Help from fellow Berkeley Owners,

[wdw]

...hello All,

 

my remote control just died without reason or forewarning...any BADA owners have a similar experience? Called through to BADA and Michael's phone message tells me they're out of the office for most of the month of November (wow, talk about a small operation!)

 

....so I'm adrift without a working remote...I know, I know, I could get my lazy butt up and down and up and down but we all know that's a non-starter.

 

Any advice...did I toggle some switch? Tested the batteries, natch...

 

peace, WDW

 

 

 

 

 

[Sri]

The justification for his 100% markup is the support and service he claims to provice. Time for him to earn his keep.

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Sri - Your negative tone is really getting old especially when it pops up into so many threads unsolicited.

 

Yes the dealer should be able to help and possibly lend a working remote until the problem can get sorted.

 

The price of the unit and margin are set by manufacturers. You're insinuating the dealer is responsible for some 100% markup and only claiming to provide service. Maybe you've had a bad experience with a dealer or two but your unfortunate experience should be projected on to all other readers of CA. The margin on Berkeley products is less than most products. Nobody is getting rich selling high end audio.

 

 

 

[fjmcsu]

i have not had an issue with the remote so far and both the BADA & USB Alpha have been flawless.I have had good correspondence with both the factory as well as the dealer ( Music Lovers-Berkeley) & I am sure one or the other will get you working again soon.

 

[barrows]

Failure is not all that uncommon for most products. Generally, this is because most companies do not build their own remotes, but just purchase something from a mass market provider and program their unit accordingly. Building a remote themselves would add substantially to the retail price, and is not generally seen as necessary.

So, remotes will fail occasionally, the good news is that any decent company has plenty of replacement remotes in stock, and will usually provide one under warranty.

One way to check if the remote is the problem, is to look at the IR transmitter through the electronic viewer of a video camera. You can "see" the IR on the video camera, and if you cannot, then the remote is definitely the problem.

 

[wdw]

...your message and method is exactly what I need to ascertain whether the remote is at fault. Unfortunately I don't have a video camera...would the viewer of an iPhone work in this case?

Thanks,

WW

 

[esldude]

Don't know for sure about an iPhone. But my Android phone clearly shows the IR transmitter of remote controls in camera mode. Shows it better than most video cameras I think. Pretty sure the iPhone would as well.

 

 

 

 

 

[analogshop]

"Nobody is getting rich selling high end audio"

 

Thankful this Thanksgiving for very, very sane folk!

 

I know for a fact Berkeley are away until the end of this month. I do not understand how a non functioning remote on the Alpha dac [i know how it works] represents anymore than a minor inconvenience.

 

They are a world class company and will address your problem I assure you.

 

[wdw]

..my iPhone camera tells me it's the remote that's not working. Now if only someone was "in house" at Berkeley. Odd for a company to completely close up shop for a month especially when just releasing two major bits of gear. Is Michael to only one working there? Find that hard to believe.

 

...btw, agree with analogshop, the Bada is a great piece of audio equipment and Berkeley is world class.

 

also, Harley just put up a review of the Series 2 BADA on the Absolute web page.

 

WDW

 

[Sri]

World call companies maintain customer support 24x7 every day. They don't shut down for weeks at a time.

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Sri - Please give us examples of world class companies with 24/7 support.

 

BADA is a very small operation. This is one way it keeps costs under controll. Readers should also know that the BADA guys aren't living it up on the beach on some tropical island the whole month of November. It would be inappropriate for me to go into much detail. I'll simply say that spending time with family is very important to the BADA guys.

 

 

 

[wdw]

...you have your demons, that's for sure.

As to Berkeley, I have just received an email from Michael Ritter, of Berkeley offering full support (although not yet from my dealer and, frankly, don't really expect them to hop up to the plate without some chasing).

One of the great joys of our hobby is the ability to purchase from and work with small design firms. The fact that I can, when service is required or a question arises, call through and speak directly to the owner/designer is very rewarding, and is also as satisfying to reward, via a purchase, a firm and personnel you know and respect.

In contrast, I recently made a small change to my internet service plan so needed to call my provider, a former public telephone utility, now privatized, who does provide 24/7 support, and the process was infuriating, dull-witted and all of it off-shore. The fact that their client base is essentially a governmentally mandated marketplace, a quasi monopoly, located in one large Canadian city but they employ off-shore third world labour to service them is unconscionable. They should employ workers within the market they realize their wealth from.

I'll take Berkeley's service and products any day, or similarily, Aerial Acoustic's, where one can also call through and speak directly to that great designer.

 

[Sri]

IBM, Lenovo, EMC, HP, every cell phone carrier. Shall I continue? I noticed they responded, seemingly because of the mentions on this board. It shouldn't take a public shaming to get them to respond.

