[TSAVJason]

I didn’t realize that marrying my wife would affect my bottom line today and tomorrow

BS, we all know it’s the price we pay hahahahaha

 

[Tassie Devil]

Hi everyone

I posted before retiring last night so have only just caught up with your responses.

First up I have no complaint about the distributor so your angst at them is unfounded. They had only just been appointed to handle the Focal headphones when I contacted them about a repair. The cans were not purchased through them and were in fact purchased used from someone there in the US. When they first broke down I* contacted the seller and it turns out he had bought them used so they were 3rd hand by the time I got them. And they worked fine for a couple of months until a visitor drove them hard and, I'm guessing here, predisposed the left ear piece to damage which showed up a few weeks later.

After a few blind turns I found the new Aussie distributor and sent the Utopias to them for repair. On inquiry in January I was told that Focal were repairing them at no cost to me, a nice surprise. That made me wonder if I had inadvertently purchased an early release unit that was prone to breakdown, but again, I am guessing and the distributor I talked to a couple of days ago had no idea either.

Bottom line is that the Aussie distributor actually lost money on all this by servicing me as I was not asked to pay for any freight costs to and from France or the return here. So, all the criticisms of the distributor are misplaced and misguided. It was a reaction from some of you I was not expecting. Yes Focal took their time with the repair but I'm happy they stood by their product when they would have been justified to expect me to pay for their work and service.

I guess your responses illustrate how it is too easy to make assumptions about a situation so am sorry to have posted at a time when I was not around later to clarify misconceptions.

 

[Whitigir]

Hi everyone

I posted before retiring last night so have only just caught up with your responses.

First up I have no complaint about the distributor so your angst at them is unfounded. They had only just been appointed to handle the Focal headphones when I contacted them about a repair. The cans were not purchased through them and were in fact purchased used from someone there in the US. When they first broke down I* contacted the seller and it turns out he had bought them used so they were 3rd hand by the time I got them. And they worked fine for a couple of months until a visitor drove them hard and, I'm guessing here, predisposed the left ear piece to damage which showed up a few weeks later.

After a few blind turns I found the new Aussie distributor and sent the Utopias to them for repair. On inquiry in January I was told that Focal were repairing them at no cost to me, a nice surprise. That made me wonder if I had inadvertently purchased an early release unit that was prone to breakdown, but again, I am guessing and the distributor I talked to a couple of days ago had no idea either.

Bottom line is that the Aussie distributor actually lost money on all this by servicing me as I was not asked to pay for any freight costs to and from France or the return here. So, all the criticisms of the distributor are misplaced and misguided. It was a reaction from some of you I was not expecting. Yes Focal took their time with the repair but I'm happy they stood by their product when they would have been justified to expect me to pay for their work and service.

I guess your responses illustrate how it is too easy to make assumptions about a situation so am sorry to have posted at a time when I was not around later to clarify misconceptions.

Good to know that Focal did take care of you for free from a 3rd hand purchase. How could one damage the Utopia that way ? I don’t even know, Unless someone want to blow out their ears drums

 

[TSAVJason]

Hi everyone

I posted before retiring last night so have only just caught up with your responses.

First up I have no complaint about the distributor so your angst at them is unfounded. They had only just been appointed to handle the Focal headphones when I contacted them about a repair. The cans were not purchased through them and were in fact purchased used from someone there in the US. When they first broke down I* contacted the seller and it turns out he had bought them used so they were 3rd hand by the time I got them. And they worked fine for a couple of months until a visitor drove them hard and, I'm guessing here, predisposed the left ear piece to damage which showed up a few weeks later.

After a few blind turns I found the new Aussie distributor and sent the Utopias to them for repair. On inquiry in January I was told that Focal were repairing them at no cost to me, a nice surprise. That made me wonder if I had inadvertently purchased an early release unit that was prone to breakdown, but again, I am guessing and the distributor I talked to a couple of days ago had no idea either.

Bottom line is that the Aussie distributor actually lost money on all this by servicing me as I was not asked to pay for any freight costs to and from France or the return here. So, all the criticisms of the distributor are misplaced and misguided. It was a reaction from some of you I was not expecting. Yes Focal took their time with the repair but I'm happy they stood by their product when they would have been justified to expect me to pay for their work and service.

I guess your responses illustrate how it is too easy to make assumptions about a situation so am sorry to have posted at a time when I was not around later to clarify misconceptions.

