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Post by steelman1991 on Dec 20, 2019 10:09:27 GMT -5
In that case I’m on a par with the Monoprice - thanks 🤦♂️ Glad the double standard of posting on the lounge is alive and well. Isn't the 16 channel processor market built on empty promises ? You'd sure think so the way Emotiva does business.. ............ 😂😂 yeah that makes a lot of sense and adds hugely to the topic - thanks for your wonderful insight.
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Post by Hair Nick on Dec 20, 2019 10:23:59 GMT -5
Shocked! (Well, not exactly...curious to see what they end up delivering.) Mark Looks like they are targeting pre Xmas. It really doesn’t matter for Monoprice - they are at the mercy of whoever is making this for them. They are just a website with seemingly bad customer service. This should be most people's concern. I called them last week to find more information from their customer service side about the HTP-1. After 10 minutes in a phone system menu, I finally got to a person except they were in India and had no idea what the HTP-1 is. They kept asking me if I was asking for a 3D printer and asking ME what the HTP-1 is. When I mentioned it was a home theater processor, they asked if I had questions about food processors since they sell those too. That is the support system that will be in place for this product and customer service. Good luck with troubleshooting any issue you have with those guys.
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Post by thrillcat on Dec 20, 2019 10:27:15 GMT -5
Looks like they are targeting pre Xmas. It really doesn’t matter for Monoprice - they are at the mercy of whoever is making this for them. They are just a website with seemingly bad customer service. This should be most people's concern. I called them last week to find more information from their customer service side about the HTP-1. After 10 minutes in a phone system menu, I finally got to a person except they were in India and had no idea what the HTP-1 is. They kept asking me if I was asking for a 3D printer. That is the support system that will be in place for this product and customer service. Good luck with troubleshooting any issue you have with those guys. Though not an issue if they release a problem-free, stable product and their customers don’t need to continually contact customer service to report bugs and missing features. I have a boatload of electronics in my home, very few of them I’ve had to contact customer service about. Let alone entire online forums.
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geebo
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Post by geebo on Dec 20, 2019 10:41:36 GMT -5
This should be most people's concern. I called them last week to find more information from their customer service side about the HTP-1. After 10 minutes in a phone system menu, I finally got to a person except they were in India and had no idea what the HTP-1 is. They kept asking me if I was asking for a 3D printer. That is the support system that will be in place for this product and customer service. Good luck with troubleshooting any issue you have with those guys. Though not an issue if they release a problem-free, stable product and their customers don’t need to continually contact customer service to report bugs and missing features. I have a boatload of electronics in my home, very few of them I’ve had to contact customer service about. Let alone entire online forums. If they produced and sold and anvil there would be people calling customer service asking how to make it work. Then they would get someone in India asking what an anvil is and if they would like an Advil.
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cawgijoe
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Post by cawgijoe on Dec 20, 2019 10:50:49 GMT -5
This should be most people's concern. I called them last week to find more information from their customer service side about the HTP-1. After 10 minutes in a phone system menu, I finally got to a person except they were in India and had no idea what the HTP-1 is. They kept asking me if I was asking for a 3D printer. That is the support system that will be in place for this product and customer service. Good luck with troubleshooting any issue you have with those guys. Though not an issue if they release a problem-free, stable product and their customers don’t need to continually contact customer service to report bugs and missing features. I have a boatload of electronics in my home, very few of them I’ve had to contact customer service about. Let alone entire online forums. You have a point there, but I don't think I would take a chance. I'd at least wait till the early adopters report back. I dread contacting most companies if there is an issue. My last contact with Sony was horrendous. I had an ES bluray player with a five year warranty that would not read discs correctly. Had to go through the offshore customer support, answering stupid questions, "is it plugged in?....is your disc clean, etc." When I finally convinced them I had an issue, they RMA'd and I sent it in. Placed the original box in another box, packed it well, and placed a typed note explaining that after repair I would like my original box back. After they had it for a couple days, I received a call that they could not find anything wrong. I called back and after another hour managed to convince them to replace the optical drive. They sent it back in a different box, no original box. I called back and they said it had been thrown out. I mentioned the letter, their response was, what letter? Horrible customer service. My customer service with Emotiva has been limited, but the couple of times I have called, they have helped me. My only issue(s) currently with the XMC-2 are dropped audio occasionally and the fact that I had to go back to 1.5 firmware because 1.7 had no audio when I was in Video on Standby mode. I do appreciate with Emotiva and other high(er) end companies that I can talk to someone who may understand my issue and resolve it. I don't get this with the mainstream manufacturers if I need to reach out.
