John Atkinson no longer editor of Stereophile.

When I listened to the interview the only speakers I could think of were the NS-1000, which are clean, dynamic and fast. Then I thought about how vintage Tannoy, Altec, and JBL are really popular over there and the picture was complete.

Anyways yeah 10 bucks is a great deal. I subscribe to Stereophile and Absolute Sound yearly for like 12 bucks a piece. Definitely worth it for the pictures alone.

 

I understand the quote as originally written. What I wrote wasn't my interpretation of the quote. FWIW, the idea behind the original quote is idiotic. What makes a poorly measured piece of equipment sound good isn't in the equipment, it's in the ear of the listener. Same is true for equipment that measures good.

 

The Zinio software works, but is not what I would call elegant or well designed or lightweight. I use a 12.3" Samsung Chromebook Plus to read Stereophile. The Samsung folds into a big heavy tablet and can run Android apps. I use the Android version of Zinio. Works, but still clumsy software. The 12.3" screen helps deal with the magazine style page layouts. The web browser version of Zinio is so heavy on javascript and bad coding and bad design that it barely runs in the Chrome browser on the Chromebook.

I do enjoy reading the Stereophile articles, reviews, and other content. Hopefully my $10 per year digital subscription helps them keep going and helps the writers afford a few lattes while they try to finish up writing their reviews before deadline.

 

customer service is excellent, they just forget some parts. my amp was missing a couple of parts that they shipped asap

 

You apparently had better luck than other forum members had.

A company that sells electronic kits for a living, has an obligation to ship said kits with ALL of the parts necessary to assemble the kit in its entirely.

 

I tend to agree - I understand the odd issue but this seems to be continuous and I don't understand why.

If I were selling an Amp Kit - and it has a total of 72 parts - the first thing anyone boxing it up the kit should do is count to make sure there are 72 parts.

If you have 15 different resistors - you would have 15 boxes filled with the specified resistor. How hard can it be? I mean the amp says - 3 ABC resistors -pick up three of those place in the bag. Then walk over to the XYZ resistor box and put in 4 of those.

Indeed you should "pre-make" these bags well in advance and you basically have a Kit One bag ready to go. Have 2 people each check the bag and make sure all the parts are in it. Check one - then second person goes through it - Check two.

I mean it's not like ANKits is selling Hundreds of these per day - more like ten in a week if even that!

The exception might be if a given part simply has not been supplied - they can ship the kit and tell you that you can start building but you have to stop at page 12 because Part X is not available. But this should be something they tell you before they take your money.

I hope they solve these issues because most people like the sound of the kits a lot and that may make up for some of this - but it's also possible they will never get a repeat customer. I do notice that Audio Note separated themselves from Audio Note Kits and the latter had to change their name to ANKits instead. I wonder if these problems are why Audio Note disassociated themselves.

Lastly, shipping isn't cheap - it seems like you are losing profit margin every time you have to ship a second or third box to someone.

Indeed, I paid about $150USD equivalent to get a picture framed. They said come back on June 27th to collect it - ok. I got there and it's not there - someone forgot to deliver from the warehouse to the store. So they phone up and pay around $30US to rush it for me - and then drive me to the ferry so I can get home. I am an easy going guy so yes it put me out 2 hours but again - this fellow is in business and just lost $30 (1/5th of his sale) due to his or his worker's screw up.

People always dump on the public sector but having worked in private sector and seen many of these kinds of things - I always chuckle when people want public sector run by private business.

 

for sure, its odd. I sure wouldnt run my business like this, but at least they answered my emails and shipped the missing parts fast. Stunning value, the el84 l1 integrated. Sold it but highly recommended

 

I have an ANK L4 EL34 power amplifier, which I consider to be an excellent power amplifier.

Not knocking the gear.

As it happened, I bought the L4 from another member, who had it professionally assembled.

As it happened, I receved another alert, right before yours, on a thread that deals with the same subject.

Audio Note Kit - L5 Mentor - build experience

This guy is in business to sell AN kits and he continuously fails to deliver what he sells as promises.