[Baird GoW]

Don't be so surprised ALO tries to gouge you as much as they possibly can. I wanted a headphone recable with jenna ultra wire and they wanted to charge me $225 for JUST the wire for (22 feet) when I could buy 25 feet off jennalabs website for 125. They tried to charge me an extra $115 just because they were buying the wire instead of me...

 

[KB]

Quote:

Don't be so surprised ALO tries to gouge you as much as they possibly can. I wanted a headphone recable with jenna ultra wire and they wanted to charge me $225 for JUST the wire for (22 feet) when I could buy 25 feet off jennalabs website for 125. They tried to charge me an extra $115 just because they were buying the wire instead of me...

 

Hi Brian,
 
I am sorry that we were not able to offer you a lower price on your custom requests. We try to keep our cable costs as low as possible, but because we are a small specialty business we do have to charge for shop time on custom cable builds. We assisted you with various quotes on multiple custom cables and modifications to your current cable over a span of a few days, and while we are sorry that you decided against working with us, we feel that our costs for specific custom builds are more than fair. I know that Mike and Jennifer would charge an additional cost for a custom build and shop time, and we also encouraged you to ask for a quote from them as you were interested in having everything built with Jena Wire. We have complete control over the structure of our wire and feel that it performs every bit as well as the Jena. Moreover we would have not had any additional costs associated with the Jena Wire if you would have opted for our similar gauge ALO wire which you did not want. The majority of the price tag associated with custom builds is to pay for shop time, which does increase when multiple hours are spent determining the build. We also have to take into account that we will require extra time in building a cable for the first time, as synergy in the final product is very important to overall sound quality. Again, I am sorry we were not able to do business together, but I assure you that we try to offer the lowest possible price that will still allow us to build high-fidelity cables for years to come.
 
Ken
 

 

[KB]

Quote:

Those SuperTalent drives are only $260 at Amazon for qty. 1.... thanks but no thanks ALO.

If you want take a chance on getting the incorrect drive, a grey market drive or one that is used on ebay and or Amazon, well that is a option and one that your welcome to pursue. We only buy the correct drives direct from the manufacture. 
 
Anyone is more than welcome to go on ebay / Amazon and part out the parts and make your own iMod or install your own drive if you want to take that chance that is 100% fine of course. However there are a lot of people that would rather have us take on the job and also have the warranty support, testing procedures in place and materials to get the iMod done right. If you want to post the cost of some drives and discus how easy it is to do a iMod I am going to have to ask you to kindly move along. 
 
Thank you
 
Ken

 

[Baird GoW]

Quote:

 

Hi Brian,
 
I am sorry that we were not able to offer you a lower price on your custom requests. We try to keep our cable costs as low as possible, but because we are a small specialty business we do have to charge for shop time on custom cable builds. We assisted you with various quotes on multiple custom cables and modifications to your current cable over a span of a few days, and while we are sorry that you decided against working with us, we feel that our costs for specific custom builds are more than fair. I know that Mike and Jennifer would charge an additional cost for a custom build and shop time, and we also encouraged you to ask for a quote from them as you were interested in having everything built with Jena Wire. We have complete control over the structure of our wire and feel that it performs every bit as well as the Jena. Moreover we would have not had any additional costs associated with the Jena Wire if you would have opted for our similar gauge ALO wire which you did not want. The majority of the price tag associated with custom builds is to pay for shop time, which does increase when multiple hours are spent determining the build. We also have to take into account that we will require extra time in building a cable for the first time, as synergy in the final product is very important to overall sound quality. Again, I am sorry we were not able to do business together, but I assure you that we try to offer the lowest possible price that will still allow us to build high-fidelity cables for years to come.
 
Ken
 

I'm not talking about what you guys charge for the custom builds. I'm talking about why you wanted to charge me $225 for 22 feet of 22awg Jenna Ultrawire, when 25 feet of it from Jenna Labs costs $125. That is called gouging.

 

[Vinnie R.]

 
 
Quote:

If you want take a chance on getting the incorrect drive, a grey market drive or one that is used on ebay and or Amazon, well that is a option and one that your welcome to pursue. We only buy the correct drives direct from the manufacture. 

 

Anyone is more than welcome to go on ebay / Amazon and part out the parts and make your own iMod or install your own drive if you want to take that chance that is 100% fine of course. However there are a lot of people that would rather have us take on the job and also have the warranty support, testing procedures in place and materials to get the iMod done right. If you want to post the cost of some drives and discus how easy it is to do a iMod I am going to have to ask you to kindly move along. 

 

Thank you

 

Ken

 
All,
 
I apologize for the delayed response.
 
