What to do, What to do?

Frank Z

I've been holding back on this thread for awhile but I finally need to get some opinions. I didn't want to say anything until everything played out a bit more.

Back around July, 03 I bought a shiny new Anthem AVM-20 after a lotof research and auditioning. Great features, and great sound. Everything was great until my wife and I were watching T3 in mid November, when about 1/4of the way through the movie, we notice that the bass is gone. Nothing from the sub at all. Played around with the sub, cables etc, NOTHING!! Okay, I'll reset all the factory defaults......still no bass. Now i'm getting concerned that it's the sub. a little more troubleshooting tells me it's not the sub, it's the preamp!! The next day I pack up the sub, a couple of cables, and the preamp and cart it all down to the A/V shop I bought it from.

Me and the sales guy hook every thing up, no bass. Next we connect a known good receiver to my sub and cables, Yep the sub works fine. Next we hooked up a known good sub (theirs) to my preamp......Nothing!! Open up the Anthem, fuses looked good close it back up. Still nothing. I'm starting to show a little concern and frustration at this point and the sales guy assures me that Anthem is fantastic a company that takes care of warranty items as quickly as possible. I'm still a little uneasy about this whole mes and politely let him know how I felt about dropping $3K on a preamp only to have it **** The Bed after only 4 months! He does his best to calm me down and offers a loaner Marantz receiver until their service guys look at the preamp.


That was on the 14th of November, and I still don't have my preamp back. Lots of promises about getting it back soon, Anthem wants to make sure it's fixed, gonna be another week cuz it failed the bench test right before they were going to pack it up, it's on it's way......nope that was someone else's unit, they're still trying to figure out whats wrong..............


I've ridden the rollercoaster on this one quite a few times. Although the preamp performed beautifully for a while, and has, will, or might be returned to me at somepoint in the foreseeable future.........I'm at a loss as to keep it or sell it. I did list it for sale at HTT and HTF a few days ago, but maybe I was a bit premature. You'd think that a guy who's last name starts with a Z would be a little more patient....yeah, right!!!!!

Am I being overly sensitive? Expecting too much from Anthem?Should I junk it in favor of another preamp? Should I keep it for a few more months and see what happens?

All relavent opinions will be considered, all irrelavent opinions will be scoffed at and the offenders openly berated for being chowderheads!!

danger boy

well if Anthem or any other company was a great company... they would replace it with the same make and model and keep your defective one.. any good company would do that. Tell them that's why you want to do. Get a brand spanking new one from them.. this pre amp could be a lemon. in which case.. it could for the life of it.. have problem after problem.

3K is a bundle to drop for a pre amp. you deserve to be taken better care of by the store AND Anthem. :mad:

OR tell them you want a full refund and go out and buy a different brand of preamp.. letting them know full well.. you don't intend to do business with the store and with Anthem in the future.

good luck Frank, let us know how things turn out.

Al

polkatese

If I were you, yes, I would be p/o with the length of time it took them to fix it. Based on what I read about SF/A reputation, they are a top notch company. So the question becomes, were they at a loss in trying to figure out the problem? and no, I would not get rid of it, unless I am willing to take a relatively significant price hit. Should you decided to move up, the next level that's make sense would be a Lexicon MC-8 which would set you back about another couple grands. The other option is to wait for the next release of Processor from Anthem (since I believe a newer one should be out this year, AVM-20 has been out for a couple of years by now, and most likely the replacement will be announced during CES end of this month) and make your dealer promise you a favorable trade-up/in for your unit.

dave shepard

I would surely think that the place you bought it from should be able to lend a hand in getting it back for you alittle faster, especally since it was only 4mo.'s old. As far as what you should do, I can understand your delima but since you had waited this long for it to return (probably longer then I could stand) and you were happy with it before the problem you might as well hold on to it, the likelyhood of this happening again should be non-existint. Hopefully you get it back soon and I'm sure you'll feel differently once you get it back, hook it up and run it.


