Chubby Checker? Seriously? Still alive. Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper? Dead. Feb. 3, 1959. If I misheard you, Liz, I apologize.

Cool..I got my first podcast mention!
I’m the 1.1 guy with the Yamaha soundbar and sub. Had to downgrade in the new house from a full 5.1 surround system..and I do miss it! Someday soon I ‘ll piece the system back together again and watch movies the way they should be heard. On the upside though I did get a Pioneer plasma fro viewing..so I guess it was a tradeoff: better video for less audio

Holy cow! Tom actually corrected himself and realized that I love “So You Think You Can Dance” and NOT “Dancing with the Stars”.

Here’s the difference:

SYTYCD contestants are young, unbelievably talented, professional dancers who partner up and perform astonishing, beautiful routines put together by some of the best choreographers in the world.

Dancing with the Stars…is crap.

So Liz, and anyone else, I don’t begrudge you thinking lowly of Dancing with the Stars and America’s Got Talent and American Idol and all the other crappy competition shows. But please, do not lump So You Think You Can Dance in with all the rest of them! Granted, the judges are annoying and lower the overall prestige of the show, but just do what I do and skip over everything except the actual dancing with your DVR!

Oh, and Cat Deeley – the host- is fine. I don’t mind watching her. Best host on any reality show out there.

😀

Epik

Ahh yes, the whole Epik fiasco :p

Here’s what happened:

I bought 2 Sentinel subwoofers from Epik. I had to wait a few days for them to actually be physically made. Epik doesn’t ship directly to Canada, nor do they warrant their products anywhere outside of the USA – I REALLY should have stopped in my tracks right there? What kind of company won’t warrant their products that you buy DIRECTLY from them?

Anywho, I used a 3rd party shipper to get the subs. One of them arrived scratched, missing a power cord and with broken pins on the grill. The second arrived with an amp that would cut out with a pop after about 2 minutes of use – seemed to be a thermal issue because it would work for a couple of minutes after it had been unplugged for a while, but it would always cut back out after it was powered on for a couple minutes.

Even though the first sub had cosmetic damage, it worked just fine. A little scratch on the outer finish and a broken pin on a grill has ZERO impact on the SOUND of the subwoofer. So that is the one that I reviewed. Obviously, the second sub could not be reviewed because it didn’t work!

I vented to Tom over Twitter. Tom thought I could maybe write something about it and send it to Clint. The first thing I wrote was mostly just describing the process I had gone through just to purchase the subs and get them shipped to me – and basically a warning not to do what I had done because everyone just pointed fingers at everyone else and didn’t want to accept any responsibility.

I contacted Epik. I eventually spoke to the founder, Chad, directly. He gave me a very long “woe is me” story about how no matter what they do, they still end up with subs that get damaged in shipping and how their amps come in big batches from China and about 30% of them have problems, so they test them all, but some bad ones still get through. Yeah…I was not impressed.

While talking on the phone, Chad told me that he’d like to replace the faulty amp – probably for a small charge since they don’t warrant any products that leave the USA. But he didn’t have ANY spare amps right now and he wouldn’t let me ship mine back to him for a repair.

Eventually, I sent a pretty harsh e-mail to Epik and called them until I got Chad on the phone again where he assured me that he had more amps coming in 2 weeks from China and that he would make sure I got one right away when that shipment came in.

So, back to the review. Clint got back to me and said that he couldn’t really use what I had written because it was just a single person’s experience and I was more than welcome to post it on the message boards, but it wasn’t really anything that would work for Audioholics. I had also written about the actual performance of the one, working Sentinel though and Clint suggested that I write up an actual review that followed the Audioholics review format.

So that’s what I did. And I believe I wrote a very fair review. I pointed out that the extension, impact and attack of the bass was excellent. What I did not like about the Sentinel was that it had very noticeable over-hang. The decay of notes was far too long. And on complex bass passages, it would all sort of blend together into a bit of a mess.

Overall, I said that I didn’t recommend the sub. That for the price, the over-hang and lack of delineation were disappointing. But I also pointed out that the extension and “slam” were excellent and that if what you wanted was a sub that would hit really low and really loud and “thump you in the chest”, that the Sentinel would deliver that.

Clint and I went back and forth a couple of times – just spelling and formatting stuff. Then Clint posted my review on the Audioholics website.

Then the s*** hit the fan. I got a really harsh e-mail from Gene. Gene was livid because Chad had contacted Gene directly about my review. Chad said that I had reviewed an known faulty sub. That I was extremely biased against Epik. And he sent Gene the e-mail that I had written after Chad had been giving me the run-around. Yeah…he also completely left out all of the other emails and phone conversations, conveniently enough.

I wrote back to Gene and gave him the full story. Gene backed off and apologized. Between Clint, Gene and I, we sorted out the mess and agreed to remove the review from the website. It had NOT gone through the regular peer review and manufacturer vetting that Audioholics’ professional reviews go through. I was fine with taking it down. I just wasn’t going to stand for Chad trying to sully my name and damage my relationship with Audioholics and its staff!

Needless to say, I never was able to get a response from Epik ever again and I never saw that replacement amp that had been promised. The whole ordeal was ridiculous. I switched the working amp into the non-damaged cabinet and sold the one Sentinel. The other one I just scrapped. I didn’t want to be bothered with it any longer!

The subwoofer itself wasn’t bad! It just wasn’t up to MY standards and it wasn’t what I had been looking or hoping for. It did some things really well and a lot of people would have been thrilled with its performance. And I said as much in my review.

A lot of people have been happy with their Epik subs. I’m sure that so long as you are happy with them and give them praise, they’re just dandy to deal with. But I was more discerning and critical, so I got to see how Epik responded when everything was not hunky-dory. This is not unique to Epik. A lot of companies, big and small, are none too helpful if you have a problem with one of their products and need a return or repair.

The thing with Epik though is that I just don’t think their products are up to the level of quality that I would personally demand. Their amps are CHEAP, bulk-made, bulk-purchased, low-quality units. There are just lots of “red flags”, and those shouldn’t be ignored! I ignored them and I paid the price for doing so!

I’m just one guy. I had a bad experience. I didn’t think the Sentinel sub performed as well as I was hoping it would. That’s all! There are lots of happy Epik fans.

But the point is, just don’t get swept up and carried away by the hype. Look for the “red flags” and heed them!

Liz, forgot to mention that it was cool when you talked about “Gershwin Plays Gershwin: The Piano Rolls” being one of your favorite CDs. It’s an amazing collection…apparently a 1911 pianola was used to translate old piano rolls – originally authored by Gershwin himself – into a format that could be played back on a modern Yamaha Disklavier player piano. This technique supposedly preserved the original timing and nuance of the Gershwin performance, while allowing modern-day high fidelity recording techniques to capture the sounds of the Yamaha piano…stunning!