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Post by Hair Nick on Dec 20, 2019 11:00:04 GMT -5
This should be most people's concern. I called them last week to find more information from their customer service side about the HTP-1. After 10 minutes in a phone system menu, I finally got to a person except they were in India and had no idea what the HTP-1 is. They kept asking me if I was asking for a 3D printer. That is the support system that will be in place for this product and customer service. Good luck with troubleshooting any issue you have with those guys. Though not an issue if they release a problem-free, stable product and their customers don’t need to continually contact customer service to report bugs and missing features. I have a boatload of electronics in my home, very few of them I’ve had to contact customer service about. Let alone entire online forums. We field loads of calls everyday of simple things like people asking how to plug RCAs into amplifiers. There are tons of people at different levels in this hobby where customer service is very important to them.
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Post by thrillcat on Dec 20, 2019 11:01:54 GMT -5
Though not an issue if they release a problem-free, stable product and their customers don’t need to continually contact customer service to report bugs and missing features. I have a boatload of electronics in my home, very few of them I’ve had to contact customer service about. Let alone entire online forums. You have a point there, but I don't think I would take a chance. I'd at least wait till the early adopters report back. I dread contacting most companies if there is an issue. My last contact with Sony was horrendous. I had an ES bluray player with a five year warranty that would not read discs correctly. Had to go through the offshore customer support, answering stupid questions, "is it plugged in?....is your disc clean, etc." When I finally convinced them I had an issue, they RMA'd and I sent it in. Placed the original box in another box, packed it well, and placed a typed note explaining that after repair I would like my original box back. After they had it for a couple days, I received a call that they could not find anything wrong. I called back and after another hour managed to convince them to replace the optical drive. They sent it back in a different box, no original box. I called back and they said it had been thrown out. I mentioned the letter, their response was, what letter? Horrible customer service. My customer service with Emotiva has been limited, but the couple of times I have called, they have helped me. My only issue(s) currently with the XMC-2 are dropped audio occasionally and the fact that I had to go back to 1.5 firmware because 1.7 had no audio when I was in Video on Standby mode. I do appreciate with Emotiva and other high(er) end companies that I can talk to someone who may understand my issue and resolve it. I don't get this with the mainstream manufacturers if I need to reach out. I’m by no means backing Monoprice. I’ve vowed to never again purchase anything from there based on past experiences. Customer service is very important, I’m also not downplaying that. I just don’t think it’s real confidence-inspiring to attack a competitor’s customer service in this particular situation. Get your ducks in a row before attacking. This just screams desperation. I know, Monoprice isn’t a competitor until the product is released. But they’re seemingly taking the high road and finishing the product and development prior to accepting payments.
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Post by Hair Nick on Dec 20, 2019 11:41:58 GMT -5
Not attacking them. I just want people to be aware that if you need a lot of hand holding through issues you might come into, the path will be difficult based on what I have experienced. I wish all companies had excellent customer service and that was made the priority. Speaking as a consumer here.
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richb
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Post by richb on Dec 20, 2019 11:58:18 GMT -5
It is fair to recognize that up to now, Monoprice tech support was to create and RMA, credit, or replacement.
IMO, it will amount to one of the following:
- AVS support (mostly for tech advice and support) - usage support and advice via phone and email - Support to identify and traffic other issues for hardware to ATI or software to MDS
Since MDS is support multiple platforms, there could be economies of scale that help reliability.
Time will tell.
IMO, Emotiva must concentrate on improving stability and decoding issues over new features.
