[tincanear]

Or maybe Jude’s account was hacked? The mystery continues....

Just kidding

...in which all of these posts (including mine) are now suspect...

 

[OldRoadToad]

Okay, so OldRoadToad wrote me a PM to tell me there was some question about whether or not it's really him posting again, so I asked him two questions I'm quite sure only he'd be able to answer. He answered them correctly, quickly.

Years ago he mailed something very thoughtful as a gift to my son that had absolutely nothing to do with headphones or audio. I can't imagine anyone else would have known about it, and it was definitely not a common gift. He immediately responded confirming what he'd sent some years back.

In that same message I also asked a second question that someone who knows him well could answer. But successfully answered along with the first question, I'm pretty sure we're chit-chatting with our old friend again here.

Welcome back, @OldRoadToad!

Thank you, Jude. I very much appreciate the help. No ill will here toward any that thought it wasn't me. I sometimes wonder that myself...

 

[ghfiii]

QTNA:
Who was it that claimed ORT was dead?

 

[bcowen]

...in which all of these posts (including mine) are now suspect...

All of these posts (especially mine) have always been suspect.

 

[bcowen]

QTNA:
Who was it that claimed ORT was dead?

 

[RickB]

Someone was hoodwinked by someone.

 

[rkw]

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/sch...most-improbable-start-up.701900/post-15676106

 

[Ripper2860]

Oh no you don't!!! I did not start that rumor. It was posted by someone other than me (and much earlier) that ORT had passed. That link above (referenced by RKW) was me responding to the prior VU meter post. It rekindled memories of ORT whom I thought had passed due to that much earlier post. It seems that I along with others were hoodwinked.

So glad to have you back, ORT. I always enjoyed your posts and am looking forward to seeing more!!

 

[Pietro Cozzi Tinin]

I will speak with Jude as he and I have met and know one another. Perhaps he could vouchsafe for me. It's me but I don't blame anyone really. For what it's worth, my eyesight finally settled after a couple of surgeries. That I will never forget. I just sent Jude another PM. I know him and he knows me. If he says no he cannot say it is me, well... not a problem and I will just take what I've learned about the Modius and leave and order one when I have the cash on hand. I am far from an audiophile and have never aspired to be one. I know Tyl Hertsens too. He's retired now from what I've seen but we met at an audio show where he was a part of a panel on headphone related stuff. I also met the founders of Schiit at their first Schiit Show and was "tied" for a best write up review contest but alas, I don't type flowery equipment reviews and the other person was far better at that than I and so justly won a prize with a flip of a coin!

ORT (Happy now? LOL!) Toad It's okay. I get it.

I suggest you send me a PM.
ORT and I had a lot of contact his last months about certain things and I was very well informed on his medical status.
Further more, we had some plans together and a lot of email contact.
You are a whole other person with another language etc.
There's also a little subgroup here where you where invited and had a lot of contact with a few friends.

 

[mexell]

Hi @Jason Stoddard ,
I'd really like to leave a complaint about your Customer Service approach.

Recently, I broke the volume control pot on my Freya (the non-plus). This happened entirely due to my own fault. What I know so far is that this is just a single-gang pot, nothing fancy, and Freya digitizes its value later on, to use it as one of the inputs for the volume control relay network. So far, so good... it's not rocket science, and it's also not a custom absolute encoder, which would have been Very Bad News in terms of repairability.

Now, I wrote to your CS people, asking for either the part (just the pot itself), or the exact specifications for it. The former would have been awesome customer service, the latter would have been still great. The result of my inquiry... not great. I was basically told to queue up for a repair, that no parts will be sent out, and that the specs on your website are all y'all will hand out.

That is so very disappointing. Sending my Freya in for repair would take weeks or months. I understand you have no process to send out parts, that's fine, I guess... but giving me the specs on the pot wouldn't have endangered any of your secrets. I haven't asked about Unison coding, I have asked about electrical and mechanical specifications for a part in a discontinued product. Now, instead, I'm going to have the pot soldered out, measured, and researched where to get it. That's time and effort entirely in vain, and not exactly great customer service.

All this over not handing out the specs for a single-digit-$ part, which can be swapped out by someone local who actually, really knows what he's doing in less than an hour.

 

[Pietro Cozzi Tinin]

Okay, so OldRoadToad wrote me a PM to tell me there was some question about whether or not it's really him posting again, so I asked him two questions I'm quite sure only he'd be able to answer. He answered them correctly, quickly.

Years ago he mailed something very thoughtful as a gift to my son that had absolutely nothing to do with headphones or audio. I can't imagine anyone else would have known about it, and it was definitely not a common gift. He immediately responded confirming what he'd sent some years back.

In that same message I also asked a second question that someone who knows him well could answer. But successfully answered along with the first question, I'm pretty sure we're chit-chatting with our old friend again here.

Welcome back, @OldRoadToad!

Jude, you're wrong.
Get this importer of this thread.

 

[tincanear]

Hi @Jason Stoddard ,
I'd really like to leave a complaint about your Customer Service approach.

Recently, I broke the volume control pot on my Freya (the non-plus). This happened entirely due to my own fault. What I know so far is that this is just a single-gang pot, nothing fancy, and Freya digitizes its value later on, to use it as one of the inputs for the volume control relay network. So far, so good... it's not rocket science, and it's also not a custom absolute encoder, which would have been Very Bad News in terms of repairability.

