I wanted to take the opportunity to publicly thank Jim Salk for his incredible support for his products. Here is the rather long story.
I purchased a pair of Salk Sound HT-3’s back in mid-2005. I think I must have been among the first buyers of Jim’s new HT-3 speaker. Never having auditioned them, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect – that is, until they arrived and I hooked them up. After swapping at least 15 pairs of very fine high end speakers into and out of my system almost every year since the late 1980’s – Thiel, Vandersteen, Legacy, Waveform, Platinum, Silverline, VMPS and quite a few more – I no longer felt the need. With the HT-3’s, I was finally able to stop thinking about the hardware and thoroughly enjoy my very large music collection. The HT-3’s were the best speakers I had ever had in my system, although they were by no means the most expensive. A couple of years later, I bought a Salk center-channel and Song Surrounds for a separate home theater system and they sounded excellent as well.
Anyway, everything was great until about 6 weeks ago when, after doing some cable swapping, I heard a muffled pop from the HT-3’s. I hit play on a CD of Bach Cello Suites and heard some unfamiliar, amusical sounds coming from the HT-3’s. Basically, it sounded like I was playing music underwater or with a thick blanket over the speakers. I spent the next hour swapping various components in and out of the system. Fortunately I have multiple preamps, amps, sources and extra speakers, so I was able to isolate what was going on. It became obvious that my beloved HT-3’s were the problem. After playing some test tones, it became clear that no sound was coming from the tweeters. I emailed Jim and he gave me his cell number and said to call him right away – and this was on a Saturday afternoon just before Christmas. He walked me through a few additional tests. The most likely culprit was that the tweeters were blown, in both speakers. Jim suggested I remove the tweeters and send them back to him for inspection and repair, and patiently walked me through that process.
About a week later, Jim emailed me with good news and bad news. The good news was that the tweeters themselves sounded and measured fine. The bad news was that if the tweeters were fine, something else was wrong and whatever that was wouldn’t be as easy to repair as a pair of tweeters that can be easily removed from the 100+ lb. HT-3’s. Jim sent the tweeters back to me and I reinstalled them, hoping that maybe the removal and reinstallation would resolve the problem, but it did not.
The only thing left to do was pack up the HT-3’s and send them back to Michigan. Unfortunately, the original shipping boxes were no longer useable, so I asked Jim if I could purchase new ones from him. He said he would ship me new ones and, after I bugged him to let me pay for them, he finally agreed to charge me for the boxes – I’m sure it was far less than his cost.
Jim shipped me the sturdy boxes right away (unfortunately since Fed Ex’s rates depend more on volume than weight, the shipping cost was substantial!). I was able to wrestle the HT-3’s into the boxes and shipped them back. When they arrived, Jim tested them and confirmed that, indeed, something was wrong. Apparently, the transient noise I had heard was a surge that had blown a resistor in each of the crossovers. Jim ordered new, heavier-duty resistors, installed them in the crossovers, and shipped them back to me last week. He also replaced another part in the crossover that had become dislodged in shipping, and, because the bezel of one speaker had developed a tiny, hairline crack, Jim suggested applying some wax filler to the crack.
The Salk folks shipped the HT-3’s back to me last week, leaving Salk world headquarters on the day of the great blizzard in Michigan. They arrived safe and sound on Friday and I hooked them up immediately. They sounded absolutely great – just as they had been sounding in my living room for the past 5 years. For the past 6 weeks, I had been listening to the Song Surrounds in my main system, and they sounded great – a lot better than they did driven by a mid-fi Onkyo receiver in my home theater. But the HT-3’s were in a different category altogether, and it was great to get them back. The hairline crack was now almost entirely invisible – you could see it only of you knew just where to look. The folks at Salk also polished both speakers and they looked almost brand new, and sounded as great as ever.
The charge for all of this – testing the tweeters and shipping them back to me, repairing the crossovers, applying wax filler and polishing the 5 year-old HT-3’s and lots of hand-holding throughout? Zero. Nothing. I paid only the cost of shipping the boxes and then the speakers.
Now, that is amazing customer service. Thanks so much to Jim and his team for bringing me so much great music over the past 5 years and for standing behind his wonderful products.
At this point, about the only thing that might get thinking about parting with my HT-3’s would be the SoundScapes. They sure look tempting. I will have to audition them soon….
Thanks again, Jim.
