DO NOT BUY anything from AV123

[Matt34]

Maybe av123 should do what that forum that rhymes with Freak Pity does. Instead of banning they just nicely ask people to leave. It is so much more friendly. Who else besides me is on their "please go away" list?

I'm on the "Your not offically ban but your posting previlages are suspended" list. I guess this is his way of staying face with his whole "less moderation" farce.

Doesn't matter....I'll never post there again and he will never get one second of advertising from this site.

 

[Stereodude]

Maybe av123 should do what that forum that rhymes with Freak Pity does. Instead of banning they just nicely ask people to leave. It is so much more friendly. Who else besides me is on their "please go away" list?

According to what the proprietor of the aforementioned establishment posted I'm apparently in the same category as you.

 

[KlipschHead281]

Nope, I haven't been contacted. Actually, I never participated in the raffles. The only one I was going to participate in was the one to benefit Bruce (aka Brucer) (was that the first raffle?), but by the time I got around to buying a ticket, all the tickets had been sold so I just made a small donation ($50 - I think) to MLS for Bruce's benefit. Hope the money made it to Bruce.

The "variety of reasons" is partly because I have to be careful what I post publicly because of my job. I also had personal reasons to keep quiet because I did/do consider Mark to be a friend (in the same sense I consider you and Curtis to be "friends"), and didn't want to pile on. Didn't see that I really had anything constructive to add.

Also, I didn't like how much some people seemed to be enjoying tearing someone down publicly, and I knew if I pointed that out I would be accused of taking up for Mark which I also didn't want to do. It's been pretty obvious for some time that, by his own admission, he stole money from the raffles, and the whole "under-funded" terminology made me want to gag a little. Just seemed best to stay out of it.

I have prosecuted a number of embezzlers, and almost none of them initially intended to keep the money. They are just temporarily "borrowing" the money, and will pay it all back. Of course, the paying back almost never happens. I call it the "no harm, no foul" justification. Also, they almost never realize how much they've actually taken ... another justification/minimization process.

I prosecuted our former elected court clerk who had a gambling addiction and was forging a district judge's signature on her travel claims. I don't excuse her actions, but I did feel sorry for her. I've sent a lot of people to prison who I felt sorry for. No one is completely good, and no one is completely bad, and sometimes essentially good people do bad things. Justice must be done, but it is not always something to rejoice in. I'm guessing a lot of people won't understand that.

One more note, I saw a few comments about how none of the charities will get their money now that the legal system is involved, and at least one about "blood-sucking lawyers". In every financial crime prosecution I have ever been involved in or seen, the prosecution's number one goal was to get restitution for the victim(s). If restitution can be made up front or at least a substantial down payment on it made, it typically goes a long way in getting a reduced plea offer. In my jurisdiction that typically means probation.

No winners here ... only losers ... my thoughts and prayers go out to everyone involved (including Mark and his family).

Agreed with everything you said and my "Blood Sucking Lawyers" comment was more about ambulance chasers, not prosecution attorneys. Corruption is everywhere, my field, heck any field but in the lawyer field I have met more bad ones than good ones, including the estate lawyer that is now sucking my mother’s estate dry doing nothing but billing us. I digress; I meant no disrespect to the good lawyers out there.

 

[Stereodude]

Giving credit where brilliance has struck, our good buddy StevO came up with two very clever acrostics based on TADG and even cooked up a new slogan.

At AV123 you get a Totally Awesome Deceitful Game, practiced by The Audio Deception Guru himself, Mark Schifter.

 

[Chu Gai]

What needs to happen now, is for Kyle to find himself a decent enough job on the QT and then make his own post that bans him for life. Come on Kyle, this must be pure hell for you.

 

[Jim1921]

It looks like you can't even make challenging remarks to cheeseboy. Just a few comments got me this:

You have been banned for the following reason:
No reason was specified.

Date the ban will be lifted: Never


And, of course, everything was deleted.

 

[KlipschHead281]

I don't have my first post, but what I said to Johnson is that he didn't know what he was talking about and that he ought to read AH. Further, if he wanted more information he should email seeing as my membership there has my particulars. OK, so this is what I received back from him

Think he knows Schifter better than all of you know him?

Gad, I get to hear the "I have a Masters Degree" at work, my response is usually, then you should be able to fix your own computer smart guy. My puny HS Diploma to the rescue.

 

[SlushPuppy]

Giving credit where brilliance has struck, our good buddy StevO came up with two very clever acrostics based on TADG and even cooked up a new slogan.

I thought it stood for The Artful Dodger Groupe.

 

[Jed M]

It looks like you can't even make challenging remarks to cheeseboy. Just a few comments got me this:

You have been banned for the following reason:
No reason was specified.

Date the ban will be lifted: Never


And, of course, everything was deleted.

To be fair, challenging cheeseboy should have always been grounds for instant banishment. The man is infallible.

 

[gonk]

After this update, I'll wait a bit before the next. Since the forum software seems to be unwilling to let me edit posts that are more than a page or so back in the thread, the reposts are getting kind of silly...

• Matt34 (including IP block)
• gonk (including IP block)
• Washburn
• Zaluss
• django1
• droht
• gkaste (if he's not banned now, the jail cell pic will fix that shortly)
• wje (T2T at Audioholics)
• arthurs
• bunnyma357
• Steve_vai_rules
• NicolasKL
• tesseract
• Eddie Horton (including IP block)
• Mac11700 (temporary - for now...)
• mziegler
• aurthurdent
• Chungar
• uw69
• Jim1921

Some of these are based on members' forum status, and may or may not be permanent.