- Rich
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klinemj
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Post by klinemj on Dec 21, 2019 8:27:59 GMT -5
We'll see what they deliver, and how they handle any issues - if any pop up. Mark They are delivering a 16 channel processor - as stated in the thread topic. I don’t think there is a question of what they are delivering. All the specs are on the Monoprice website. Well, duh...yes, they say they are delivering a 16 channel pre/pro. What I meant was...we'll see if it actually works well or not. They could deliver a gem or...a piece of bovine excrement. Time will tell. Mark
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Lsc
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Post by Lsc on Dec 21, 2019 10:49:56 GMT -5
They are delivering a 16 channel processor - as stated in the thread topic. I don’t think there is a question of what they are delivering. All the specs are on the Monoprice website. Well, duh...yes, they say they are delivering a 16 channel pre/pro. What I meant was...we'll see if it actually works well or not. They could deliver a gem or...a piece of bovine excrement. Time will tell. Mark I thought you didn’t know what they were delivering 😊. There is an owners manual out there to give further details. The reason why there is a lot of confidence in Monoprice’s Monolith and maybe this is obvious as well, but like their Monolith amplifier they have heavyweight companies in the industry who are OEM’ing them. So if you are questioning the Monoprice HTP-1, then you are questioning Datasat right? Monoprice doesn’t make anything. I didn’t have any confidence in their subs because I didn’t know who makes them otherwise I would have bought it over the SVS PB16. And if I didn’t belong to the UFL which makes the XMC2 much cheaper than the HTP-1, then to get the prepro that Datasat designed is a strong consideration. People are not putting any faith in the Monoprice brand, instead they are putting faith in the OEM source company.
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Post by brutiarti on Dec 21, 2019 13:02:16 GMT -5
Also ATI owns theta digital so they will pretty much cover all price points in the high end market of pre pros. They will build monoprice, ATI, Datasat and Theta digital under the same roof.
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richb
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Post by richb on Dec 21, 2019 13:10:03 GMT -5
Momentum Data Systems provides the decoding, DSP (Dirac) processing, and HDMI implementation for the Monoprice, Arcam, and JBL processors: www.mds.com/- Rich
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Post by Deleted on Dec 21, 2019 13:18:11 GMT -5
Few people think about quality customer service until they need it. When one does need customer service and it's bad, now they have two problems.
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Lsc
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Post by Lsc on Dec 21, 2019 16:21:25 GMT -5
Also ATI owns theta digital so they will pretty much cover all price points in the high end market of pre pros. They will build monoprice, ATI, Datasat and Theta digital under the same roof. Momentum Data Systems provides the decoding, DSP (Dirac) processing, and HDMI implementation for the Monoprice, Arcam, and JBL processors: www.mds.com/- Rich Ok so is this ATI who developed one prepro platform that will be branded under 6 separate brand names? All 6 prepros are essentially the same thing. This makes Monoprice even more attractive. Let’s see, ATI - owns Datasat and Theta. ATI also currently OEMs for Monoprice and Harman (Mark Levinson) who owns JBL and Arcam. ATI Datasat Theta Monoprice Arcam JBL The magic of rebranding! One platform scalable from $4000 for a no name brand in Monoprice to $20000+ for Datasat and everything in between. Looks like some scalability in the output channels to help differentiate but essentially for most folks 16 channels is all they’ll need. Look at Monoprice! They are the e-distribution channel for ATI. Yes, all these other brands have dealers and therefore should have great customer service that is built into the cost of the unit along with the brand name. It’ll be very interesting to see how this MDS platform stacks up against Emotiva’s. If it wasn’t for Monoprice, I’d say Emotiva is in a good position but Monoprice puts a wrinkle in all this bc they can compete price wise. Do you want a potentially superior product or better customer service in Emotiva? Who makes Audio Controls’ prepro? Is that the same MDS platform? So make it 7 Or something else.
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Post by brutiarti on Dec 21, 2019 16:29:37 GMT -5
Emotiva has great customer service. The issue comes with products that require updates and bug fixes. Before when they only offer products that weren’t complex in nature they were fast at exchange it or giving simple solutions to user error. Now it is getting tough to keep customers happy.
