There's something wrong in Colorado...

[Pars]

It seems odd that if, in Mikhail's mind, there are issues needing resolution before he can ship Elephas' amps, that he would be actively trying to contact Elephas. Sounds like he is ignoring Elephas' attempts at contacting him. Something doesn't add up...

[foo_me]

X2

It's just bizarre...how is it that people like elephas and blubiss who are customers and trying to contact him and have left messages not able to reach him and yet 3rd parties like Al can?

heheh...It's like trying to reach a girl you like but you're never able to.

there could be a billion reasons why...but it's pretty much always because she doesn't want to talk to you...

btw, when i used to own SP amps and dealt with him, I've heard all those things before from Mikhail regarding changing the way he does business and have yet to see any change...i would think that since this situation has lasted a couple of YEARS...it would obviously tell everyone something...

[Icarium]

I don't know. I can only hope he does for his sake even more than mine.

[blubliss]

X2

It's just bizarre...how is it that people like elephas and blubiss who are customers and trying to contact him and have left messages not able to reach him and yet 3rd parties like Al can?

Fortunately Mikhail did call me yesterday and one of my items had already been shipped and the other goes out today. I told him he gets no money until the tracking shows the item being picked up by FedEx to avoid the false tracking number game.

So this completes my business with SP. Since he had already shipped the main item he had been stalling on, i decided not to back out completely. R10s go out today. BTW, he recabled to balanced all the way to the driver on this pair, since it was a later model and he deemed it safe.

Future dealings with Mikhail are definitely not on my agenda. Too many headaches.

[Icarium]

I don't have money with Mikhail, but I am curious what's up with my money and APL. Someone who visited him and saw my unit chillin there untouched mentioned that Alex mentioned that he was trying to work up the motivation to deal with it (Not very promising sounding).

I have the feeling he isn't leaving Bulgaria until the DAC is ready and that he didn't take my unit with him to Bulgaria.

Ahwell.

[Voltron]

I don't have money with Mikhail, but I am curious what's up with my money and APL. Someone who visited him and saw my unit chillin there untouched mentioned that Alex mentioned that he was trying to work up the motivation to deal with it (Not very promising sounding).

I have the feeling he isn't leaving Bulgaria until the DAC is ready and that he didn't take my unit with him to Bulgaria.

Ahwell.

I can't remember if you and I talked about it, but Neil and I saw your DV50 sitting in his listening room and he said something like that. It was months ago, and I thought he had it for a long time already at that point.

[Icarium]

Yah I talked to Neil. Basically since November. At this point I can only pray that he gets back from Bulgaria soon and his DAC is released soon.

[CD44hi]

I am hoping to hear from Mikhail soon as well. He promised he would call me.

We need to figure out what to do about that solid-state amp that is in his shop (I hope it is there) for 1 year and 4 months. Was supposed to go into a balanced amp, including the populated shallco attenuators.... heh!

I'll believe change when I see change.

[blubliss]

Yah I talked to Neil. Basically since November. At this point I can only pray that he gets back from Bulgaria soon and his DAC is released soon.

Brent told me last week he may return mid-August??

[swt61]

Yes, I have. He ignored me.

I've asked Mikhail to bring the amps to the Colorado Head-Fi meet on July 26. It would be the first time anyone other than Mikhail lays eyes on them since 2007.

He hasn't responded to my request.

I'd say you have your answer then. At this point I wouldn't be able to consider it anything other than criminal, and personally I'd start legal proceedings.

I guess waiting until after the meet couldn't hurt, but my expectations would be low. I'm sorry you've been treated this way.

[bozebuttons]

I think Tom's problem was actually a bad tube adapter, which sounds odd to me.

I'll leave the technical explanation to someone far better suited but based on my limited understanding it sounds like both Tom's ES1 and the other gent's ES2 might be suffering from issues with trying to make that amp work with tubes that it was not originally design for, which causes biasing problems.

The problem was a bad 5687 tube adapter,I moved the adapters right to left & the distortion moved with it.I replaced the front tubes & adapters

with VT231s,no adapters no distortion.

This is the secound tube adapter that had failed on me,the first being a very early one.

I have to agree with you the adapters may be the cause for all the biasing problems others are having.

Ken, perhaps this due to the fact that a good amount of ES-1's that have been brought to customers, after unbearable amounts of waiting times have not worked. I understand that you are talking about mob-mentality, but with a history of poor performing machines, it doesn't sit well when another one doesn't work. How many Zana's or WA5's or B-52's have we heard about this common occurence

Tom's didn't work last year or the year before (bad buzzing) at the November meet and there are other instances, and they were all blamed on "bad tubes".