Now, I wrote to your CS people, asking for either the part (just the pot itself), or the exact specifications for it. The former would have been awesome customer service, the latter would have been still great. The result of my inquiry... not great. I was basically told to queue up for a repair, that no parts will be sent out, and that the specs on your website are all y'all will hand out.

That is so very disappointing. Sending my Freya in for repair would take weeks or months. I understand you have no process to send out parts, that's fine, I guess... but giving me the specs on the pot wouldn't have endangered any of your secrets. I haven't asked about Unison coding, I have asked about electrical and mechanical specifications for a part in a discontinued product. Now, instead, I'm going to have the pot soldered out, measured, and researched where to get it. That's time and effort entirely in vain, and not exactly great customer service.

All this over not handing out the specs for a single-digit-$ part, which can be swapped out by someone local who actually, really knows what he's doing in less than an hour.

have you talked with Schiit European distributors about possible repair within the EU without voiding any remaining portion of the warranty? If that's not feasible, a qualified tech should be able to inspect the PCB and order a replacement from Mouser / Farnell / etc. without having to desolder it first. IIRC looked like a 15mm alps linear taper part with PCB mounting pins. they should have ESD-safe tools and practices to avoid zapping the parts (e.g. white LED's) during dis-assembly and (potentially tricky) re-assembly.

 

[mexell]

have you talked with Schiit European distributors about possible repair within the EU without voiding any remaining portion of the warranty? If that's not feasible, a qualified tech should be able to inspect the PCB and order a replacement from Mouser / Farnell / etc. without having to desolder it first. IIRC looked like a 15mm alps linear taper part with PCB mounting pins. they should have ESD-safe tools and practices to avoid zapping the parts (e.g. white LED's) during dis-assembly and (potentially tricky) re-assembly.

Yeah… Sonority is not really responsive. I have a Vidar there to get it checked after some suspected moving damage in the original packaging, and that’s going towards a month now, without any sign of progress. But that’s a different story

So, since my Freya only needs some minor repair, nothing too complicated, I found a local guy. He is repairing TV transmission equipment in his day job, so he’s definitely qualified and has all the gear. He said his job would be so much easier if we had the exact pot specs, or even better the replacement part… measuring and researching the part is all possible, but that’s going to be time I’m going to pay for. Which is exactly what I’m complaining about.

Edit: All I’m asking for is a CS response of “I have to ask for that” followed a bit later by “it’s model abc, variant 123, this information comes with no warranty, use at your own risk” or something similar. Instead I got “no specs beyond what’s on the website”, which is really really weak sauce.

 

[G0rt]

Sampling a new case of Einstök Ölgerð Icelandic Wee Heavy with breakfast, finding the smoked barley & angelica notes harmonically complex.

 

[Jason Stoddard]

Hi @Jason Stoddard ,
I'd really like to leave a complaint about your Customer Service approach.

Recently, I broke the volume control pot on my Freya (the non-plus). This happened entirely due to my own fault. What I know so far is that this is just a single-gang pot, nothing fancy, and Freya digitizes its value later on, to use it as one of the inputs for the volume control relay network. So far, so good... it's not rocket science, and it's also not a custom absolute encoder, which would have been Very Bad News in terms of repairability.

Now, I wrote to your CS people, asking for either the part (just the pot itself), or the exact specifications for it. The former would have been awesome customer service, the latter would have been still great. The result of my inquiry... not great. I was basically told to queue up for a repair, that no parts will be sent out, and that the specs on your website are all y'all will hand out.

That is so very disappointing. Sending my Freya in for repair would take weeks or months. I understand you have no process to send out parts, that's fine, I guess... but giving me the specs on the pot wouldn't have endangered any of your secrets. I haven't asked about Unison coding, I have asked about electrical and mechanical specifications for a part in a discontinued product. Now, instead, I'm going to have the pot soldered out, measured, and researched where to get it. That's time and effort entirely in vain, and not exactly great customer service.

All this over not handing out the specs for a single-digit-$ part, which can be swapped out by someone local who actually, really knows what he's doing in less than an hour.

I'm sorry you are disappointed, but sending Freya in for repair would not take weeks or months. Our typical service turnaround is one business day. We receive packages every week for international service, including from our distributors. We have made a specific point to have a distributor liaison to ensure we are at least providing a high level of service, even in these times of supply chain disruption and backorders. If you are having problems with a distributor with respect to service, you should email jen@schiit.com and let her know, so we can take it up with them (stocking issues are different--distributors have very little stock, but she is communicating with distributors as to what we have and what we can ship).

With respect to customer service not giving out part numbers, you should know they have no visibility into the BOM or manufacturing specs of any product--they are there to resolve operational issues, help solve tech problems, and replace or service problematic products. They are absolutely doing their job when they said, "No problem, we can fix it, you just need to send it back to us, and here's how you get an RA."

We strongly prefer to do our own repairs on something as complex as Freya, especially the original version with individual LEDs, but if you have confidence in who you are using, you can use a 16mm Alps 10K linear one-gang potentiometer such as the RK1631110U1Q, or any near equivalent. FWIW, Freya+ uses a custom motorized potentiometer for which there is no equivalent shelf part.