5.5g iPod / iMod customers can try to do the installation themselves.  It voids our iMod warranty when you open the unit.  
 
We find when customers (not all, but it has happened many times) open their units, they end up snapping the fragile battery, hard drive, and or LCD connectors on the motherboard.  These are all install by machine and are very delicate, so once this happens, they need to purchase a new motherboard to send to me, and I need to mod it again.  So it gets costly when mistakes are made.
 
Regarding ALO - Ken sends me the iPods (which are in excellent condition and include a new battery) as well as the 128GB and 256GB SSD drives.  I install them, iMod the units, test them with ALO iMod dock cables, and ship them back to ALO.  Ken has to purchase the iPods (there is always risk making sure the seller is honest and delivering good units), purchase the drives (256GB SSD drives are expensive!), ship them to me, and he pays me for my iMod work and return shipping.  The result is a SSD iMod and ALO backs up his customers in the event that there is any problem with the iMod and/or iMod cable.  But he needs to price it to pay for all his costs (including the time in responding to questions, phone calls, and providing speedy customer service before and after each sale) and still try to make some profit for his business. 
 
ALO also offers combo packages (when there is enough stock of iMods) with cables, amps, and even with headphones.  This is all not cheap, but they are among the best sounding portable combos available today, and we both work very hard to take very good care of our customers before and after each sale.  
 
Finally, as Ken mentioned, one can save some money by buying the correct iPod, hard drive, battery, and doing a "DIYmod" and making a DIYmod cable - but if you are looking to do this, then posting on the ALO Audio forum (where Ken pays a premium to headfi to support headfi) is not the right place to do so.  There is a DIY forum on headfi where one can look into this.  
 
Thanks for taking the time to ready this.
 
Happy listening,
 
Vinnie

 

[townes]

Hi Vinnie / Ken
 
Having an Algorythm Solo, I would be much more interested in an iPod Classic with a 256GB SSD (and maybe a stronger battery) than in an iMod with SSD.
 
Do you have any plans?
 

 

[Vinnie R.]

Quote:

Hi Vinnie / Ken
 
Having an Algorythm Solo, I would be much more interested in an iPod Classic with a 256GB SSD (and maybe a stronger battery) than in an iMod with SSD.
 
Do you have any plans?
 

 
Hi Townes,
 
I have no plans for this - but it is a cool idea.  Since it is only a hard drive conversion to SSD, I wonder if other companies online are offering this?
 
All the best,
 
Vinnie

 
 

 

[townes]

Hi Vinnie
 
Thanks for replying. Believe me, I searched thouroughly... I would say, there is no company offering that. An iPod Classic modified with a working 250GB SSD and with an as good as possible battery would perfectly fill the gap in my "transportable" setup (Solo + SR71b + balanced Ultrasone Ed 8).
 
Think about it

... I am VERY interested
 
Kind regards
Townes

 

[Jalo]

 
Hi Townes,
 
I have no plans for this - but it is a cool idea.  Since it is only a hard drive conversion to SSD, I wonder if other companies online are offering this?
 
All the best,
 
Vinnie

 
 

Vinnie:

Vinnie, Townes has a very good and valid point. With the number of Solo that are being sold, many of us are not needing the imod as much as an upgrade to 256g SSD and a better battery. I will sign up for such an upgrade service immediately. If you are not interested in offering such service, I wonder if ALO will or any other company here on the forum will do it?

 

[cooperpwc]

Unbelievable how rude and inappropriate some of the posts above are. This is a Sponsor's Forum, not a Crap-my-pants-like-a-3-year-old Forum.
 
Now as regards certain appropriate posts, since we are ALO customers, that 256GB SSD Classic conversion for Solo users is a fine idea, Vinnie and Ken.  

 

 

[estreeter]

Given that Fiio and iBasso, among others, build cheap cables I don't see that there is any need for flames in this section of HF. 10 minutes with Google and you can find other companies which will recable headphones more cheaply - again, why the flames ?

 

[Il Mostro]

Quote:

Given that Fiio and iBasso, among others, build cheap cables I don't see that there is any need for flames in this section of HF. 10 minutes with Google and you can find other companies which will recable headphones more cheaply - again, why the flames ?

Agreed.  Unfortunately, there is a tendency among some to view audio components strictly as a commodity and try to buy it by the pound.   I find a 256gb SSD iMod to be very interesting.  I recently purchased a 240GB SSD for my 11inch Macbook Air so that I could bring more music on the road -- warranty is up in mid-December so I will install it then.  Being able to do the same to an iPod is a wonderful thing.