering this experience I am thankful I didn't purchase it directly. 
 
I don't think they can read very well. It's ridiculous actually. They asked for my invoice 3 times when i provided it in my first communication and then I told them that Amazon doesn't replace remotes and that is all I needed. This is why I asked the manufacturer to send me a replacement. So in return, instead of gaining a customer they lose one and get a unit that is perfectly functional sent back to Amazon.
 
SEP 01, 2015  |  03:18PM CDT 
Janna Riggs replied:
Amazon does not stock extra remotes, therefore they would have to replace the entire unit. We cannot replace the remote as you did not purchase this from us.
Janna Riggs 
Accounting Department 
Emotiva Audio Corporation 
615 790-6754 
www.emotiva.com 

 

[KeithEmo]

I just finished looking through the entire chain of e-mails that go with this.... confusion.... and I wanted to take a moment to share what I've found.....  Yes, some mistakes were made, and for that we do apologize. We're a little new to this game of selling through dealers, and sometimes things don't go exactly as planned, or exactly as they should. Hopefully it doesn't happen very often, but nobody's perfect.....
 
Because Amazon is a dealer, products we sell through them are handled differently than ones sold directly by us. All warranty service on Emotiva products sold through Amazon is still handled directly by Emotiva. And, yes, since we don't have direct access to Amazon's sales records, we will be asking you for your receipt or proof of purchase. (And, if you ever buy a used Emotiva product from someone who bought it on Amazon, you'll need to get their proof of purchase in order to transfer the warranty into your name.)
 
However, if you wish to return an Emotiva product that you purchased for a refund, either directly from us inside our 30 day money-back return period, or from Amazon during their return period, you'll have to process your return with whoever you actually purchased it from. (So, if you purchased it directly from us, then you'll need to contact us for an RMA number so we can be expecting the package, and make sure you get your refund; and, if you purchased it from Amazon, you'll have to arrange for your return with them.)
 
Without going into messy details, and without second guessing what everyone was thinking, there was some confusion about whether the correct thing to do would be to replace the entire unit (in which case, since it was purchased from Amazon, that would have to go through them), or to repair the remote control (in which case we would process it as a warranty repair). This was further complicated by the fact that, if we had sold the unit directly, we might have simply decided to ship out a replacement remote, but we can't ship out replacement products to replace those sold through Amazon, and Amazon doesn't stock replacement remote controls to ship out. In short, this is a slightly unusual situation that doesn't come up very often at all. Unfortunately, we dropped the ball temporarily while trying to figure this all out, some incorrect information was sent, and everybody got frustrated. (Although, in all fairness, it would have gotten sorted out in the end - once it was clear that all the customer wanted was to get his remote fixed.)
 
I think you will find that both Emotiva and Amazon have truly excellent records for customer service, so it's pretty clear that this is an unfortunate - but very unusual - occurrence.
 
Now, as for the DC-1 itself, and specifically as regards any reports of "problems with asynch mode".....
 
The DC-1 is a very complex product, and we have a lot of them in the field, the vast majority of which work perfectly. However, we do occasionally have units fail for various reasons and some of those units have failed in ways which resulted in the normal mode continuing to work well while asynch mode did not. There is, however, no known "problem" with the asynch mode in general. Likewise, because the DC-1 is a complex product, a significant percentage of the "problems" customers have with them do in fact turn out to be user error, or a problem with the customer's software or computer, or even a simple bad USB cable. Therefore, since we don't want to waste the customer's time and money, or our own, having units sent back that have nothing wrong with them, we will usually ask someone with a unit they believe to be defective to do a bit of troubleshooting before we simply "bring it home". You may be surprised at how often the problem turns out to be a simple software setting. However, I think it's safe to say that, once it has been established that a unit is in fact defective, we make it as simple and painless as possible to return the unit and get it fixed.
 
So, again, we do apologize that sometimes we're less than perfect - but we're only human - and we do our best....

 
(I also might suggest that, since we actually do have real live people on our support lines, if something ever seems to be going badly astray via e-mail,
a phone call is sometimes the quickest and easiest way to set it right.)
 
Keith

 

[Brubacca]

I have personally had a very good experiece when dealing with Emotiva support. As Keith says sometimes mistakes happen and they seem to get promoted.

 

[Moogs]

 
Because Amazon is a dealer, products we sell through them are handled differently than ones sold directly by us. All warranty service on Emotiva products sold through Amazon is still handled directly by Emotiva. And, yes, since we don't have direct access to Amazon's sales records, we will be asking you for your receipt or proof of purchase. (And, if you ever buy a used Emotiva product from someone who bought it on Amazon, you'll need to get their proof of purchase in order to transfer the warranty into your name.)
 
"(Although, in all fairness, it would have gotten sorted out in the end - once it was clear that all the customer wanted was to get his remote fixed.)"

 
Thank you for the response Keith. This will be my last comment about this issue and then I'm off this thread but really, my first email to your support was this WITH a copy of the Amazon invoice.
 
"Hello,
 
I recently purchased this DAC and have an issue with the remote control. The backplate slides a little bit so it’s loose even when all the screws are in so it makes this terrible sound like a marble in a tin can. I added a small amount of rubber to make up for the gap but this didn’t fix the whole problem. The track is too wide somewhere in the middle so the backplate wobbles and makes this strange noise when I handle it being metal and all. Can you send me a replacement please?
 
Thanks,"
 
It can't get any clearer, right out of the gate. I think this is a good opportunity to educate your support staff on how to handle what should be a very simple product problem scenario. I understand this is a rare case and your product is highly regarded outside of my experience and hope it continues in its success. This was for me, however, a frustrating experience.

 

[northshore]

  Great sound, better price = Emotiva.
 
*Just hope that you don't need to return anything. The customer service is horrible. That's why I didn't bother returning my DC-1 to get another pair. It sounds great in synch mode, but goes weird in asynch mode. Apparently many others have had this complaint on the Emotiva Lounge forum about DC-1. With customer service, they always tried to play it off as a problem with my equipment.

I bought one of the 'seconds' directly from Emotiva, it had evidently been returned to them as it did have an asynch mode problem. Contacted customer service and they immediately sent out a new unit. Held a charge against my credit card which was credited after they received the defective unit. Pretty standard procedure but did have to wait then box a unit up and return it. 
 
Couple of nice things: They sent me a brand new unit, though I had only paid the discount price for a second. So I figured paying an extra $100 would be the price of admission to have a unit that works perfectly in both modes. Their response? "Glad everything is working with the new unit, thank you for your patience." There was never any additional charge.
 
Glad to have persevered, performance of the unit itself and customer service are/were exemplary.