[Moontan13]

Quote:

Originally Posted by matt8268 /img/forum/go_quote.gif It's tempting to label it so in these financial times, but Singlepower is no ponzi scheme.

I agree. SP appears to be the victim of it's own success.

 

[mrarroyo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DefectiveAudioComponent /img/forum/go_quote.gif ... Does anybody else have one of these amps to share more pictures? Maybe they are not all like that?

Here is a picture of the insides of my MPX3 originally built in 2005 and modded by Mikhail in May/June of 2008. The mods done were:

- Added Supra Transformer
- Added two 2,400 uF each Power Caps
- Added V-Caps
- Added Blackgate Output Caps

 

[elrod-tom]

Let's try to keep this thread on track, please.

 

[mrarroyo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mbd2884 /img/forum/go_quote.gif In comparison to Woo Audios work, its still gross. I'm sorry mrarroyo, but for the money you spent on your amp, that workmanship there is completely underwhelming. Not impressive, not even a little bit. It still looks very unorganized and messy, and unprofessional. It looks like a weekend hobbyist made it, and well, I'll bet there are plenty of weekend hobbyist who could do better work still. And I'm sure you have a great reason for wanting to sell it also. And most definitely not worth the 2,600 you are asking for it, not with this kind of press and fiasco from this thread. Its very much hard to believe Mikhail's work there was worth the 4,600 paid for it and I'm sure you can understand why anyone would be completely skeptical about the actual value of this amp. Especially when one can buy the ever beautiful Zana Deux for 2,300 Brand New, and worked on by Craig instead of the scum Mikhail. As always my opinionated opinion.

You are entitle to you opinion as well as anyone here. The price of the amp should indeed reflect the attention to detail, quality of parts, looks, but most importantly sound. I bought the amp for its sound not for any other reason. As far as my reason for selling the amp it is clearly stated in the ad, I want to try a high end SS amp by Rudi.

I also think that just because you or some other does not like the components selected it is really not important. The same is said of the Grado Amp and yet it sounds great when driving Grado Headphones.

The one thing you said and which with I take objection with is your personal attack. IMO name calling such as "scum" should not be tolerated by you or anyone else.

As far as value, well I would leave that up to whomever wants to own a Singlepower or not. BTW, a beautiful looking amp does not translate to good soundin amp. Sound and its quality is why we are here, for beauty well I go to ...

 

[mbd2884]

Yeah thanks for being such a good sport about my posting, as I agree with the mod, I was out of line there.

But I don't apologize for calling Mikhail scum, as I do think what he did to Icarium is appalling.

 

[Tyson]

I might be a lone voice of dissent here, but I've had excellent communication and service from Mikhail and Singlepower. And that's with the fact that I bought my Supra second hand.

 

[purk]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyson /img/forum/go_quote.gif I might be a lone voice of dissent here, but I've had excellent communication and service from Mikhail and Singlepower. And that's with the fact that I bought my Supra second hand.

You are actually not alone. I have my fair share of problems with him in the past but my recent dealings with him have proved that he is and trying to improve the situation. The problem has not been about the sound of his products, in fact, I still stand behind the sounds of my SDS. Without it, my R10 will never have a place in my system. It is unfortunate for several of his customers that it has came down to this but he is actually trying to improve his situation. The prime example is with Tom's Meastro XLR which happen to sounds excellent after the work is completed and done right.

 

[DefectiveAudioComponent]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrarroyo /img/forum/go_quote.gif Here is a picture of the insides of my MPX3 originally built in 2005 and modded by Mikhail in May/June of 2008. The mods done were: - Added Supra Transformer - Added two 2,400 uF each Power Caps - Added V-Caps - Added Blackgate Output Caps

And it sounds good? I think it looks like... the inside of an amplifier? Nothing looks out of the ordinary, to me.

 

[catscratch]

I think a lot of people are missing the point of this thread. The whole "I've dealt with Mikhail and I never got scammed" line doesn't work because you don't have to scam absolutely everyone you come across in order to be a scammer. All that matters is that you do it enough times to hurt whatever trade/community you're in. Mikhail has done that. He may have 95% of his customers completely satisfied but it's the other 5% that matters. To these customers, he has intentionally misrepresented his products, failed to deliver on deadlines to an absurd degree, and charged insane markups on his products, which then arrived broken.

You don't have to murder everyone in your path to be a murderer. You just have to do it once. Now, that example is obviously extreme, but the idea is the same.

I think that what Mikhail has done warrants exclusion from the National meet, though to be fair I'm neither organizing nor (most likely) going.

Now, I would be all for giving people second chances, but words in our culture are meaningless. Actions matter. Mikhail has made repeated promises to change his business model and correct the problems in his business. These problems has been noted since 2003, and now it's 2009 and there are still problems with his business, and they are, in fact, worse than they've ever been before. Clearly, his promises haven't been fulfilled. Whatever he says is completely meaningless, it's his actions that have spoken.

By the same token, if his actions from this point were to start speaking in his favor, then perhaps I'd be willing to give him a second chance, but Tom's situation is the first problem case I've read about that seemed to turn out that way. He would have to re-establish trust by repeatedly delivering superior, and not just acceptable products at a fair price and have top-notch customer service over a long stretch of time, and do it for 100% of his business. That's not happening right now. With his current business model this will in my opinion never happen, but I'm not going to get into that right now.