Staying focused on the facts, a bunch of people were at a meet, and another ES-1 didn't work, whatever the reason might be.

I don't know why you would say that ,as in fact there where no issues at all

at the last november meet or the Nov meet in 2006 with the ES1 at all.Just reread the meet impressions thread not a word about a problem was posted ,or did anyone mention a problem to me at the meets.Only Positive comments where made to me at the meets & in the thread.

[hungrych]

As someone who waited like 6 months for an upgrade, I have to say that the worst part was that in order to get anything done I had to constantly call and nag about it. The fact that nobody will get what they pay for without putting in way more effort than should be required is just ridiculous. The money should be enough motivation!

Unfortunately, this somehow became acceptable, which led to what is going on now. Mikhail is capable of making some good amps, but he simply doesn't unless pushed as much as possible by each individual customer...

[catscratch]

This... is shocking. Just read the whole thread. Yes, I can half-way understand a new amp builder not really having a clear understanding of how to run a business, and I can very easily see how trying to mass-produce custom-designed amps as essentially a one man show (I think?) is a disastrous business model, but come on... Singlepower? Where did the very high initial reputation come from I wonder? And who (and what) out there created it in the first place if the business practice is so far behind the reputation for sonic excellence? Because if this is how things have been run for years, then Mikhail should have been out of the game a long time ago. It's a miracle he's lasted. I certainly wouldn't have the patience to deal with him for as long as some of you have, and we're not exactly talking mainstream products here; for this much money I'd expect different levels of commitment and service.

I had similar matters dealing with Peter McAlister, which is also why I'm not going that route again. He was always late in communication, late with deadlines, shipped a damaged amp (or maybe something is wrong with the design), and there was an incident where an amp was lost by Canada Post, but now that I think about it, it could just have been a phantom shipment to buy him more time.

And, what's also similar to the whole SP deal, is that when it works, the amp sounds excellent. If it only was a piece of junk I could write it off, but it's not (though it's built like one, that's for damn sure).

I think KG is very much right when he lays the blame (partially) at HF's door. In fact, a lot of what's wrong with HF comes from, at least from what I have been able to see, too much lenience on the part of the mods when it comes to member selectivity and catering to sponsors. So much of head-fi could be improved if all the inane posts were cleaned up, if the search function actually worked, if the obvious shills were kicked out, if sponsors were held to a standard of quality in their products, and if the mods stepped in to actually control the quality of the posts, and not allow 100 iterations of "what teh best phon3z fer ipod..." threads to appear every day. They need to actually kick out some of the idiots that are plaguing the forum, which is now a significant chunk of the population. Otherwise things will start to look like the Blizzard forums before long (and they're nearly there already).

I think that as head-fi became more successul, it attracted more, um... "mainstream" members, but its moderation hasn't changed to follow suit, and that is really killing it in the long term.

And, I'm not saying this to point fingers and assign blame, but in the hopes that it will be taken constructively and that something will actually be done about it.

... but that's another story. Or maybe I'm confused and don't know what's really going on (likely).

[Elephas]

Yes, there was and is an unresolved issue regarding one of the amps, the Supra-XLR's front faceplate. In March, while I was expecting the amps to show up in the mail, I asked Mikhail about the functionality of dual volume controls. One of the upgrades was adding a second volume control to the Supra-XLR. Mikhail sent me a photo of the amp on March 27:

I was dissatisfied with the way it looked. As part of the upgrades, Mikhail added a second volume control and a second 1/4 headphone output. I thought the result looked unprofessional. We discussed a new front faceplate or replacing the entire chassis.

On April 18, Mikhail sent me photos of another Supra with a Maestro chassis, as an example. I was more interested in a new front faceplate. He did not respond and still hasn't given me an answer about this issue.

So yes, I do agree with Mikhail that there is an issue about the Supra-XLR that is still pending. I've acknowledged this point to him in our communications, and never expected (or wanted) the Supra-XLR to be shipped as is, without a fix for the faceplate.

But there is another amp, an ES-1. There were no unresolved issues with this amp. Along with the Supra-XLR, it was also supposed to have been completed in Feb. I've told Mikhail that I do understand that the Supra-XLR is held up because of the faceplate, but I don't understand why the ES-1 hasn't been shipped. He never gave me an explanation about this.

