There's something wrong in Colorado...

*Icarium* · January 9, 2009

Well hey. In the midst of writing my sad, sad sob story I get this email:

Hi Dan,

It's going out tomorrow. The package is packed and labeled ready for

drop off in the afternoon on Saturday.

Everything else is good. Can I give you a call sometime during the day

tomorrow?

Fingers crossed!

I replied with this.

Great. Call me at any time. I'm hosting a small meet Saturday afternoon but I should be available to talk. I am ready to pay you at any time, but I will need to see evidence that it is in Fedex's hands before making it though.

Did you include the replacement bands or the AD1 tubes? If not that's fine. But if we can discuss time frame for that then that'd be great.

Perhaps I will have satisfaction at my meet.

*foo_me* · January 10, 2009

good luck dan...hope it does come.

ur explanation of what's been happening plus your photos...wow...just really bizarre the stuff that's coming out...wtf is mikhail thinking...

and why does always say that something within his control is going to happen in the future?

always tomorrow, next day, next week...

why doesn't he do it and tell people after it's done or after he's sent it.

*morphsci* · January 10, 2009

... I am ready to pay you at any time, but I will need to see evidence that it is in Fedex's hands before making it though...

I would strongly suggest (from personal experience) that you send no money until you have evidence that not only FedEx has it, but that it has left its original location.

Jeepster · January 10, 2009

Wouldnt it be better to inspect the unit upon arrival rather than assume everything in the box is A ok?

*Rob N* · January 10, 2009

But anyways this experience kinda makes me skeptical that my amp will arrive in a satisfactory fashion no matter what the man says. I don't want to hound the guy for a year. Get something sub par that I have to send back or send to someone else to get made not a piece of shit.

I fell the same about my amp (if I ever get it).

That headband does look pretty poor to me

tagosaku · January 10, 2009

I sent my MPX in last may because of noise in the right channel. Luckily, I got it back in five month. He upgraded part of the circuit (according to himself) and it did sound better when it came back. However after a few weeks, the same problem comes back. When it happens, I turn it off, pull out the driver, reinsert it and most of the time that solves the issue. But not sure how long more my MPX will be functional...

Yes, so trying to get your amp back is hard, but being insecure after receiving it is not that fun also

*Rob N* · January 10, 2009

IMO the SP stuff made in last 18mnths or so seems to be less reliable than the earlier stuff.

My 2005 made SDS-XLR has had no problems

tagosaku · January 10, 2009

Seems that way reading forum posts.

Mine is from fall 2004 and was working without problem for four years, and now the problem seems rather permanent.

tyrion · January 10, 2009

Tom Hankins posted on HF, that his amp is not working.

*Hopstretch* · January 10, 2009

Tom Hankins posted on HF, that his amp is not working.

:palm:

*Icarium* · January 10, 2009

Wouldnt it be better to inspect the unit upon arrival rather than assume everything in the box is A ok?

Well yes... yes it would! But I cannot get him to send it out without paying him some money. In fact he says he would not send it out if I did not pay him more than the 500 I first offered. He credits this to his accounts payable person :/

tyrion · January 10, 2009

Well yes... yes it would! But I cannot get him to send it out without paying him some money. In fact he says he would not send it out if I did not pay him more than the 500 I first offered. He credits this to his accounts payable person :/

The business is owned by Mikhail and/or his wife. The idea that he can't do something because of his accounts payable person is nonsense. Having said that, his customers are pretty much at his mercy. The unfortunate thing is the poor quality control so you don't even know if the amp you are receiving is going to work on arrival.

*tom_hankins* · January 10, 2009

Well yes... yes it would! But I cannot get him to send it out without paying him some money. In fact he says he would not send it out if I did not pay him more than the 500 I first offered. He credits this to his accounts payable person :/

This is probably because he is dead broke and cant even afford to do the shipping. I think hes feeding you a line of BS about an accounts person. I hope your amp gets there in good condition............but whats that saying about history repeating itself?

At least you can take it to another tech and get work done. I dont have the power supply mine came with the first time, and the amp has not worked in quite awhile.

n_maher · January 10, 2009

This is probably because he is dead broke and cant even afford to do the shipping.

Do you have anything to substantiate that claim, Tom?

*Icarium* · January 10, 2009

IMO the SP stuff made in last 18mnths or so seems to be less reliable than the earlier stuff.

My 2005 made SDS-XLR has had no problems

Yeah. I hope your amp is fine when you get it too... crazy like 30 tube beast if I am remembering even slightly correctly.

