Let’s suppose for a moment that you’re very happy with your music system. You spent time and money selecting everything you have. You’re pleased with each piece and like it as a system.
Are you DONE? Of course not!
I’m only slightly being a wise guy. It is very rare that we encounter a customer that has a complete, modern system. There are almost always i’s that need to be dotted and t’s that need to be crossed, to get your system to be the best performing it can be. And that’s even if you do like all your components.
For openers, we understand there’s TONS of great audio gear out there. Believe it or not, we don’t sell it all. We respect many brands that we don’t sell. There are probably 300 brands of speakers out there alone. Audio Emporium, or any other audio shop, can offer half a dozen to a dozen. There are still hundreds more that various customers land on.
Some of the designs out there are wonderfully innovative. Some are simply absurd. Regardless of your taste, we encourage you to buy solid products from properly capitalized, reputable people. For example…
As you’re reading about outfit A, B or C on line, please pay attention when forum contributors say they sent in money but didn’t hear back from the company. Or even worse, they had to chase some character to get product, service or a refund. This kind of info is a real TELL.
Anyone and everyone can whisper sweet nothings into your ear with their advertising lingo. It’s kind of scary out there now because ANYBODY can have a web page and promise you the moon. You may have sent money to one guy in his garage, taking money from today’s sale to produce product he promised a month ago to someone else. Robbing Peter to pay Paul is not that unusual.
There are also many well known companies that are impossible to deal with. For example, in Jan 2021, a customer bought some new speakers from AE. He asked me to help fix his broken, powered sub Definitive speakers. I said yes, even though we aren’t a Definitive dealer.
It took three days of calling them before getting a human on the phone. When I finally got one, on a Friday, he said there is a fixed repair price on the woofer amp. Fine. He wanted my CC in advance. I wasn’t thrilled about it, but, OK, he doesn’t know me from the man in the moon. This call took about 20 min with being put on hold, running my CC and who knows what all.
At the end of the call he said, “We’ll be emailing you an RA label.” I countered, “How about you just give me the RA NUMBER so I can send the amp in today? My customer wants it back ASAP.” Nope. No can do. They have to email the RA #. I asked the guy, “What if I don’t get it today? I’ve prepaid it. What do I do?” He said, “You’ll get it today.” Of course I did NOT.
I waited patiently until Tuesday. No RA. I called Tuesday at 4pm. They were closed already. I called Wednesday at 10am. I got someone whose English I could barely understand. After a way too long preface, he found my notes in the system. He said he will email support, and they will email me an RA. I asked again- how about you just give me the RA #? I have a pen in my hand. I will write it down and I’ll send the amp out today. Nope. No can do. I’ve lost a week here for my customer who wants his speakers back yesterday. The best he could do for me is… email support. Wow.
This… was a painfully long experience, with his limited English, constantly referring to his script of apologies. Still, no RA# was given. All he could do is email his support group, who has already ignored helping the customer, me, for about a week. I’ll fast forward a bit here to save you some of the slogging through the snow. As of May 7, 2021, a full 3 months down the road, Definitive still can’t give me any idea when this amp will be repaired, much less coming back. This started in freakin’ January!
Is THIS the way you want to do biz? Is this how you want to deal with your service issue?
Definitive has loads of money. They’re all over the web. And to get them to process a simple RA for a repair of an amp from their own speaker is a headache. It’s actually insulting to the customer who bought their product. After a full week of TRYING, I still didn’t have the RA#. This… from a company who is well known and should know better. And three months into the episode, nobody can tell me when or if the repaired amp will be on its way back- after prepaying.
If you buy from Audio Emporium, this absolutely won’t happen.
Let’s move on to how we might help you with your existing nice system.
Power By Isotek
The world of power changed in about 2014. Before then, we had surge protectors that did save us from the electric company- but they actually HURT our sound. We typically did need these devices so our fancy gear, most of which has microprocessors, wouldn’t get zapped during storms or electrical excitement.
In the mid 20 teens Isotek of the UK introduced products that help your sound significantly. We can demonstrate the improvements on a meter, or better yet through music. Your system cannot achieve the top level of resolution without a fine mains conditioner. We sell Isotek. We love it! We’re not saying it’s the only good brand. We DO think it’s the best for the money!
If you go to Dave’s Faves on our site and study up on Isotek’s Polaris, Aquarius and Syncro Uni, you’ll get our perspective. No matter what else you have in your system, you need a mains conditioner proportionate with the rest of your system.
An Isotek mains conditioner does the equivalent of filtering the snow out of your TV picture (remember that?!). If you have an Isotek conditioner, you should consider upgrading your power cables. If you do NOT have a fine conditioner- the audio snow is still in the picture. You won’t hear
an improvement by upgrading your power cables.
Considering you can buy a Polaris for $500, and Initiums for $100, there’s no excuse not
to dip your foot into the power pool. Any “reasonably” priced system will benefit from a Polaris, and replacing the cheap power cables with Initiums.
If your system consists of higher end separates, please buy an Aquarius ($2k) and Premier ($200 ea) power cables. The improvement your system will hear with Aquarius can actually be quite dramatic. Once again, you strip the snow out of the picture. You get tighter bass, faster transients and a blacker audio background.
Please read up on Syncro Uni as well. It deals with a different problem. It eliminates transformer feedback distortion. There are transformers all over your house and neighborhood. Washer, drier, fridge, HVAC etc. This backwash adds to the noise the electric company gives you. Eliminating these sources of noise helps your music appear more clear and from a black background.
Running an array of Isotek products in front of your audio gear helps far more than you would ever think. If you read some of the testimonials on our site, you won’t have to just take my word for it.
Kimber Carbons
You may have good interconnect and speaker cables. They really matter. In 2019 Kimber came out with its new line of Carbon cables. The Carbons have been a game changer to the lively, dynamic sound we can achieve with a music system.
Kimber has worked on this design for over 20 years. They finally nailed it.
Kimber created a method to infuse Teflon with Carbon. Carbon is conductive. Melding the two together makes for a more airy, spacious sound. Kimber offers its Carbon technology in speaker and interconnect cables. We’ve had customers replace their old brand X cables and tell us, it sounds like I bought a whole new system. We’re not surprised.
While Carbon cables aren’t cheap, they’re not insane money for those of us that take our music addiction seriously. I would encourage you to upgrade your interconnects and speaker cables to Carbons. You won’t believe how much more the music sounds like it’s in your room- vs listening to a stereo. I’m a very hard sell on cables. I know some of the high end cable world is jewelry, not performance. This is not the case with the Carbons. You’re getting enhanced audio resolution for your investment!