 

[Chu Gai]

You know, Gonk, when you do those updates, it almost reminds me of when AV451 would roll out the names of people who had contributed.

 

[Stereodude]

To be fair, challenging cheeseboy should have always been grounds for instant banishment. The man is infallible.

Too bad he's made of Vieux Boulogne.

 

[Jim1921]

To be fair, challenging cheeseboy should have always been grounds for instant banishment. The man is infallible.

Yep. My fault. Unfortunately, with the ban, I no longer have the ability to seek his forgiveness on that same forum. Someday, maybe I can return, armed with my chapstick and ready for some major kissing up (not!).

 

[gonk]

You know, Gonk, when you do those updates, it almost reminds me of when AV451 would roll out the names of people who had contributed.

Who knows? Maybe I'll hold a drawing with the aid of a nifty random number generator and award someone their very own (picture of a) set of LS-4 speakers! Photoshopped with pride and passion in Tennessee, of course. The drawing will have to wait until everybody is at the office at the same time, though, as it really is just too exciting to miss.

Delivery will be promptly some time in this decade. I think.

 

[tbag]

Nah, I'm not banned. I've refrained from talking about raffles ( I wasn't involved) or denouncing the wise-one outright. I try to be more subtle. I'm also curious if they think by not banning me I might buy a pair of LS4 speakers when they are available.

(no, not really planning to do so, but I feel it points out how desperate for business they are)

Besides, If we all get our IPs blocked how will we get updates?

todd

 

[gonk]

Besides, If we all get our IPs blocked how will we get updates?

- Don't worry, even with a ban and blocked IP's at home and the office, I still get all of their sales emails. They are very considerate that way.

 

[silverbullet]

WTF!? I guess you can be banned for being sarcastic now.

You have been banned for the following reason:
No reason was specified.

Date the ban will be lifted: Never

You can add me to the banned for life list. Anyone that doesn't swallow and ask for seconds gets the insta-ban now. Pathetic! I really wish that company would just throw in the towel already!

 

[woofersus]

My 850's,bigfoot and 450's all say Onix Rockets on them..as do my ELT-LRS's The ELT-LRS series I know aren't being made anymore..but still...all of them bear the Onix tag on the rear..Being able to have a upgrade path or a reliable source for parts is paramount to me.

Mac

Mark blurred the lines between Onix and AV123 a lot, which has been a source of frustration for the new distribution network. He made it sound like it was one of their brands, when in fact Onix is a separate company and AV123 was just the North American distributor. (albeit the first one since Onix was still a British company)

They even stuck the Onix name on some early X-series stuff. I don't know for sure if Mr. Pu was at some point ok with this as he was building stuff for AV123 (I suppose Hugh will find out when he contacts them with pictures) but AFAIK the production of Rockets and everything else moved to other factories well before they lost their Onix distributorship. For the record, the ONLY Onix speakers AV123 ever sold were the Reference series. Everything else has nothing to do with Onix besides being built at the same factory for the first few years.

All of the Onix electronics and accessories were/are actual Onix designs. (except the SP3/8 and H34 which were built for Onix by Melody)

 

[silverbullet]

I just emailed everyone at AV666....

"Apparently I am now banned, username Silverbullet. There was no reason given and frankly, I am not surprised, nor do I care. I was close to requesting my account be deleted anyway, but was having too much fun watching your company self destruct. So, now that I am banned, I humbly ask that you remove my profile and all posts/threads I have ever made on that forum. I do not want to be affiliated with AV123 in any way ever again. I no longer wish to receive emails from the company, so please remove me from all mailing lists. I do not wish to cause any problems for AV123 (you're doing a fine job of that yourself, along with anyone affiliated with AV123) but will be checking to make sure anything with my username is removed.

Thank you for your time.
Hugs,
"Silverbullet" "

I don't have an IP block yet (that I know of) but if I do, I can get around that and will be checking to see if they oblige.

 

[Mac11700]

Mark blurred the lines between Onix and AV123 a lot, which has been a source of frustration for the new distribution network. He made it sound like it was one of their brands, when in fact Onix is a separate company and AV123 was just the North American distributor. (albeit the first one since Onix was still a British company)

They even stuck the Onix name on some early X-series stuff. I don't know for sure if Mr. Pu was at some point ok with this as he was building stuff for AV123 (I suppose Hugh will find out when he contacts them with pictures) but AFAIK the production of Rockets and everything else moved to other factories well before they lost their Onix distributorship. For the record, the ONLY Onix speakers AV123 ever sold were the Reference series. Everything else has nothing to do with Onix besides being built at the same factory for the first few years.

All of the Onix electronics and accessories were/are actual Onix designs. (except the SP3/8 and H34 which were built for Onix by Melody)

The Onix name is still on the Rockets tag..as well as the older ELT-LRS speakers I have.

I thought PU/Onix and Mark had gone their separate ways. Since they did..I find it very strange PU is still allowing the Onix designation stickers to be used at all..Perhaps it was/is some arraignment they had/have..I don't know..but..like I said..the main reason for my asking is my concerns over having an upgrade path if possible and a reliable source for parts when needed.

Mac