All along, throughout our communications in Feb. through June, Mikhail has been telling me that BOTH amps were fully completed and ready to ship. In June, I didn't want to take his word for it anymore and finally asked for photos of the amps to confirm that all the upgrades were made and that they were BOTH complete and ready to ship. I received these photos on June 20, which I've posted below. In the email accompanying the photos, Mikhail again stated that "the units have been ready for shipment for over three months."

I'll let you judge the photos for yourselves. Part of the purpose was to show each specific upgrades and parts, but I did not think that these photos showed all the upgrades and supposedly completed amps (Supra-XLR and ES-1) ready to ship.

Last week, I asked Mikhail to bring both amps to the Colorado Head-Fi meet on July 26. I'm hopeful that the people at the meet can examine and listen to the amps. This would prove to me that the amps are working, that the upgrades have been completed, and they are both ready to ship. It would be my fault (which I have never denied to Mikhail), if I was not satisfied with the Supra-XLR's faceplate and requested a change and would continue to wait for a solution. But I would expect the ES-1 to be shipped immediately after the meet.

I'm angry and frustrated with Mikhail, but I don't think that he had bad intentions or that he does not intend to fulfill his obligations. But if the amps are not brought to the Colorado meet and the situation continues to drag on, then I might be forced to conclude otherwise.

Note: the cover of the ES-1's power supply had scratches; one photo shows the old cover, one photo shows the new cover

[naamanf]

Wow I guess lots of caps and wires makes things sound better

[n_maher]

Wow I guess lots of caps and wires makes things sound better

Imagine, just imagine, trying to trouble shoot a problem with that amp.

[swt61]

Imagine, just imagine, trying to trouble shoot a problem with that amp.

Even if you knew where the problem was, just getting to it would be very difficult to say the least.

[kevin gilmore]

Now contrast that FUCKING MESS with the pictures pete millet posted

on his new amp. And his amp is less than half the price of some of

mikhail's monstrosity's. No wonder those things only work a SINGLEHOUR.

Just no way to explain it. And it will never change.

[Elephas]

I am not taking sides, but if he says he has the amps completed with the upgrades you requested, then why not have him ship them to you? If nothing else, it will call his bluff and you will know whether he has them ready. Maybe you can have somebody in Colorado check them out before he ships, but I am not sure who would do it and how. Asr is one option, and bringing them to the meet is another option, although Mikhail may not want to run the risk of something happening to one of them at a meet.

I'm glad you've talked to Mikhail. Although we've never had direct contact, you are one of the people whose posts I most respect and look forward to reading.

Actually, there are many people whose posts I respect in this thread, so I am happy to share any info about my situation here. I would also be very appreciative of anything any of you might say to Mikhail that would improve his business practices.

As I've explained above, there was never a reason for the ES-1 to be delayed. I'm not the one preventing it from being shipped, Mikhail is, and has been since February.

Everything was paid for in February, all the upgrades to both the Supra-XLR and ES-1 plus shipping costs. Mikhail has my address, phone number and email address.

What reason could there be for the delay? Unless work on the amp hasn't been completed yet. But that would mean admitting that he lied to me in Feb. about the amps being complete and thereby prevented me from selling the amps.

I know, as sure as I a can be, that Mikhail lied to me in Feb. and may still be lying now. He admitted as much in our phone conversation in June. I didn't record it, though, maybe Mikhail did.

I just want a resolution soon. I'm not looking for any freebies, extra discounts or anything else from Mikhail that was not agreed upon in February.

[deepak]

Even if someone at the Colorado meet opened it up, how would they know what was going on?

[Elephas]

Even if someone at the Colorado meet opened it up, how would they know what was going on?

I don't expect anyone to identify the parts and upgrades, or to act or say anything on my behalf.

I'm only hoping someone other than Mikhail can take photos of the amps including the interior. It would be "proof" enough for me. At this point, I would trust almost any 3rd party more than Mikhail.

[Beefy]

Holy shitburgers, that amp is a shocker!

It boggles my mind how Singlepower has stayed in the game this long - regardless of how good the amps actually sound.

[naamanf]

Hmmm....

Step 1. Put Cmoy into large chassis with large impressive tubes that only have the heaters hooked up. Bury Cmoy under lots of impressive looking caps and wiring.

Step 2......

Step 3. Profit.

[Pars]

Imagine, just imagine, trying to trouble shoot a problem with that amp.

Particularly when it is on... <<<shudder>>>

[Fing]

Those pictures make me unhappy in the pants ;-(