Good luck

Dave

howie777

Unfortunatly I know how you feel. I droped $1200 on my DVD player and 6 months later the OPU moter and IC that moves the OPU died. Estimate for repairs was 7-10 days, actual time was over 2 months! It is very fustrating, and the worst part was, the store had my DVD player for a couple days and never bothered to tell me it was back!. Needless to say I don't shop there anymore. And this was a Denon DVD player too.

For $3 grand, if they can't figure out what is wrong within a week they should replace it with a new unit.

Although I must say, figuring out what broke and replacing those parts is the easy part of repair work. Figuring out what actually caused the failure and making sure that it will not fail again can be very difficult. At least yours was a hard failure and not something you see every once in a while.

In my book, you are really defined as a company on how well you deal with issues. They will alwasy occur, but the best companies know that the customer always comes first. In my case, I think the AV store was more the issue than Denon. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that Denon only had the unit for a week but the store waiting to send it in or just shelved it for a while.

Howie

Ceruleance

I'm very surprised anthem has not sent you another unit. I would have called and asked for one. My history of service problems includes a Wharfedale speaker with some corner damage and a Rio MP3 player with a defective battery compartment door. In both cases I was sent a new product and asked to return the defective product in the same box. Wharfedale paid shipping both ways, I'd estimate $60 for this floorstanding speaker, which I had bought through Ubid of all places. Rio did not pay return shipping if I recall correctly. The moral of the story is that I believe receiving a new product if yours is defective and you must ship it out is the standard, not the exception. My other service problem was with a JVC receiver, I went to a local warranty center and dropped it off to have it repaired. Which was done satisfactorially in a timely manner. These three products were all a mere fraction of the cost of your preamp.

At this point I think you should call them and tell them that if they can't return your unit within the next couple weeks (or however long you think is fair) that they should send you another. If I were you I would want my old unit, since it has been thorougly checked over during the repair. If they just sent you another one off the shelf you could have another problem, especially with a company like anthem that is rumored to be so unreliable. After all, if the warranty expires and the thing **** out again, imagine where you will be. If you think waiting 2 months for the thing to be repaired is awful, wait till you wait 2 months for the repair and then shell out a couple hundred dollars in labor.

My condolences to you for the crappy situation you are in.

George Grand

After a month and a half with no joy, ANYTHING you do short of torching the store is acceptable. It's not like you're talking about $2-300.

I would:

1. Set a firm date in my own mind (15 Jan?)
2. Check to see if I had any friends in the legal arena.
3. Let both the store AND Anthem know that by YOUR date, you expect either a brand new machine, or a full refund.
4. Let them know that you have already researched and have the phone number of both your states Better Business Bureau, and the Attorney General of the state that both Anthem and the store are located in.
5. Do NOT hesitate to let your attitude indicate that you plan on going straight for the jugular. The time for being nice is over.

Good luck with this endeavor.

George Grand (of the Jersey Grands)

Frank Z

Thanks to all for your input, I really do appreciate it!!

I called Anthem this morning to findout the tracking number, it was supposed to have shipped out of their facility on the 24th of DEC. Still no joy, the guy didn't have a tracking number because the unit is sitting a half-way house for wayward packages waiting to be shipped. Why am I not surprised! Now I'm supposed to see it some time next week. I asked if he could tell me what was wrong with it, and what was done to fix it.......No luck there either. I'm to look for a note in the box.

I just got off the phone with the owner of the A/V shop that I purchased the preamp from. I explained the situation to him and asked for a 100% refund. His response was that it was too late to get refund and that he would call Anthem and find out what was taking so long. I informed him that i had alre4ady been informed incorrectly by his staff that that the unit was supposed to be on it's way numerous times and that i had spoken to Anthem this AM. I let him know that this whole fiasco is completely unacceptable and that he needs to make the situation right. He said that the best he could do is get me a new preamp, but of course they don't have any in stock!!! Gee! How did I know he was going to tell me that!?! So even getting a brand new unit is going to require more waiting!!!