I won't pretend to know the situation at Singlepower. It could very well be that he's in serious financial trouble and simply has to resort to these types of dealings to try and survive, and shave off every last corner and save every penny he can. If this is the case, however, he should close shop now, in order to avoid forcing himself to victimize even more buyers in order to try to stay alive.

I can't believe that there are people still defending Singlepower after all that we have seen.

 

[Icarium]

Uh new strange twist.

My brother was over and going over the chassis (He is a mech eng and is very familiar with machining) and I notice that there are now only 3 black diamond racing feet on the amp and power supply sections.

There were 4 feet on each. Now there are 3 in a triangle config rather than 1 in each corner.

What is up with that? Did he need two feet? Is there a sonic improvement in this triangle config? Funny he didn't mention this "upgrade"

Maybe he pawned them to buy some wall warts. I don't know.. so confused.. so bizarre.

You might wonder.. is Icarium smoking crack? Maybe there was always 3 feet.

Well I can pretty much guarantee you that there were at least 4 feet on the amp section and I am 95 percent positive there were also 4 on the power supply section because well I bought 4 of the matching pucks for the amp section because when placed on the power supply (These are black diamond racing carbon fiber feet which are quite slick and the power supply is smooth anodized aluminum and it was quite slick).

I paid 55 dollars each for the pucks. Thats 220 dollars for some stupid pucks. If I only had 3 feet then I would have been happy to only pay 165. Trust me on that

You can check Music Direct for prices.. its 20 bucks a foot so he ganked 40 bucks of feet from me and I now have a pointless 55 dollar puck with no foot to match.

It was not just a set of 4 as the invoice below shows!

Import and Domestic Vinyl, SACD, DVD Audio, Audiophile Hardware - musicdirect - (800) 449-8333

Here is my invoice:

Dear ,
Invoice number: 90001727
Date: 2007/09/18 01:09:06

Billing Information
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Name:
Address 1:
Address 2:
City:Mountain View
State:CA
Other:
Zip Code:94043
Country:USA
Country Code:
Area Code:XXX
Day Phone:XXX-XXXX ext:
Email:XXXXXXX@gmail.com

Charge Account Information
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Account Number:xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx
Exp:XX/XXXX
Card Type:Mastercard
Name:
Address:
Mountain View, CA 94043
Zip Code:94043

Shipping Information
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Name:
Address:
Address2:
City:Mountain View
State:CA
Zip:94043
Country:USA
Other:
PhoneXXX)XXXXXXX


Products Information
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sku:ABDRPITM4
Product Name:BLACK DIAMOND RACING - BDR PIT MK4 (EA)
Quantity:4
Price:$55.00
Discount:$0.00
Tax:$0.00
Subtotal:$220.00
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SHIPPING:$5.86
TAXAMOUNT:$0.00
TOTAL:$225.86

Note: Yes I could have fabricated this invoice for the extreme paranoid given I did just spend a bunch of time censoring a lot info in it.. but uh..

Here are pictures of my 4 pucks and the bottoms of my amp bits.

Yes yes my desk is filthy and dusty. I am a slob

And here is the amp section followed by the power supply section. Count the feets! Btw I hope nothing embarassing is reflected as I am not wearing pants as I take these and my boxers are old and ratty.

Anyway so now I am missing 40 dollars in feet and have a useless 55 dollar puck that I also had to pay for it to be shipped. Superrr. Minor in the face of everything else, but so bizarre.







Bonus: For anyone who cares and wonders why I spent 220 on feet.. it seemed like a sound investment at the time since the amp section would easily slide off the power supply section because both surfaces were so slick. I would maybe tug a little on the headphone cable and bam it'd slide. I would bump into it maybe and it'd slide. I'd unplug some xlrs and it'd slide. I'd plug and unplug cables in the back and it'd slide... the pucks prevented the amp section from falling and breaking or damaging the admittedly somewhat sexy chassis. 220 seemed like good insurance against the breaking of my "15.6k" amp at the time... Plus maybe there are some leet sonic voodoo benefits.

 

[LostOne.TR]

That's messed up on the feet jacking =/.

Nice spectral in the bg.

 

[Beefy]

You bought your amp from sleestack, right?

Well lets just go back to some original SS1 threads here and here.

It always look like it has four feet to me......

 

[Sherwood]

So now we have a conundrum, Dan.


How do we best use one Black Diamond puck to comic effect?

 

[Icarium]

I dunno I mean. I guess I'll ask him about it, but uh.. I'll probably just order 2 from music direct since even if he does agree to send me some its going to take like 6 months to get them.

Honestly it doesn't matter to me much, but when I thnk more about it I've had things with 3 feet and sometimes they wobble if I put pressure on them from the top for whatever reason. It's a pretty rare case scenario for the SS-1 or say my 60 pound Esoteric sources, but shrug. It also will make my 55 dollar puck useful again! That's almost like EARNING 15 dollars no?

Yessir Beefy! Bought from Sleestack. That's the amp. Does seem like 4 huh!

 

[KevM2]

So did you say that you had a reliable estimate that the amps internals were estimated to be around $800 worth of parts? I've heard that the SSI XLR is comparable or bests the B-52. Makes me wonder about the mark-ups going on in the amp business.