Atomic Amps and Communication

Narzugon

Narzugon

Power User
Ever heard the saying "The squeaky wheel gets the grease."? I despise having to be the "squeaky wheel" in any situation. I always try every avenue before resorting to this. In this case it seems to be unavoidable and airing your dirty laundry on a public forum seems to get results.

I recently needed a FRFR cab/wedge for an upcoming gig. I've been wanting a CLR wedge for sometime buy just haven't pulled the trigger. Decided to go ahead with the purchase and realised that Atomic was out of Wedges. While the wedge wasn't my first choice, I needed something quick and the cab format would do.

After an email or two (back-n-forth) Tom said he'd have a cab ready to ship whenever I placed my order. He also gave me an ETA since that was a concern I had. I placed my order that evening (Mar 30) and it arrived April 1. Impressive!

I pick the box up at my front door and immediately knew something was wrong. Sounded like a bowling ball rolling around inside. Opened the box and peered through the grill cloth with a flash light. The driver broke from the horn and had destroyed the speaker.

I immediately took pictures and emailed them to Tom. He was quick to call/email and immediately offered to send me a replacement the next day. Wow. I was floored with the gesture to make it right even though it appears to be shipping damage. Unfortunately this is where things took a dive.

April 2: Silence. I emailed him at 6pm to see if the cab had made it out.

April 6: Silence. I call and leave a voicemail as well as send an email. Tom replies saying there was a problem with the programer for the DSP that should be resolved that afternoon. My replacement cab should go out that day and he'd keep me posted.

April 8: Silence. I call leaving a very calm and detailed voicemail about my my gig coming up in 3 days. At this point I had missed the only rehersal with the band to dial a speaker in (mind you I have never played with this band before). I requested that if at all possible I had to have something by the next day or I would request a refund and purchase a wedge when they're in stock. I also emailed the same details.

April 14: Silence. A very lengthy email explaining my disatisfaction with the service at this point. I went on to explain that the decision to go with his company has me at $60 for a rental, $40 for shipping that I was sure I would have to eat and the day I took off of work to rent and dial in a speaker w/o the band. Bottom line I said was that I've done my homework and still wanted to try a CLR but I'd feel like a fool to do so at this point. What can he do to change my mind?

I got a reply from Tom saying "I'm sorry for all of the confusion. I'll issue you a full refund including shipping.". He was traveling that day and asked a good time to call me the next day. I replied with a time. Still, silence.

April 20: Silence. I called leaving another voicemail.
April 22: Silence. Called again and the voicemail box is full. I found another number which seemed to be routed to the same full voicemail.

I know there are a ton of satisfied customers on this forum. And for all of the praises and reviews I've read I REALLY wanted a CLR and nothing else. At this point I'm forced to go with something else provided I can get my money back.

Thanks for reading.
 
You can get your money back by calling your credit card and filing a chargeback before that window closes.

If you check around you will see this is standard operating procedure for Tom and Atomic unfortunately. One of his fanboys will contact him about this thread and then he will pop up, all apologetic with some great excuse, but after hearing this story over and over from different people, we'd be fools to think this is the last time.

Fwiw I was surprised a no BS guy like Jay Mitchell got involved with Tom.

For full disclosure, I have 3 CLRs, one is a spare I keep due to such problems as yours.
 
You are not the only one who has experienced the awesome service alternating with silence/lack of service. And yeah, it seems the squeaky-wheel-in-the-forum method often gets results. It is very frustrating, having been there myself more than once. FWIW, I really enjoy my CLR and it's definitely worth trying if you haven't soured on it yet. Good luck.
 
A company's customer service practices are a reflection of what it thinks about its customers. A company can have the greatest product in the world but if their business practices don't prioritize customer service, or more to the point include really bad customer service, then why would folks want to do business with them? Is having the greatest product from a company that leaves you feeling like they don't remotely value your business worth it compared to getting a different but still outstanding product from a competitor that obviously does value your business? I know who I'd rather give my money to (and did).
 
luke said:
You can get your money back by calling your credit card and filing a chargeback before that window closes.
Click to expand...

"Provided I can get my money back." I could've phrased that better. I'm still good on that window.

luke said:
If you check around you will see this is standard operating procedure for Tom and Atomic unfortunately.
Click to expand...

I've read many of them. Regardless of which side of the fence I'm on in those other posts, I shake my head in disbelief when I look at this one.

JasonM said:
Is having the greatest product from a company that leaves you feeling like they don't remotely value your business worth it compared to getting a different but still outstanding product from a competitor that obviously does value your business? I know who I'd rather give my money to (and did).
Click to expand...

I completely agree with what you're saying. We/I seem to be playing in the world of cutting edge gear which usually means dealing with small understaffed companies. Having owned a small biz for 15 years I know what it's like to try and do the best thing for every customer. Impossible. Shit happens etc. So I take that into consideration and don't expect white glove service for a product that I'm interested in. But there is a line and at this point we're beyond it.

Kudos to Fractal.
 
Yeah, great product, but delivery and communication is really screwed up.

I enquired about an active cab (non-neo) last August. My last contact with our supplier in March told me "maybe in about 3 months".
 
Could it be that they are slightly too small, as in one man operation? Maybe it's different now, but a bit over year ago everything was super smooth when my CLR had a problem. Tom called me (across maybe 12h time zone difference) and offered to send new parts.
 
