DO NOT BUY anything from AV123

[Chu Gai]

Yes, I remember now. It's kind of tough to keep track of who has what issue. Yours was certainly unique. So, how did you fix the problem and can you discuss the nature of the compensation publicly?

 

[tesseract]

Yes, I remember now. It's kind of tough to keep track of who has what issue. Yours was certainly unique. So, how did you fix the problem and can you discuss the nature of the compensation publicly?

I can discuss the nature of my compensation, but I feel that is between me and av123, please understand. I am happy with the way that turned out, I was treated more than fairly.

I do not like the way I was treated by one member of that company. While genuinely helpful at times, he was also neglectful, and I am seeing that some of what I was told was BS. (QA, engineers, UL & CE amp ratings, deleted threads and posts on their forum) I do not like to be misled.

No, I haven't fixed the over the air signal interference. I am still working on that. Nothing that a hopefully upcoming upgrade cannot fix.

 

[Chu Gai]

It has taken quite a while but people have come to realize that all these departments, QC programs (like the 3 step one he once talked about), and engineers (which only appear after they've been paid) are pretty much all puffery said to make himself and the present organization sound bigger and more together than they really are. Problems which occur with some regularity like loose wires are blamed on shipping when maybe the blame is better directed to the shortcoming of the design or parts used. People have been misled for many years and at one time he had cover. But no more and the crickets you hear when you go to VA451 are a testament to people having wised up and abandoned the site. His attempts though to repopulate the forum with new active users is meeting with difficulties seeing as many there post about issues they've had with their products.

 

[Chu Gai]

So, according to this, Shifty will not only be building the X-Optima, but he's also having long talks with old friends.

OK - enough...

NOT DEAD... In fact - we are going to build x-optima but a slightly different driver configuration... (woofers)...

I spent an hour on the phone with Danny the other day going over a ton of design and business stuff - we just ran out of time getting to this one...

I know Danny is going to love my tweak on this design - so much so in fact - he may like to use it in some of his kit stuff... we'll see...

The base will be different also - but the original base design was very cool too...

More when I can - and when I have something to show...

This reminds me of a few months ago when Shifty was writing about how Mark Seaton was on board to do HR upgrades. Then, as we all learned recently, Seaton no longer has anything to do with Shifty. You can't tell me that Danny is the only person who Schifter is paid up with. All he's saying is he had a long phone conversation that didn't even address the X-Otica and I'll bet the business stuff has to do with squaring things up. Danny, I don't know if you read this thread, but don't do a damned thing unless you're paid in full. It's an old Shifty trick, you know. Just do some business with me and I'll be able to use the extra money from the sales and send it your way. All I need is a little help and then the two of us will be back on the gravy train.

 

[Chungar]

This has been very interesting to read.
I participated in various raffles to a total of $280 and I live in Colorado now (I lived in Florida when I participated). I have no ill will towards Shift or VA321 if the money that was collected from these raffles is being paid to the people that they were set up for. If in fact the majority of the money was used as a cover to deal with financial issues... that's somewhat upsetting.

 

[Chu Gai]

This has been very interesting to read.
I participated in various raffles to a total of $280 and I live in Colorado now (I lived in Florida when I participated). I have no ill will towards Shift or VA321 if the money that was collected from these raffles is being paid to the people that they were set up for. If in fact the majority of the money was used as a cover to deal with financial issues... that's somewhat upsetting.

Apart from the fact that a for profit company is forbidden from running raffles in Colorado, I would expect that all of the money collected went to the recipients in a very timely fashion. That has not been the case. The very first raffle that was run was back in 2004 and that was for the Ballet Nouveau where his granddaughter danced. Not a penny of that money ever went there. A very small percentage of the money ever went to where it was supposed to go and in some cases that was because one person checked on the donation amount (Sloan Kettering - David Fabrikant's father). Had they not checked nothing would've been received. Cancer victims, diabetes victims, disaster victims, orphans, etc. have been exploited and the monies pocketed. I've even heard of one intended recipient who has been told the amount he's entitled to is now approximately 50% of the amount that calculations suggest he's entitled to. I can only hope that one way or another they'll receive what they should've gotten and the person or persons responsible for this receive what's right.

 

[tesseract]

It has taken quite a while but people have come to realize that all these departments, QC programs (like the 3 step one he once talked about), and engineers (which only appear after they've been paid) are pretty much all puffery said to make himself and the present organization sound bigger and more together than they really are. Problems which occur with some regularity like loose wires are blamed on shipping when maybe the blame is better directed to the shortcoming of the design or parts used. People have been misled for many years and at one time he had cover. But no more and the crickets you hear when you go to VA451 are a testament to people having wised up and abandoned the site. His attempts though to repopulate the forum with new active users is meeting with difficulties seeing as many there post about issues they've had with their products.