I'm done, I just can't take it anymore fellas. New unit or not, I'm done!!! No matter what I get, it's getting sold. I'll be dipped in dawg **** if I'm gonna keep it........GAWD I'm PISSED!!!

madmax

Do they have any other preamps you would want? If so I would go to them today and say "Give me that one now and I will return the old one when it arives". This is not some cheap **** internet company. You paid for the service.
madmax

Demiurge

Either way get a new unit or your money back. That is grade A **** you're getting fed. The last thing they want is the Better Business Buerau to have them on record. Threaten it.

goingganzo

i bet they fixed the problem and with the testing it went bad agin so they had to figure what was causing the problem. also they might have to ship the unit back to canada. i know i was told when my tg3 was acting up thy would have to send it back to sunfire.


you have a 5 year warentee on it and if it breaks agin i get they will replace the whole unit. i dont know if they will have a new one out they kust upgraded the 20 to a v2 and the whole chasey size changed. and also the store was nice about loaning you a recever my store dident give me that. hope you get it back soon. ps you can always look at the sunfire TGIII if you do get your money back. but it olny has a 2 year warentee.

brettw22

I think that you'd be happy with the B&K Ref 50 Frank. It's a damn good piece of equipment, and completely upgradeable just like the Anthem (I think) is. I don't remember, but when you had looked at buying the Anthem, did you listen to the B&K and decide against it?

pjdami

Frank,

Sorry to hear about your troubles with the AVM20. It is a fantastic piece of gear with more gadgets and bells and whistles of almost anything out there. But alas if it doesn't function properly then that is a bummer.:(

You have a 5 year warranty. Why not just wait for it to come back (hopefully repaired and retested / benchmarked from the factory) and see how it pans out. Perhaps they have upgraded the processor and / or software in it to alleviate some of the bugs. These modern day pre / processors are getting to be so complex now that I have heard problems with almost every manufacturer.

Let's hope Anthem did the right thing and set you straight. The five year warranty just goes to show how valuable it is to buy from an authorized dealer when dealing with high price items like this.

Unless you're convinced you got a lemon (which you should be able to figure out quickly when it comes back) I would say to keep it for a while. You still have a lot of warranty left and if repeat problems occur I think that Anthem should set you straight.

Paul

gatemplin

Anthem and Paradigm are owned by the same company, and maybe it is a coincidence but Paradigm is getting a reputation for bad CS and waranties. I took my center in to get the tweeter replaced and it took them over a month to do it and the speaker was a month old. When I got it back it was the same model but not mine.

Frank Z

The owner of the shop never did call back as promised......CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?!?

So I put on my best Happy Face and called him:D He said that he had contacted Anthem as soon as he had talked to me and was assured that the unit did in fact ship last week. Of course I don't believe it, but what else is new. He went on to say that he talked to the Anthem Sales rep that handles their store about getting me a brand new unit......but he'll have to talk to him again on Monday. I took the opportunity to let him know that him talking to the Rep wasn't good enough, I want to talk to him. Of course this can't be arranged until Monday either.

By now I'm sure that a number of you guys may think that I'm over-reacting, and maybe that’s true. But consider that I had to work my **** off in order to scrap the 3k together, convince the wife, audition until I was blue in face....only to have to deal with this is just plain ****. Please pardon the foul language.


I'm not getting any love from any of these people, and it's not for lack of trying. I've been forceful, but have also bent over backwards to keep calm and not get rude. Today of all days was not the best to try to accomplish anything to begin with. Woke up at 3:15 and found my wife having a wonderful little insulin reaction, Had to put in too much windshield time running service calls, My wife took my 8 yr old daughter to the Beauty shop and lopped off 7" of the most beautiful blonde hair you could ever hope to see, ........and still I'm acting polite and courteous. Right about now I'd like to reach through the phone a choke one of these **** down to parade rest!! Sorry about that.....I need to get some sleep....and a hug.:(

danger boy

C'mon Russ, give Frank a big ol bear hug!

Waaaaaaaaaaaa!

sorry Frank, I know you're feeling the pain and like you said not getting any love.. but guy i think you're on the right track now.. not taking any crap from anyone..and i hope you get a deal worked out to your satisfaction.