 

[wdw]

..."seemingly because of the mentions on this board" ?

 

Boy, you do have some demons !

 

....give it a rest...take a breath...feel some joy in your heart !

 

 

 

[bzr]

....his lollipop?

 

[Sri]

Berkeley sells a premium product, why should you accept mediocre support? You received a response because you complained on CA. What about the vast majority of customers who don't know about CA and have a problem during their month's vacation? If you couldn't get support from your phone or cable company for a month, you'd scream bloody murder. How many of you would calmly accept the idea that your car dealer shut his repair department for a month?

 

[Jud]

You received a response because you complained on CA.

 

Jump to conclusions much? Oh wait, I'm sure it's because you're a neighbor and close friend of Michael Ritter's that you know this, right?

 

Funny, I just looked at Devialet's web site and noticed they don't list a contact phone at all, much less a 24x7 support facility. I think you should demand your money back unless they insist on charging you triple the price you paid so they can afford to provide proper support.

 

[wdw]

I'm sure our good friend SRI is the kind of fellow that walks down the street talking out loud to himself, head swinging back and forth, with people changing the side of the street as he approaches, but I must concede one of his points...Berkeley simply closes down for a month?

 

Is MR the sole employee of BADA? It's just odd....especially when introducing two significant products just weeks ago.

Nevertheless the DAC is amazing and has reawakened my passion for music.

 

Cheers,

 

WDW

 

 

 

[Sri]

They both list the address and phone number of their retail store in Paris, which is the customer point of contact, they also point to their US distributor, who has a phone number.

 

[wdw]

...but they're French

 

the customer service is binary:

 

Positive: The Gaulic shrug

Negative: a raised middle finger

 

;-) WDW

 

[Jud]

Is MR the sole employee of BADA? It's just odd....

 

Consider that Vandersteen Audio, builders of perhaps the best-selling audiophile speakers in history (the various versions of the Model 2, of which roughly 200,000 pairs had been sold back in 2007, so presumably many more by now), has somewhere between 10 and 20 employees, and you begin to understand just how small the operations of most audiophile equipment manufacturers truly are. (Not counting those that have been acquired by relatively larger companies.)

 

Yes, principals taking substantial time off seems fairly unusual to me, though I wonder whether it's more common in nations where taking longish holidays is more of a cultural tradition. On the other hand, it's really hard to begrudge principals of a small business wanting to buck the trend and have lives of their own if that's financially possible. (I remember a buyer at a company I once worked for, in response to a vendor complaining that he would have to put people on overtime to meet the desired delivery schedule, hollering into the phone, "Overtime? Hell, my family hasn't seen my ass in ages!")

 

I do feel the more normal situation for problems like yours would be to have a dealer rather than the corporate principals respond, but apparently that didn't happen here.

 

[wdw]

...work in engineering and have been in small consulting firms...but no one to answer the phone?

no worries....end of the month is nigh.

 

Had Vandersteen truly sold 200,000 pairs of speakers by 2007? if we use $3000 a pair just to make the math simple that's a pile of dough!

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

"IBM, Lenovo, EMC, HP, every cell phone carrier. Shall I continue?"

 

Hi Sri - I'm glad you took the bait. Comparing the global enterprises of IBM, Lenovo, EMC, and HP to a company with the number of employees in the single digits is asinine. I'm sure BADA and any other audio company could offer the same support if they charged as much as EMC. Have you ever used EMC 24/7 support? I have. The use a rolling support model where you talk to someone in whatever part of the world is currently operating under normal business hours. When they can't help they send a local on-call guy to your place of business. That guy is never able to solve anything other than a physical connection issue. The following morning a local EMC guy who has your account calls to see what happened while he was sleeping. All that for several hundred thousand dollars.

 

OK, back to the real world of audio companies. Can you name a single audio company with 24/7 support?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

FYI Guys - Michael Ritter is not the sole employee of Berkeley Audio Design. He is the public facing person of the company.

 

The three main people at BADA are:

 

[Copied from here.]

 

Michael “Pflash” Pflaumer, co-founder of Pacific Microsonics and co-inventor of the HDCD process, produced all of the digital algorithms used in the Model One and Two.

 

Michael Ritter, co-founder and business leader of Pacific Microsonics, has extensive experience in audio engineering, facilities design and product development.

 

René Jaeger, prior to his work at Pacific Microsonics, pioneered audio designs at many firms including Lexicon, DBX and Grass Valley Group.

 

 

[Sri]

I'll bet you anything that Lenovo's gross margins are a fraction of that BADA. There's no excuse to leave your customers high and dry for a month.