Kinda silly to try and bluff a guy that is in high volume manufacturing. I told them this from the get go, even offered my help. Not sure that it would matter at this point. The management problems there exceed the engineering/receiving/production/QA/QC/shipping problems. You can helm the finest ship on the sea, and still smash it straight onto the rocks. (sorry, not a CAR analogy)

I would like to see all wrongs righted and the core beliefs of this company thrive.

 

[Chu Gai]

Kinda silly to try and bluff a guy that is in high volume manufacturing. I told them this from the get go, even offered my help. Not sure that it would matter at this point. The management problems there exceed the engineering/receiving/production/QA/QC/shipping problems. You can helm the finest ship on the sea, and still smash it straight onto the rocks. (sorry, not a CAR analogy)

I would like to see all wrongs righted and the core beliefs of this company thrive.

You are seeing the core beliefs of this company thrive. The real core beliefs, not the pablum that's been served up for years. What you've read here and elsewhere is substantial but the rot is even more prevasive.

 

[Chu Gai]

In this thread at AV451, Shifty posted the following interesting comment.

Good Morning...


I have to say that surely this is one clean looking package...

Does anyone know if the cabinet is built here - or in China, etc.? I'm curious...

Many thanks for the initial impressions - do give it some more time, and let us know what you think (further)...

Many thanks,

Mark

Sounds to me like Shifty is lookin' for a new cabinet supplier. Maybe he's lookin' to dump Santiago. 'Course, the reason people and companies get dumped is because he winds up owing them money that he can't or won't pay back. I mean, look what happened with Sound Arts China and Mr. Pu.

 

[Chu Gai]

So, I'm thinking about what Sean wrote earlier

and how he has filed a small claims matter against Suzanne (in the end it'll be Shifty but she's on all the Colorado paperwork). Now, if I recall correctly, Sean lives in Colorado and that kind of makes it easy for him to drive to the courthouse. But that got me to thinking.

There's a lot of you who are owed money whether it's a refund or it's money you paid for product but haven't received it. Some of you are owed several thousands of dollars and you've been waiting for years and there's always some story. At first there were the excuses of misplaced this or that. There were the attempts to move you from one product to another. Why some of you have even been told Shifty's got money coming. Just wait a little longer. This happened. That happened. It's not my fault happened.

You know, even if you live out of state, you can use Colorado's online means of filing your own small claims suit. It's not terribly expensive. Even if you have to fly in, depending on things, the cost of airfare and maybe a car rental might not even amount to 10% of what you're owed. You can use Expedia, Travelocity, or even check out Soutwest Airlines and you might find a super killer deal to make it all worthwhile. So what if you only get back 90% of what you're owed? It's better than being jerked around for 2-3 years by the humbly bumbly bungler, isn't it? Besides, if he decides to go bankrupt, what do you get then? At least with a judgment you won't be an unsecured creditor who'll get pennies on the dollar if he's lucky.

Yeah, it's a little bit of a gamble, but you know in small claims, there's no jury, the rules of evidence are much less strict, and you can bring all your emails, your laptop, any text messages and you can be pretty sure that SOB will lose and have to pay you. You'll have the satisfaction of sticking it to him and watching as the judge rolls his eyes as he tries to turn on the Shifty charm. Right now, when you read his forums, he's laughing at all of you. He's taking your money, yes YOUR money, and planning this speaker, that speaker, those subs and what've you got? Zip!

So, sue him. Take the trip to Colorado. It's lovely country. And after you win, take a trip down to the warehouse (careful, it's in kind of an out of the way place) and check out that showroom. I hear it's a killer.

 

[mhawker]

Assuming one wins a judgement, I doubt he'll pay. My thought is he has no assets to liquidate and no equity in any real estate in which to put a lien on.

I'm owed money from a judgement (not MLS) and I have not seen a dime.

I could, of course, put a lien on any property etc, but the money I'm owed is less than it would cost to pay a lawyer to take care of it.

He wins, I lose... even though I "won".

Of course if I was owed several thousand dollars, it would be different.

 

[Chu Gai]

Assuming one wins a judgement, I doubt he'll pay. My thought is he has no assets to liquidate and no equity in any real estate in which to put a lien on.

I'm owed money from a judgement (not MLS) and I have not seen a dime.

I could, of course, put a lien on any property etc, but the money I'm owed is less than it would cost to pay a lawyer to take care of it.

He wins, I lose... even though I "won".

Of course if I was owed several thousand dollars, it would be different.

Well there are folks that are owed a few thousand and it's not like he's broke. AFAIK, he's still paying the tuition and stuff for his granddaughter. He and his wife drive a nearly new Volvo and Audi TT. He's gradually paying off one of his former and hopefully for him, present, workers. He has equity in his house. Money might not be like before (after all, he was stealing it from the raffles, taking personal loans from friends and family and not paying them back, prepays, beta testers, etc.) but he's got money. He's looking to cut deals with people like PierceAudio for subs and has lined up another sucker to make cabinets. Take him to court. If it's small claims, he'll lose and either have to settle up then and there or file paperwork listing assets and debits. It'll be more black marks on his credit report. Get him before he gets you.