It’s good to hear the distributor stepped up. Trust me, they didn’t lose a dime. They simply put a service claim in, had it approved and eventually took care of the issue for you. The 7 months remains puzzling regardless. It’s never taken me longer than 3 weeks and that was when there was very little inventory in the world let alone here in the US.

Bottom line is you were taken care of. Your delays likely occurred as a result of buying it here in the US rather than in your own territory.

 

[Sonic Defender]

@Tassie Devil, none of my affair, we each have our own sensibilities and expectations. I'm glad that you are happy, but I still firmly say 7 months, regardless of freight being paid is just not even within the realm of an acceptable turnaround time. If companies are not held to an acceptable standard, then they begin to feel they can treat all customers like this. I am not suggesting that you needed to be rude, disrespectful, or unkind, quite the opposite, I always say take the high-road. I just think that after 3 months I would have nicely, but firmly demanded to have my property back and in the working order that I had paid for it in. I don't think my assertions that this is the correct expectation, or way to go about things is really that hard to believe. I suspect if you took a poll here and asked every single head-fi member and guest if 7 months was even close to an acceptable turn around time for warranty service the answer would be very firmly no. I am not at all a difficult person, in fact I'm considered extremely polite and diplomatic at all times, but one can do that and still command proper treatment from those entities that make money from us. I'm all about commerce, love it, but it goes both ways. If I have come across as some hard-ass, demanding person that is unfortunate.

 

[Tassie Devil]

Fair comment but I was prepared to take a low profile, particularly after I was told there would be no charge - I guess that placated me. In the meantime I was happy to use the Sennheiser HD 800S cans so it was not as if I felt deprived.

All that said I cannot claim to always behave so meekly and am on record about giving firms a hard time in the past. But this time I went with the flow - a very slow one. Maybe at 82YO I'm losing my fire? No, not really as there are still many issues that fire me up. But the slow repair by Focal was not one of them.

 

[TSAVJason]

Fair comment but I was prepared to take a low profile, particularly after I was told there would be no charge - I guess that placated me. In the meantime I was happy to use the Sennheiser HD 800S cans so it was not as if I felt deprived.

All that said I cannot claim to always behave so meekly and am on record about giving firms a hard time in the past. But this time I went with the flow - a very slow one. Maybe at 82YO I'm losing my fire? No, not really as there are still many issues that fire me up. But the slow repair by Focal was not one of them.

Yes things worked really well for you actually. Focal doesn’t warrant products but to first owner only. You being the 3rd owner and with a US serial, you sir should be seriously stoked!!! Knock on wood brother that was so lucky

 

[Sonic Defender]

Yes things worked really well for you actually. Focal doesn’t warrant products but to first owner only. You being the 3rd owner and with a US serial, you sir should be seriously stoked!!! Knock on wood brother that was so lucky

So here in public, I will eat some crow and completely agree with this, and make a huge confession. So just at the point when Tassie Devil provided his explanation, I had actually lost my glasses (found them since). So I could barely read a word of his post. I had at that point found a pair of glasses from two prescriptions ago, so quite ineffective. Everything was so blurry and after somehow reading the part where Tassie Devil mentioned being happy with the freight being paid, I gave up reading as I really couldn't see much anyway. I could type well enough to post as I know the keyboard well.

So here in public I have to admit, I made a terrible mistake in not being sure that I had all of the facts before posting, something I try very hard to do. I absolutely agree that if the headphone was used, under warranty or not and it was outside of the terms of warranty laid out by Focal, it was indeed very fortunate that it was covered at all so for that I say that aspect of the service was great. I would still venture to say that 7 months seems like a long time to make a decision, however, at the point where a company is going beyond what they are required to do, in some ways all bets are off as they are doing you a favour. So I retract my ire at the situation with the qualification that I still believe it was a crazy long period of time, but now given the context of the situation I can picture what may have been behind the time.

My error everybody, and my apology for introducing noise into the thread when I really should have known better. I'll be doubly careful next time around. My apology again to all involved, cheers.

 

[TSAVJason]

So here in public, I will eat some crow and completely agree with this, and make a huge confession. So just at the point when Tassie Devil provided his explanation, I had actually lost my glasses (found them since). So I could barely read a word of his post. I had at that point found a pair of glasses from two prescriptions ago, so quite ineffective. Everything was so blurry and after somehow reading the part where Tassie Devil mentioned being happy with the freight being paid, I gave up reading as I really couldn't see much anyway. I could type well enough to post as I know the keyboard well.