Yeah... the SDS I had was rock solid and awesome. The ES-1 as well once I realized that it had to be biased and how to do that. The SS-1 always had a couple quirks that were not enough to get me to send it to him.. plus it was never fully complete. It was brought early to the San Jose meet since the original owner insisted but it was supposed to have a crossfeed circuit in it (There's a switch to enable it that does nothing) and there was a dynamics dial that they weren't really sure what it'd do. Talks never concluded on it I guess, but the original owner was afraid to send it back to get these things put in and the amp completed because who knows when he would see it back.

The main quirk that really drove me nuts was that sometimes randomly when attaching headphones the right channel would be like 2x as loud as the left channel on the reference section. Sometimes no matter what I did (Turn the amp off and back on... connect reconnect the headphones with the amp being on or off at the time blah blah) this wouldn't go away unless I simply walked away from the amp and tried again in an hr or so... or power cycled the thing like 10x.

Oh yeah one other thing single ended performance was pretty much totally shitty and very distorted and oftentimes there'd be channel imbalance. This was somewhat fixable on the "tunable section" but even after I sometimes got rid of the channel imbalance there would be a very high noisefloor and some distortion. I basically never used it in single ended, but that didn't bother me that much since why not balanced. It would have been nice if it could support 4x single ended at meets, but no luck.

Oh yeah one last complaint. The tuneable section isn't really even "tuneable" in my opinion. From memory (It's been awhile) there were 3 dials 2 with 2 positions and 1 with 3. The third position on the one with three would make it so sound only came from one stereo channel so essentially it really only is 2 positions. Actually this might have been true with two dials. The rest were pretty much useless though since either (Depending on headphone) 1-2 would chance nothing to the sound and the other would cause a channel imbalance. It would be a diference combo of which dials exactly would accomplish which affect (The nothing or the channel imbalance) for each different headphone... but I never really used it for tuning except in the sense that I'd plug in a headphone one channel wouldn't be making any sound or it would sound like crap because of massive distortion and/or channel imbalance and then I would fiddle with the dials and most of the times that would go away and then I'd never touch them again while that headphone is in rotation.

The 3 dials were like bias/power and I forget the last (Been too long). So anyway this again wasn't too big of an issue for me since well I figured even if it fitted my definition of "tuneable" section I would decide after awhile one setting was my favorite and stick with that.

What did kind of annoy me was that it was as the original seller told me it was marketed to him/planned to be "tuneable" aka the "fun section" and he passed this marketing to me. It was likened to "tube rolling" for the solid state fan.

Well now that I've done some tube rolling.. I would not say it is anything like tube rolling.

Anyways I was mostly aware of this final issue prior to when I bought it since I fiddled witht hem a bit and noticed that they didn't seem to do much, but I assumed it was just too subtle and that I had to spend more time with it to process the nuances. Turned out I was wrong. Ohwell.

Anyway despite all this wonkiness I was still pretty happy with the amp. I thought it resolved at a pretty impressive level. The best I had heard with the Qualias which it had mostly been designed for. I liked the reference section a lot though it was a bit laid back for my tastes. The fun section was less laid back and more powerful, but it had a way higher noise floor with the qualias. He told me this was just the nature of the beast with the Qualias as they are ultra sensitive and I remembered a noise floor with my SDS and the rudistor I had so I felt like he was right. Well this Gilmore Lite has no noise floor with the phones. Ohwell maybe twas owner's bias.

Anyway I did talk to him about the channel imbalance issue early on before I sent it to him and maybe like 3 or 4 missed deadlines ago. He says that it should be gone and attributed to a blown or mismatched mosfet and that that should be fixed because he replaced the amp board. Well fingers crossed.. the other issues I feel like I can live with as solving them will probably be extremely non trivial.

*tom_hankins* · January 10, 2009

Do you have anything to substantiate that claim, Tom?

Well he wont send my money to me, says he doesnt have it to send. When you think about it most of the amps hes behind on he got paid for A LONG TIME AGO. I also doubt (cant prove) that he has had much new work coming in over the last year. So almost all his work he is doing (either repairs or catch up) is being done on money that has long been used.

*Icarium* · January 10, 2009

Oh jesus... talk about worst case scenario if that is true. That was what I was afraid of all this time.

Have you given up on having satisfaction Tom?

*Elephas* · January 10, 2009

Mikhail got some money recently from me for some tube adapters and two tubes. So he probably has some pocket change and can afford to pay shipping.

The adapters were very expensive but I didn't want to buy non-SP adapters and when something goes wrong with the amp have Mikhail claim that the problem was due to the non-SP adapters.

*tom_hankins* · January 10, 2009

Oh jesus... talk about worst case scenario if that is true. That was what I was afraid of all this time.

Have you given up on having satisfaction Tom?