I've e-mailed them twice, no reply. It's not a big deal in my case, I just wanted to see if there was any chance in hell that I could get my hands on a 230V neo (I'm sure I'm not the only one asking...), but hearing that serious service errands are left hanging is a warning flag that I can't ignore. I have been really close to pulling the trigger on the regular active wedge, now I don't know. I would ideally want two active neo wedges if they ever become available in europe, but at the moment that doesn't seem to be on the horizon, sales of the remaining regular wedges in the european webstore are super slow. I'm sure their product is good. It's sad if they can't scale up service / production / distribution to meet demands and start loosing reputation because of it. Frustrating really... they seem to have the best in class frfr speaker, and you can't buy it, even years after its release...
 
mrMagenta said:
I've e-mailed them twice, no reply. It's not a big deal in my case, I just wanted to see if there was any chance in hell that I could get my hands on a 230V neo (I'm sure I'm not the only one asking...), but hearing that serious service errands are left hanging is a warning flag that I can't ignore. I have been really close to pulling the trigger on the regular active wedge, now I don't know. I would ideally want two active neo wedges if they ever become available in europe, but at the moment that doesn't seem to be on the horizon, sales of the remaining regular wedges in the european webstore are super slow. I'm sure their product is good. It's sad if they can't scale up service / production / distribution to meet demands and start loosing reputation because of it. Frustrating really... they seem to have the best in class frfr speaker, and you can't buy it, even years after its release...
Click to expand...

This is a BIG warning flag, so i decided to buy a couple of Matrix q12a instead CLRs ;)
 
What puzzles me is that nearly all wedges with a digital power-amp deals with everything between 100–240 VAC, 50 to 60 Hz.
Why on Earth does that company use something that dont ... ????
 
Hi Narzugon, I apologize for the issues with your order.

Ironically, this all started out with me personally bringing your order (which was received in the early evening) to the UPS hub that night a few towns over to make sure it got out ASAP because you mentioned you needed it for a gig - clearly all the best intentions to deliver outstanding service.

As you mentioned when I heard about the shipping damage my intent was to get another unit out to you immediately, once again. Unfortunately, we didn't have anything ready to ship and firmware needed to be loaded into the Cab before it could go out. This is when one my guys reported the programmer was broken. I immediately ordered another and expected it in quickly. It turned out that the wrong one was sent and the correct one was back ordered.

This is where I dropped the ball. I won’t get into the personal issue that took me out of the loop for the better part of few days. The bottom line is that I should have communicated better with you about the situation and our refund procedure. Things are back to normal now so communications should not be an issue going forward.

The circumstances around this issue were very unfortunate and also very unusual.

Customer service is a priority for Atomic and me personally. There are literally hundreds of extremely positive experiences with both our product and customer service posted here on this board since its inception. The few negative ones always seem louder but that’s just human nature - and none of those have gone unanswered. Atomic has been servicing this space for over 12 years and by-and-large our track record is outstanding.

Prior to this thread coming to my attention, I had already reached out to the OP. I’m waiting to hear back from him but will certainly be taking care of him as soon as I do.

If anyone has any issues you can contact me directly at my tking@ address and I’ll give the matter priority. Thanks!
 
pdup said:
Tom King, I would like an answer to the question about the voltage issue please.
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Hi Peter, Thanks for your question. I'm not sure "why on earth" other companies amps don't do this because Atomic's do.:) There's an internal jumper on the power supply that switches between the different voltages. I hope this helps.

-TK
 
fwiw, Tom has always been very quick helping me out with any issues I've had. I've spoken to him personally numerous times and he even overnighted a new power amp for my CLR once when I needed it for some gigs.
 
If there is a jumper that switches between voltages, can I import an active neodymium equipped wedge to EU and just change the jumper to 230V and be ready?
 
Tom -

IU sent you an email last week with a question about the sound field switch but haven't had a reply as yet... Effectively the email was:

=================================================
A hopefully quick question for you…


I recently moved, and in my new studio there is no room for me to mount my two CLR cabs on speaker stands. Instead I am using the Auralex Grammas as an isolatort from the floor:


Auralex Acoustics | GRAMMAâ„¢ v2/


What position should I have the speaker ‘field’ switch in?


Thanks!
===============================================

Pete
 
mrMagenta said:
If there is a jumper that switches between voltages, can I import an active neodymium equipped wedge to EU and just change the jumper to 230V and be ready?
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Hi mrMagenta, it is possible just very expensive shipping a large box. Even though the NEO is lighter, it's still heavy for air shipping. Also, shipping speakers via air is difficult since there classified as hazardous material because of the magnets potential interference with the planes navigation system. And that's not mentioning the taxes. The one thing that does makes it impossible is that we're out of stock on all wedges at the moment.

We're cleared all the technicalities for getting NEOs to the EU and production is ramping up. We expect to have them available this summer (call it mid/late cause otherwise we'll be strung up for not having them on day one of the season:)).

Best,

Tom
 
plyall said:
=================================================
A hopefully quick question for you…


I recently moved, and in my new studio there is no room for me to mount my two CLR cabs on speaker stands. Instead I am using the Auralex Grammas as an isolatort from the floor:


Auralex Acoustics | GRAMMAâ„¢ v2/


What position should I have the speaker ‘field’ switch in?


Thanks!
===============================================

Pete
Click to expand...
Hi Pete, This is going to be somewhat subjective since it's neiher directly on the floor nor truly free field but I would start with the wedge position. If you find it too thin, try the FF position.

Best,

Tom

-TK
 
Please send any further questions to Atomic's support@ address and I'll make sure they get answered ASAP. Thanks!
 
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