Al

Frank Z

Yeah Russ, let me wrap my arms around approx. 1/3 of that meaty noggin!! I'll even let ya sit on the imfamous flamming sofa.:D

George Grand

Overreacting? My car would've been parked in front of the store owners driveway about 2 weeks ago, so that the son-of-a-**** couldn't go to work. And I would've been doing that for a lot less than $3k baby. Ignoring me would be the hardest thing he ever tried to do. I'd have one of his kids by now. His dog would be dead.

George Grand (of the Jersey Grands)

HBombToo

Originally posted by Frank Z


By now I'm sure that a number of you guys may think that I'm over-reacting, and maybe that’s true. But consider that I had to work my **** off in order to scrap the 3k together, convince the wife, audition until I was blue in face....only to have to deal with this is just plain ****. Please pardon the foul language.

If anything Frank I think your under reacting! The shop that you bought the unit from is **** you plain and simple! They should have at the very minimum hooked you up with loaner until yours came back. 3K is a but load of money for anyone and if your were not pissed I'd have to wonder why.

I would simply tell the guy at the store you will never purchase another thing from him and threaten to flame the stores rep puplicly then throw cement blocks through his windows then burn the place down and then hire a hit man to take care of his lying sales ****.

That should do it

But seriosly you have every right to be burnen!

1/4 Twin

danger boy

ok ok already.. i think by now.. Frank get the point the he's being f*cked without so much as a kiss or lube. hee hee hee.

I thought they DID hook him up with a receiver loaner.. i'm sure it wasn't anywhere at good as the Anthem Preamp he has. but it's a nice gesture.. but still doesn't make up for the long fix time on his preamp.

I hope Frank can get his money back if he wants for the Anthem Preamp and goes out and buys something else if he so chooses.. or not.. just as long as he feels like the ordeal is behind him and he is satisfied with it.

paymontana

If you remember I had this problem w/ a txsr-800 a far cry from 3k but it was stil doa. I composed 1 pissed off letter and emailed it to everyone but ST. Nick. They fixed it under warranty and had it returned in 8days
You have a real legit ****. Don't be afraid to show it. Under reacting is right. So along w/ George's car parking senerio here are a few others that will work. Have your wife call. My first brand new car was a blck shiny Pontiac Gp turbo. Upon getting it home I found they snuck a huge red and white bumper sticker on the back after final inspection. To make a long story short my brother and I went to the dealership nothing seemed to work .Until I told the salesman."You should thank your god that you are'nt dealing w/ my wife" It worked! Have your wife call and give them the business. Tell her to use the comming in late from the bar attitude.

2. Give us the general infro here. I will right a letter on your behalf. I am pissed of for you. i remember how it feels. Let us know how this one plays out.

CJ

bikezappa

This is a tough situation for you. The store should loan you a nice more expensive preamp. Going to a lawyer sucks. You need to make the store hurt, but how? What I did was visit the store when it was busy with customers and politely explain and review your situation again and again and again in front of other customers!!! The store doesn't want to loss sales and noboby buys equipment when they see a customer who is polite but getting shafted. The future customers realize they will be in the same situation as you. This works for Sears or any other store. Just be polite and repeat the story again and again for all the new customers. Don't leave until you get the new expensive loaner or refund.

Frank Z

I plan on making a HUGE STINK when I go in again and plan on doing so when the store is quite busy. I will also be dedicating a page on my HT site to this whole mess. I might even add a link to my sig that directs people to the page. I'm not going to just sit back and let these people walk all over me!!

bikezappa

Be very polite, as in don't raise your voice. The customers will hear you. Be quietly persistant, and reasonable. That will make the customers in the store sympathetic to you and give the store a reason to assist you and get you to leave with what you want. You are being taken advantage of.

reeltrouble1

Their is a possiblity the CEO at Anthem is not aware of your situation. I would write him a certified letter. If you post the name and address I would be happy to write him also, this board sticks up for each other when a flea market deal goes bad, so why not now.

The store may have already written you off as a future customer, only you can say. In any event I think Anthem needs to hear from us.

Libertyc

Did you pay for the preamp with your credit card? If so do a charge back with Master card/Visa and they always protect the customer. It takes a little while to fight the claim but sekker will know you mean business. To do a charge back you must contact the bank that handles your credit card.