He said he would fly out here and fix my amp when the new PSU was done. that was supposed to be this week. He then changed his story, said I should send the amp section to him (because its all screwed up) and he wopuld fix it with the PSU. he says its done but there is not a doubt in my mind hes telling me another lie. i told him I am not paying for the shipping and would prefer him to come out here. he said he would send me an account number for shipping, which I never got.

So here i sit....with an amp section that doesnt work. A 6-7 year old POS PSU that doesnt even go to my amp, and probably doesnt even belong to Mikhail in the first place. I found out it sold with the amp for 500.00 six years ago. The owner sent it to Mikhail to a couple years ago to see if it could be matched to anything he had since he lost the original amp section but had not gotten it back. now i have it.

I dont believe he is coming out here.

I dont think he even built me another PSU.

I dont think if I ship mine back it will get fixed.

I do think Mikhail is either going under, or is already there.

I hope things work out good for every one else, But YES i have given up on anything positive ever coming from my purchase.

*tom_hankins* · January 10, 2009

Mikhail got some money recently from me for some tube adapters and two tubes. So he probably has some pocket change and can afford to pay shipping.

The adapters were very expensive but I didn't want to buy non-SP adapters and when something goes wrong with the amp have Mikhail claim that the problem was due to the non-SP adapters.

Well if he takes to long let me know. I have a pr. of 2c51 adapters here.

*Icarium* · January 10, 2009

I have one as well if you need a third

That sucks Tom. Well.. I will have satisfaction of some form. I will.

I really was and still hoping that his business isn't in dire financial straits. Every time I've talked to him as recent as 2 weeks ago he continued to claim that they were doing great.

While at this point I feel a certainly level of animosity I do not want his business to fail.

Still I do not regret anything I have publicized or said in an effort to get satisfaction. Because yes I want it. And I hope he is able to have some for you as well. Though yeah I wouldn't advise holding your breath regarding the matter.

*guzziguy* · January 10, 2009

The business is owned by Mikhail and/or his wife. The idea that he can't do something because of his accounts payable person is nonsense. Having said that, his customers are pretty much at his mercy. The unfortunate thing is the poor quality control so you don't even know if the amp you are receiving is going to work on arrival.

I agree with this. Unless SP is in receivership, the accounts payable person is almost certainly Mikhail's wife. Dan, have you asked to speak to the "accounts payable" person? I suggest doing so.

It's really too bad that it's come down to this. I don't see how SP can survive now unless Mikhail finds a new market where his reputation is unknown. With the web, that's pretty hard to do.

*Icarium* · January 10, 2009

Yessir.

SPA

to me

show details Jan 2 (8 days ago)

Reply

Dan,

We can do the $1000 payment and then the $250 later, but I need to put

through since it's hard for me to get approval for shipment of items not

paid in full. It is just that I do not handle the accounts payable, so

I have to get approval for this. That's the reason for quicker

shipment. I'll have it ready to ship by Monday.

Dan Chow

to SPA

show details Jan 2 (8 days ago)

Reply

Sorry I simply cannot afford to do a 1000 dollar payment at this point in time and I certainly am unwilling to make a payment until I have some legit tracking #s. Perhaps I can talk to your accounts payable person?

Sorry, but this is ridiculous that this comes out now when you could have mentioned this when we decided on a deadline in the first place. I don't know what's changed between now and then, but I insist on having the original terms we agreed upon followed. If this requires me to explain the situation in detail to your accounts payable person then so be it. Please give me their name and contact information asap and I'll try to have this sorted out.

SPA

to me

show details Jan 2 (8 days ago)

Reply

Dan,

Let me talk to them and explain everything. I don't handle the

transactions and the accounting, and it's a good thing, I have plenty to

do. I'll call him tomorrow morning.

Dan Chow

to SPA

show details Jan 2 (8 days ago)

Reply

Thank you Mikhail. I'm just tired of having to deal with this whole mess. Explain to him that I'm good for the money and I will pay you. I just want to make sure that 1. I have it back in my hands 2. That it is something I am satisfied with.

Yes I will need new headband reinforcement bars since the current ones are not satisfactory to me as I have indicated for obvious reasons which you have the pictures of. I am also still interested in the AD1 tubes, but if money is going to be an issue for you to get things out to me then do not worry about them at this point in time. I will check back with you when I have the current invoice paid off and I have the money for them.

The most important thing is having an amp I can be happy and proud of for me atm. This entire experience has been very draining for me and probably for you as well. I don't know how much more fighting/back and forth I can take regarding this item.

SPA

to me

show details Jan 3 (7 days ago)

Reply

Dan,

You'll be happy with the amp. I'll get this resolved and we'll talk on

Monday. Have a great weekend, Dan.

Dan Chow

to SPA

show details Jan 3 (7 days ago)

Reply

I hope so Mikhail. Looking forward to hearing from you Monday then.

Dan Chow

to SPA