guzziguy

Hi Indra, love the look of your site and your pictures. The only thing that bothers me is that while the information is in English, the labels on the navigation bar are in French. Did you want it to be like this? For me, it's no problem. For a lot of English speakers, I think that it will be. BTW, did you build the site by hand, or did you use a web building tool?

My last post suffers from the same problem of posting too late. I was tired and let my mind and arguments wander. I should have kept to what bothered me about Mike's post. I'll try to do it now. In no way do I condone Mikhail's business practices and I won't defend them other than to say that I know of nobody who has actually lost money or goods. I'll totally stop defending him if it comes to light that some people have. IMO, Mikhail's problem's are 100% due to Mikhail's actions. I'd like to see the posts about these problems stick to the subject and the facts. However, I see many posts both here and on HF that haven't stuck to the facts. You're trying to assign some blame Earl struck me as one of those posts, as did Kevin's assigning some blame to Ray's fanboys. Neither one makes any sense to me and smacks of having an agenda to me. Getting rid of fanboys wouldn't have prevented this problem only maybe delayed it. It would prevent futures problems with vendors either. So please, let's stick to the source of the issue and leave the sideshows behind. The source here is bad enough. I apologize for my poorly composed post of last night. In reading it this morning, even I couldn't figure out what I was trying to say. Mike, I consider us friends too. I'm not upset in my posting and we, if you like, we can talk more about it in private. No matter what, I'll still consider us friends unless you say otherwise, and I certainly don't think that you will.

It could be as simple as too many 4 letter words.

So you just used his post to jump in to call Earl a shill? Yes, I read it. He distinctly said that Earl is not a shill. A shill is someone that secretly gets compensation to help sell something. You said that Earl is a shill. So no, you are not saying the same thing unless your definition of "are" is different than my definition of "are". Yes, it's better to be called borderline insane that it is to be called unethical, and that's what you did. Have you read anything else I've written about the situation? I've stated that I personally find Mikhail's inability or unwillingness to give and make reasonable schedules to be bad business. I haven't sent in my amp for an upgrade because of it. However, afaik nobody has lost any money due to a long wait. If the wait becomes too long, a person can cancel and get a refund. I haven't heard of anybody not getting a refund. If this is still the case, it's a matter of bad business but as long as people are warned that it can take two years, that's all that needs to be done. It's up to them to make a choice. Again, I think it's bad business and won't do it myself. I don't know exactly what your agenda is, but it obviously involves Earl. If you have no agenda, then why jump in and accuse him of being a shill? This issue is about SP and Mikhail, not Earl. If you've payed any attention, you'll have noticed that Earl has been very quiet about SP, both here and on HF, for quite a while. So he hasn't even been that much of a fanboy recently, much less a shill. It also doesn't matter if you (or anybody else) get why some people will follow Mikhail and SP. It doesn't matter if it makes sense. You can only protect the community by educating them, you can't make people's decisions for them. Lastly, if it turns out that Mikhail has stolen money or has switched machines on people without their permission, this changes the situation. Being really late and not being very honest about being late is one thing, being fraudulent is an entirely different game. I hope that is not the case.

Or wait for the finished balanced amp product. That's what I would do if I was in the market for a new home dynamic amp. Of course I love tubes, which means that I probably wouldn't seriously consider the great ss dynamic amps currently out there.

Craig's amps sound great to me. I preferred his Nautilus prototype to the Millett 307A at the NorCal meet. Of course, I seemed to be in the minority. Everybody did agree that the Nautilus is a really nice sounding amp.

To support your agenda, I think that you are assigning meaning to Kevin's post that isn't there. He never mentions the word shill. The first part of your statement is a matter of opinion. I agree with the second part and, if you read my SP posts for the last year both here and on HF, I warn people that wait times are incredibly long and all schedules are too optimistic. I also state that as much as I would like the external P/S upgrade, I won't send in my amp until SP shows that they can give and make legitimate schedules. Here is support of my theory from the man himself. He doesn't think that Earl is a shill. So you can't reasonable use his statements to back up your agenda. At least that much. Agree.

It sounds like there are plenty out there. If you haven't been able to obtain one, it sounds like you are not offering enough. If you offer enough, you'll get a pair. Of course, "enough" may be too much for you.

Sorry, I must not have made myself clear. I agree that is what KG said, not alluded to. I think it's nonsense. I don't think that RSA fanboy's have anything to do with SP's problems. Mikhail and his inability or unwillingness to concentrate on the business side rather than the prototyping/customization side is what caused the problems. I don't see any way to blame RSA or its fanboys in any manner. I also don't see how stifling fanboyism will prevent something like this in the future.

Too bad. I suspect that you'd do better to talk to Galina and insist on a schedule from her. Mikhail's schedules are worthless. If she can't or won't give you one, I don't have much hope for SP's future. It is good to see amps going out now and, at least in the public responses, sounding great and satisfying the customer. However, if serial numbers are changing without the customer's permission, that is a much more serious problem and makes SP's survival almost impossible.

Exactly. He's assigning some amount of blame to Ray and his fanboys (and some other Ray/HF stuff) and suggest stifling the fanboys as a solution (or part of one) to avoid things like this in the future. In a free market, there is always pressure to differentiate your products from your competition's products. Each vendor has to take responsibility for their problems. While stifling fanboys may result in a better HF, it has nothing to do with SP's problems and won't do a thing to prevent future problems like this. I also doubt that RSA fanboys had any effect at all on the multitude of SP product configurations. I think that can be better explained by Mikhail's joy of tinkering building custom amps rather than do the drudgery of building, producing and supporting common product lines. It's because of this that RSA and others are much better vendors than SP, not because of fanboys, etc. I'm still hoping that SP cleans up their business act and survives this because I like having my ears licked. At CanJam, Mikhail told me that he no longer gives delivery dates, that the boss (Galina) now does that. I hope that it's the case and that it is a big step towards fixing the problems. Rather than Mikhail talking about these issues here and on HF, I think that it would be better if Galina did.

The way I read KG's last post, he's blaming Ray's fanboys as a component of Mikhail's problems. He doesn't mention SP fanboys at all. I agree with KG that Ray's fanboys are a big problem on HF, but I don't see how they have anything to do with SP. What's going on at SP at the moment is sad and Mikhail has nobody to blame but himself. However, I see lots of people are using SP's problems to air their own issues and get their kicks in.

Yes, rimshot is what I meant. I prefer the first one too. Thanks for the pointer to finding silly emoticons.

We need a drum roll emoticon. I really should have looked for one to use on the end of my last post here.

It gives the bass more "body".

Looking forward to it. I agree about Motorola.

Sounds like a perfect custom title to me.

Mine too, just as soon as my phone charges so I can look up the number. I use my cell so rarely that I can never remember the number. Getting old doesn't help either!

Happy Birthday!

Absolutely the silliest and stupidest processor architecture ever considered, much less implemented. Motorola really screwed up not to have one the processor wars. Their architecture was so superior. I guess that they couldn't do the deals with IBM/Microsoft.

Round trip ticket from Santa Barbara to BWI. See you there!

x2! These are all high profit items for a dealer. Put your money in good equipment first. You can tweak it later.

Thanks. I'm under the impression that Dusty and Vicki may do local things, including a visit to a top Vegan restaurant, before you come in. Then you all would just have to wait for me. That way, it's one trip (well 1.5 for Dusty and Vicki) for everybody. If that doesn't pan out I'm sure that you and I can get to the hotel. Absolutely!

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.

I hate trakballs and use the Microsoft ergonomic keyboard. I'd love to find a cheaper, better alternative to the keyboard.