Frank Z

No credit card purchases for me, those things can get ya into too much trouble. The ability to dispute a charge as you mentioned does come in handy though.

Frank Z

Here’s the latest.

I called Anthem this morning after having a few cups of coffee to make sure I was awake and talked to a guy named Frank in their Tech Support department. He assures me that the preamp shipped on the 30th of Dec. ’03. I ask him for a tracking number and he looks it up. I get on line and find out the tracking number is no good, so back to the phone I go, “Frank, it’s me Frank again. The tracking number you gave me isn’t any good. Yes I went to the Fedex ground site, the numbers no good. Yes that’s the number you gave me, I tried a few times. Yes I’ll hold……

Ya I’m here …Sure I’ll hold a bit longer. ( He has to walk down to shipping)

Okay I’ll try it while I have you on the phone….

Tap Tap Tap……

Uhhhh Frank, the Fedex Site says that my preamp is out for delivery……In St. Paul, MN!!!

Yes you can call me right back.

About 20 minutes later I get a phone call with a different tracking number, this time it says it’s out for delivery in the correct city.

I decide to make another call to find out who the Anthem’s Rep is for Colorado, The operator puts me through to some guy named Gary, and he patiently listens to my condensed version of this fiasco and promises me that he’ll look into it and have someone get back to me today. I give my number at work and thank him for his time and apologize if I came across rather strong, but the entire affair has me somewhat bent out of shape. No problem, he understands, we’ll get back to ya.

I take off for work and decide not to call the A/V shop, I’ll have the wife check the fedex site a few times and see what happens. Around noon I get a phone call from the owner, He’s quite happy to inform me that my amp is here!! Oh HAPPY HAPPY JOY JOY!! I ask what happened to the new unit he was going to try to get instead of the old one. Seems that was an option if mine didn’t show up today.

My wife met me downtown and brought the loaner Marantz receiver. The sales guy that I normally deal with thought I was getting a new preamp so he was all smiles. I had to straighten him out as well by pointing out the serial number of the unit on the counter was the same as the one I brought in. So of course he has to call the owner to confirm everything.

While I’m standing there I happen to glance down at the Xeroxed paper work from the fine folks at Anthem, and you’ll never guess what they wrote!! Something to the effect of “No Problem found!!!”
I look up and ask the sales guy if that was all that was received from anthem regarding the repairs, one of the Anthem guy’s had told me that there would be a report of some type in the box when it was returned. Opened the box, no paperwork to be found. The sales guy then calls Anthem and asks the person on the other end what they found. He starts to explain why the unit was sent up in the first place, and he’s not getting the story out properly. This is funny because he’s the guy that I went to the day after the Sub output (both of them) died. We spent over half an hour hooking the preamp up to known good subs and even connecting my Sunfire sub to known good receivers in the middle of the store. We duplicated the EXACT problem that I had encountered in my HT and He’s not able to remember troubleshooting it! He starts to relay some basic diagnostic questions from the Anthem guy and I’m looking at my wife like we just entered the damn Twilight Zone!! This just can’t be happening. He gets off the phone and says that they couldn’t find any problems but they did load version 2.11 of the operating software. Big Freakin Deal, I had already done that weeks before the preamp died and had also returned it to original 2.10 version the night it crapped out.

While my sales guy is on the phone to Anthem (actually on “Ignore”) another sales guy starts telling my wife about all the units that they have had to send back to Anthem for various problems. I’m standing there with my mouth hanging open like I’m a Human Fly Catcher. Funny how now that my unit took a nose dive there seems to be a rash of Anthem failures in the recent past! My wife is about ready to go completely ballistic!!

My sales guy gets off the phone and tells me that the Anthem guy says that it might be an intermittent problem. So know I get the big question; Would I like to leave it there so they can test it to see if there is any signal at the sub 1 output or would I like to stay and see for myself? Of course I opted to stay. We connected a CD player to the standard L/R inputs and connected a sub to the preamp…..Yep it worked, tried the analog inputs as well….Yep it worked, connected a DVD player with a digital coax…..Yep it worked!