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richb
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Post by richb on Dec 21, 2019 16:45:06 GMT -5
Also ATI owns theta digital so they will pretty much cover all price points in the high end market of pre pros. They will build monoprice, ATI, Datasat and Theta digital under the same roof. Momentum Data Systems provides the decoding, DSP (Dirac) processing, and HDMI implementation for the Monoprice, Arcam, and JBL processors: www.mds.com/- Rich Ok so is this ATI who developed one prepro platform that will be branded under 6 separate brand names? All 6 prepros are essentially the same thing. This makes Monoprice even more attractive. Let’s see, ATI - owns Datasat and Theta. ATI also currently OEMs for Monoprice and Harman (Mark Levinson) who owns JBL and Arcam. ATI Datasat Theta Monoprice Arcam JBL The magic of rebranding! One platform scalable from $4000 for a no name brand in Monoprice to $20000+ for Datasat and everything in between. Looks like some scalability in the output channels to help differentiate but essentially for most folks 16 channels is all they’ll need. Look at Monoprice! They are the e-distribution channel for ATI. Yes, all these other brands have dealers and therefore should have great customer service that is built into the cost of the unit along with the brand name. It’ll be very interesting to see how this MDS platform stacks up against Emotiva’s. If it wasn’t for Monoprice, I’d say Emotiva is in a good position but Monoprice puts a wrinkle in all this bc they can compete price wise. Do you want a potentially superior product or better customer service in Emotiva? Who makes Audio Controls’ prepro? Is that the same MDS platform? So make it 7 Or something else. You can find a summary of processors in the 4 to 10k range: www.avsforum.com/forum/90-receivers-amps-processors/3090874-16-channel-prepros-5000-less.htmlHere are the 16 channel processors known to use the MDS MDS Platform - TI APM-117Monoprice HTP-1 ($4000) Arcam AV40 ($4500) JBL Synthesis SDP-55 ($6000) Audiocontrol X7 ($6600) Audiocontrol X9 ($9600) The rest are older platforms with the exception of the ATI which is likely also an MDS 117 or 120. The processors differ in analog input support, DAC use, network features etc. The appears to some OSD support from Arcam but limited at this time. Still, the capability is there so it could be expanded. - Rich
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klinemj
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Post by klinemj on Dec 21, 2019 17:16:17 GMT -5
So if you are questioning the Monoprice HTP-1, then you are questioning Datasat right? Monoprice doesn’t make anything. In the world of 4K and Atmos, I question everything, frankly. And, my biggest concern with buying from Monoprice for anything complicated (and the HTP-1, to me, fits that) is what kind of support will users get? If there are 0 problems, great. But, I don't count on that from anything in the pre/pro world. As noted...time will tell. I certainly would not be an early adopter. Mark
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Post by Gary Cook on Dec 21, 2019 18:01:34 GMT -5
The problem as I have experienced it is pretty simple, the same (basic) platform sells for multiple price points which are not determined by the quality of the products or the majority of its features. There may be a few technical differences but in general they aren't important to the majority of buyers. They might be hugely important to a small %, but the cost is out of proportion to the number sold, so they are ignored until the higher price limits are achieved.
The big price differences are attached to 3 things (in my experience); 1. The retail chain, online (no bricks and mortar) is cheaper, whilst via a reputable bricks and mortar hifi dealer is the most expensive and there are a numerous retail models in between with prices that match. 2. The brand name, a no name is cheaper, whilst a long time known hifi brand is the most expensive and there are again numerous steps up in price in brand name recognition, cache, customer loyalty etc. 3. Support, which includes ongoing software updates, bug fixes as well as the obvious response to customer issues, warranty etc.
In combination, the lowest price is going to be online, no name, with little to zero support. With the highest price being a reputable hi fi dealer, recognised brand name, with ongoing customer support.
Merry Xmas Gary
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Post by thrillcat on Dec 21, 2019 18:54:25 GMT -5
Few people think about quality customer service until they need it. When one does need customer service and it's bad, now they have two problems. Great customer service is wonderful. An asset to any company. The best service a company could give their customers is a fully functioning product that doesn’t require service, with a manual included that clearly explains setup and use. The worst customer service a company can give is attentive listening, and little to no answers and solution, aka the ILLUSION of customer service.
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