 

[Chu Gai]

Last chance to send Valentine's Flowers

Don't miss your opportunity to send the Shifty one some flowers. And while you're at it, send him a note. Thank him putting you in a position of having to sell your store credit at a discount or even telling you that you have less than you thought. Write a little something about how you appreciate having donated to raffles where he kept the money. Cheer him up a bit by letting him know how thankful you are that you prepaid and couldn't get your money back on subs that don't exist or RSL-II's that exist only on paper. And while you're at it, sue him so you can see his humbly bumbly self in court and get a chance to get a big old man hug from him. Don't miss your chance to let him know you care.

 

[Eddie Horton]

Lots of talk over there about the RSC-500, powered and unpowered, new veneers, a new factory to build it, and a return of the RS-750 with Schifter promising pictures and talking of things "near and dear to his heart". Looks like the good ole' days are here again for him and 123. Not so much for folks owed product and or money.

 

[gonk]

I'm not sure how compelling a new factory is unless you just like to see Mark using the forum to stir up attention - have they had consistently good success with any speaker factory they've used since they lost SAC? The ELT525's are decent for what they are, but even the company's fans don't seem to consider them to be anything more than what their price tag would suggest. The Rockets have never fully recovered from the move, with only a partial product line in place. Production of the X-series has struggled ever since they moved that product from China to Colombia. The LS speakers are like some sort of audio nomads, with cabinets coming from at least four different locations (Colombia, China, Lucid, and briefly Fallen Enclosures).

 

[Eddie Horton]

Speaking of SAC, Mark did say something about rockets coming from China again, although he didn't specifically mention SAC.

 

[Matt34]

Lots of talk over there about the RSC-500, powered and unpowered, new veneers, a new factory to build it, and a return of the RS-750 with Schifter promising pictures and talking of things "near and dear to his heart". Looks like the good ole' days are here again for him and 123. Not so much for folks owed product and or money.

The RSC-500 is only going to be viable to such a small number of people I don't see it doing well at all. How many people have a dedicated theater room of Rocket speakers and have the space for a five foot wide center channel?

 

[droht]

The RSC-500 is only going to be viable to such a small number of people I don't see it doing well at all. How many people have a dedicated theater room of Rocket speakers and have the space for a five foot wide center channel?

So Matt, have you pre-paid for your 500 or just put your name on the list?

I think once upon a time, maybe when the 500 was first touted some years ago, they may have been able to sell enough for it to make sense. But lots of Rockets have been for sale on the secondary market in the recent past. Many loyal owners have jumped ship I think, and moved on to more reliable and predictable brands. Folks still buying new are doing so at drastically reduced prices. I don't think the new bargain-hunting Rocket fan base is going to drop the coin for that huge center.

 

[Chu Gai]

Lots of talk over there about the RSC-500, powered and unpowered, new veneers, a new factory to build it, and a return of the RS-750 with Schifter promising pictures and talking of things "near and dear to his heart". Looks like the good ole' days are here again for him and 123. Not so much for folks owed product and or money.

It's funny isn't it how all Shifty's got to do is break wind to set folks over there into a tizzy. Why, it's just like dropping a little sugar into yeast. Out come a couple of the old timers talking about the good old days of the fatherland. The camraderie. The joy of cooking and the thrill of once agains seeing drawings. The special feeling folks got as Shifty would tell them thngs like, 'thanks for your message', 'nice speaking with you', and all that. After every fiasco that's ever occurred with electronics, people are looking forward to owning a powered center channel? Please! And in new veneers that don't match anything they own? Someone tell Stevie Wonder.

The only thing near and dear to his heart is finding ways to gyp people out of he owes them.

Speaking of SAC, Mark did say something about rockets coming from China again, although he didn't specifically mention SAC.

Ain't nothing coming from there. If you think he owes the raffles a lot of money, that's only a fraction of what he owes Mr. Pu. Right Mark? Cya in court with Suzy later this month!

Humbly Bumbly and big old man hugs to ya!

 

[MinusTheBear]

I came across this interesting post in the 123 classifieds. Can anyone else confirm if this rather odd policy is true. IMO this is some important information to any potential and/or current customers of 123.

WTB: Busted Bigfoot (or woofer only)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well, the voice coil in one of my woofers on my Bigfoot is apparently fried. If I gently push on it there's a nasty scraping sound. Not good. Out of warranty, and apparently the policy now at AV123 is not to sell parts Not sure why but that's got me in a serious bind. So if you have a busted Bigfoot you want to part with, or just a single woofer, then please let me know! Also still hoping the guys make an exception and just sell me the woofer