Last week I reported that I'd won a couple of Ultra-Fi DACs in Audiogon auctions. That thread was sent to the wastebin, but I wanted to follow up on it with some information that has a really upbeat, positive feel. I think this is important since Larry Moore (the man behind Ultra-Fi) has copped some bad press lately, and I believe that honest, positive comments about customer service are just as important as the negative ones.
A couple of days after winning the auctions, two DACs arrived at my door: an iRoc and a Musicstream DAC. Both are USB DACs that have been received quite positively. But neither are currently in production, as Larry Moore has been moving Ultra-Fi away from final production of DACs recently. Both DACs arrived quickly and appeared well packed.
I was eager to compare the two, and see how they fared against the other digital sources I had lying around. But I fully expected the Musicstream DAC to be a significant upgrade for me (with its asynchronous USB conversion, and carefully designed power supply). Unfortunately, I couldn't get the Musicstream DAC to work. My first reaction was that I'd screwed up some computer settings. But when I contacted Larry, he insisted that the settings for the Musicstream should have been the same as for the iRoc, so, if one worked and the other didn't, the problem must lie in the unit that wasn't producing any sound. He asked that I send the Musicstream DAC back right away so he could identify the problem.
I sent the DAC on Wednesday, and heard back from Larry this afternoon by phone. It seems that the circuit board in the DAC had cracked as a result of what must have been a solid blow during shipping.
Larry immediately presented me with a range of options. Throughout the process, he was very clear that he wished me to walk away from the transaction as a happy customer, and wanted to find an outcome that would please me. We discussed the possibility of Larry producing a replacement circuit board: but that seemed an expensive procedure, given he would have to have that board produced in a production run of one solitary unit. We also discussed the possibility of partnering the receiver daughterboard from the Musicstream (which was intact) with some off-the-shelf DAC board available elsewhere. But Larry's preferred option was simply to offer me a brand new DAC of a different design to replace the damaged Musicstream. As Larry is no longer in the DAC production business, this is not an Ultra-Fi DAC per se, but is a DAC that Larry had a major hand in designing, and one that reportedly sounds far superior to the Musicstream. He told me enough about the new DAC to have me very excited about my new acquisition. I'm just hoping that shipping is less eventful this time.
As I said before, I feel it's important that the buying public hears about positive experiences with vendors as well as bad ones. And in my case, Larry Moore of Ultra-Fi has made significant efforts to ensure that the buyer (who picked up the original DAC in an Audiogon auction at a very low price) was satisfied.
Many thanks, Larry.
Chad