So here in public I have to admit, I made a terrible mistake in not being sure that I had all of the facts before posting, something I try very hard to do. I absolutely agree that if the headphone was used, under warranty or not and it was outside of the terms of warranty laid out by Focal, it was indeed very fortunate that it was covered at all so for that I say that aspect of the service was great. I would still venture to say that 7 months seems like a long time to make a decision, however, at the point where a company is going beyond what they are required to do, in some ways all bets are off as they are doing you a favour. So I retract my ire at the situation with the qualification that I still believe it was a crazy long period of time, but now given the context of the situation I can picture what may have been behind the time.

My error everybody, and my apology for introducing noise into the thread when I really should have known better. I'll be doubly careful next time around. My apology again to all involved, cheers.

Like I said, there are at least 3 sides to every story. I’d suggest we react only to fact and without the other 2 sides of the story we are only reacting without knowing the entire set of circumstances.

I think the way the poster posted by only providing maybe 5% of the circumstances you extracted a slighted skewed perspective. It
happens and your position was understandable. Maybe in the future try to understand that a disappointed person typically skews the story to align with their feelings. It is not always the real story. My post now isn’t meant as accusing or defaming in intentions. It is normal for people to express how they feel even when it isn’t a very good picture of what actually happened. In any case the guy in australia should consider himself damn lucky and feel as a happy as a pig in mud!! cheers Mark!

 

[MikeRight]

Let me introduce my new custom cable for Focal Utopia.

It is a silver plated copper cable with viablue 3.5mm jack and split. Very flexible, light and with a great quality and endings.

I am so happy with the job performed by JT from OIDIO SOUND and for his amazing passion and communication. Of course, fully recommended!

The only thing I would like it is more options to customize them, specially regarding connectors and wires.

 

[Tassie Devil]

Snort, snort, yes very happy both with the circumstances AND the nice music being heard.

 

[Sonic Defender]

Snort, snort, yes very happy both with the circumstances AND the nice music being heard.

All's well that ends well. Cheers.

 

[weebull]

about to jump on those, anyone tried pairing them with a V281? I really dont feel like updating the chain as well. Thanks!

 

[jwbrent]

No I would never let my client go through an inconvenience like that. I’d be up the distributors back side to the point they might wish they never knew me. That’s me, I don’t believe other dealers or distributors see the consumer in the same light I do. It’s a simple policy, just keep in mind that without the customer you have no business. If you have no business ...I guess you didn’t treat your customers well.

Yes, that’s what I would have done when I worked in high end audio for 26 years. Customers in many cases are buying luxury products, and excellent customer service is paramount to being highly successful.

Good reply!

 

[Tassie Devil]

Yes, the Violectric 281 is the headamp I use, it replaced an equally good [but ran a lot hotter] Auralic Taurus - moved to a second system.

IMO is it about as good as you get so moving to any other amp is as useful as chasing moonbeams. My mantra is that the DAC is THE most critical weakness in the chain. The current LKS DA-004 replaced the excellent Schiit YOGGY and certainly does yield better sounding music. The only other change I've tried recently is to replace the headphone cord with an MIT Vero, something which does improve the music yet again. I have a second cord I was going to use on the Sennies but have abandoned that so could alter it for Focals if anyone is interested. It is brand new and still in its package.

The only other headamp recently tried in the system here is an MIT Vero 50 and it did surprise me as it was indistinguishable from the Violectric. And I can say this with some confidence as I had both going at the same time with each one connected to Senny 800S cans with identical aftermarket cabling so it was a job of only a few seconds to swap headphones - no plugging, unplugging etc distractions. This was possible as the Vero 50 only has unbalanced input so was easy to connect alongside the Violectric. So, full marks to the MIT Vero 50 to sound as good. Bottom line to me is that the Violectric does represent about as good as you will get for headphone amplification. That said, each amp has its own subtle signature so no doubt other audiophiles might prefer another amp. But my advice to you, FWIW, is don't waste money on chasing after better sound from a headphone amp. A different one might sound slightly different but that does not mean it is actually better. To my old brain that is the most common audiophile trap, equating a different sound to be interpreted as a better sound. Boredom with your current sound is a financial trap only benefiting the vendors!!