Now you may be thinking that everything’s fine cuz the preamp worked. Well it ain’t fine as far as I’m concerned. I paid $3k for a piece of equipment that died at age 4months, the problem was duplicated by the dealer. The dealer then sat on the unit from Nov. 14, ’03 until sometime in December. Anthem didn’t get the unit until Dec. 11, ’03. It then went through some type of test procedure and supposedly failed, was repaired in some manner that cannot be explained, retested and failed again right before it was to be shipped out during the 3rd week of December, miraculously healed itself in time for a shipment on Dec. 30, ’03 and arrived back in my hands on Jan. 7, ’04 .
Remember that my wife is in the store with me the whole time and she’s starting to loss her composure. So I’m trying to deal with the sales guy and keep her in check because she knows exactly where all this is headed. My parting words to the sales guy were very clear, I made a mistake in assuming that the shop was reputable, that I would never spend another dime there, and that I was going to do everything possible to let other people know how poorly they handled the situation and that they should look elsewhere for their A/V needs, and I further informed them that my Dad would not be purchasing a Plasma screen from them based on my recommendation. I also let them know that I would be posting this information all over the internet.

It was out of my possession for 53 days and returned with a note that said there wasn’t anything wrong with it. It took 53 days to for someone to say there’s nothing wrong with it. It took 53 days and nothing was done to it. It didn’t work in my home, it didn’t work in the dealer’s showroom with known good equipment, and it still took 53 days for some guy to scribble a note that says there’s nothing wrong!!! 53 days to hear another sales guy tell me that they’ve had to send a bunch of back!!


So here I sit typing this long-winded rant, the preamp is still in the box and I can’t believe this is still not resolved to my satisfaction. Am I asking too much to be kept informed? Am I expecting too much because I wanted to be treated as valued customer? Am I over-reacting to a sales guy that tells me that they have had to send a bunch of units back to the manufacturer? Was I out of line in when I demanded a refund? I don’t think so, but you’re opinion counts so lay it on me.

BTW, I'm going to forward a link to this thread to the folks at Anthem, I doubt that it will make an impact but I'll feel better.

Frank Z

Here's what sent to Anthem.

My name is Frank Zimkas and I would like to direct you to the following website so that you can read about my experience with your company, it's products and your dealer in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

http://clubpolk.polkaudio.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=145014#post145014

I have the distinct feeling that no action will be taken but I felt that letting you know about the poor service and poor product quality was the proper thing to do.

I look forward to your response, should any be forthcoming.

Frank Zimkas

danger boy

Frank,

I"m sorry you're still going thru this.. and it hasn't been resolved yet.. Lets hope that this is the exception.. and that Anthem preamps aren't like this at all.

LIke I said before.. Anthem needs to give you a new pre amp or refund your money.. and fix yours and sell it as a refurb.. that's it, period, end of story.

See if you can work out some kind of arrangement like that with them.

i'd be furious too..

you are not overreacting at all. as i see it.

Al

frank joe

hi, frank. if the store didn't want to helpl you after you spending 3k or 300 shame on them. i bet if you stood infront of their store and told customers that after dropping 3k they bascially told you to piss off. that would really get their attention. also, did you purchase this o a credit card if so put it on dispute. their is no excuse for a store of company to treat conusmer like that.
i had several problems with nht ( speaker company) and those guys were awsome. as for my expirence with denon it sucks, their customer service is horrible. i do own the b&k ref 50 for 3 months now and it's been back to b&k once already for a controller card isue ( menu locks up) they fixed that in 2 days and it was back to me. now i have a popping noise when it sences a digital source ( i press play or stop on dvd player with a movie. they tell me at b&k its a issue with the ref 50 andi can live with it if i want or send it back again to them. funny i also spent 2,500 on this unit and i not past 3 months. at leat b&k was terrific with customer service, as the owner himself called me back after speaking to the salesman at the store i purchased it at. (6thave).
i know that anything can break down no matter what the cost but, standing behind the product it something totally diferent. funny thing was i replaced a pioneer eilte reciever to go seperates looking to get that better sound we all long for. by the way i never had a problem with the pioneer elite piece in 2 years of owning it. sometimes you dont always get what you pay for.
frankie:)