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In Reply to: RE: Magnepan service hello.... posted by josh358 on March 11, 2017 at 13:59:53
IMO the owners of Magnepan should consider increasing the price of all their products so that they could hire more than one single individual to deal with such problems, thereby efficiently honoring their warranties.I don't own an under warranty product so this doesn't even apply to me. Last year about 2 weeks prior to Thanksgiving I called Magnepan, pressed the button to speak with their repairs department (a one person department!) and heard their message telling me email service@magnepan (?). After several with no reply, I sent a second email, and still no response. Then ~2 months later I received a email informing me to call them.
Something of this sort might occur when dealing with a 'mickey mouse' operation, but not Magnepan! That said, as a new customer I'd be willing to pay more for one of their products making my warranty more effective.
Edits: 03/15/17Follow Ups:
This was a few years ago when I got a kit to redo my ribbons.
When I called they put me in contact with the girl in the back that was doing the ribbon tweeters. She was very helpful in helping me with info on how to do the ribbons.
I have actually called them a few times over the years, with good results.
Sometimes with the time difference in different parts of the country it can be a little more challenging. But keep trying and you will be rewarded.
I'm speculating that they can't afford to put someone on just as a backup -- remember, a consumer electronics product sells to the consumer for four times what it costs to make, and labor costs a company a lot more than the wage itself. And the nature of the company -- large enough to have highly specialized employees but not so large that they have more than one employee in every specialized position -- means that an unexpected illness or sudden resignation can be a real problem for them.
I saw that first hand at the factory, when the person who rebuilds old Maggies broke her leg and everything backed up. They were doing everything they could but the other guys in the factory just didn't have the specialized knowledge to repair speakers that may have been made before they were born -- it's a highly skilled operation, in which they will literally build an obsolete driver from scratch if they have to. And they'd gone out of their way to get things moving again, including hiring her an assistant when she came back in with a cast on.
That said, I spoke to Wendell and he's very much aware of the problem. He was talking about some procedural changes that could reduce this kind of problem in the future. To me, it seems most important that customers be kept informed if there's a problem because I know from my own experience that it's worse to have a delay and silence than it is to be told that it's going to take some extra time.
Speaking of which, I'm wondering where my backordered amp is! Audio Advisor said 5-7 days, but it's been two weeks and it still hasn't shipped -- or if it has, they haven't told me. I think it's time to give them a call . . .
"I saw that first hand at the factory, when the person who rebuilds old Maggies broke her leg and everything backed up. They were doing everything they could but the other guys in the factory just didn't have the specialized knowledge to repair speakers that may have been made before they were born -- it's a highly skilled operation, in which they will literally build an obsolete driver from scratch if they have to. And they'd gone out of their way to get things moving again, including hiring her an assistant when she came back in with a cast on."
Isn't that a perfect reason she should impart her knowledge to an assistant, colleague or co-worker before it's lost? OTOH perhaps refurbishing old models doesn't produce much revenue for Magnepan and they'll just stop doing it. I wonder what the profit figure is for restoring a Tympani IV/IV-A. Since the original owners of these 'vintage' speakers are most probably hearing impaired and/or dead, or very soon will be, it can be abandoned altogether with no large financial loss to Magnepan.
According to Mark Winey, they run their service department at cost, so it seems that they aren't making a profit on those rebuilds at all.
Really, I told Wendell when I got some parts for my IVA's that they should charge more because what they charged me was ridiculous! I don't see how it could even pay for their actual costs. I'm glad that they don't puff up the cost of service and parts the way so many companies do, but it seems to me they should make a fair profit on it, doubly so since rebuilt speakers can cut into their current sales.
On the other hand, the fact that they do support products going so far back has to be a plus for their reputation -- remember the fuss when Martin Logan announced that they were going to stop servicing older speakers and got so much flack that they had to back down? I know that one of the questions I ask when I buy audio equipment is whether the company will be around to service it, or be willing to. There are great people like Graz who can fix or upgrade products that are no longer supported, but it can be quite costly.
That said, while Magnepan will rebuild the oldest Maggies Wendell points out that it doesn't always make economic sense for the customer to have it done. Certainly on something like the IVA's it would, particularly given the absurd prices they were selling for until recently . . . for the kind of music I listen to, I'd take my IVA's over most of the high end speakers I've heard recently because for all their flaws they actually sound like real music. I've been experimenting with some MQA albums Tidal is streaming now and boy, do they sound good.
I feel so grateful there are still companies and people like Magnepan and Wendell, as well as Music Reference and it's owner/designer Roger Modjeski, and Eminent Technology and it's owner designer Bruce Thigpen. Look what has happened to Audio Research Corp. since Bill Johnson died.
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Meaning no disrespect to Mr. Diller (I recently came across his involvement with HP in constructing the ID/QRS hybrid: http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/classics-of-the-golden-age-of-speaker-design-tas-205/), but isn't the choice of the number of employees in any department ultimately decided by the Winey sons?
"Speaking of which, I'm wondering where my backordered amp is! Audio Advisor said 5-7 days, but it's been two weeks and it still hasn't shipped -- or if it has, they haven't told me. I think it's time to give them a call . . ."
I'm willing to be it won't take 6 weeks to get a response to your call as it did for my getting a response to my call to Magnepan's service 'department'.
Sure, as president of the company, Mark Winey makes hiring decisions. But remember that he's also the one who's responsible for the bottom line.
Because of the 4x multiplier, consumer electronics manufacturing is intensely sensitive to labor costs. And Magnepan's mission is to make high end speakers for regular people, rather than for a few one percenters. They've sold more than 100,000 Maggies because they have such a stellar price/performance ratio. One of the ways they do this, and manage to keep manufacturing in the United States rather than in low-wage countries like China, is by keeping an extremely tight lid on costs of every kind.
In fact, it was Mark who told me how much an employee costs them per hour. I've been asked not to disclose the figure, but unless you've been in business, you would likely be surprised at how costly it is.
"I'm willing to be it won't take 6 weeks to get a response to your call as it did for my getting a response to my call to Magnepan's service 'department'."
No question about it, in fact I spoke to them yesterday (they said the amps are likely to arrive from China on the 23rd, and I should call them then if they don't). And as I said Magnepan is aware of the problem -- they do read and are concerned about these posts -- and looking for ways to minimize the disruption should something like this happen in the future.
But I think we should be careful what we ask for. See my other post about spending half an hour with a Microsoft tech rep in India who didn't know what the hell she was talking about. I've watched the opposite at Magnepan -- Wendell, a senior manager, taking a customer's call -- someone from India who had received the wrong screws -- and immediately talking to the appropriate people and getting the screws sent out to him. The handoff was impressive, like a basketball game. If Magnepan goes the route of other companies today that level of customer service will be lost and I know that Wendell very much doesn't want to do that.
Well. I happen to like the fact that Magnepan is on the more boutique side of the aisle. Wait time for speakers - I accept that. They are not something sittingin dealers stock for the most part - they are made to order ...yes? Rebuilding any speaker they have ever made? Martin Logan backed off of that and pushed costs way up there for replacement panels. A product completely made in house in minny...I like that too. I also like their cost structure. Getting a 20.7 is a complete stretch for me - but it is one I plan on taking. 20-25k and on up? Forget it - I can't do it. I have a very well known dealer two miles from me that sells wilsons, sonus faber etc... there is no way I would pull the trigger on a 40k pair of strads. Guess what - he doesn't sell magnepan. And who could blame him since he wants to sell speakers in the 40-100k price range.
Staying small also puts them in a better position to weather bad economic times. They must be doing something right.
Yep. And the irony for me is that I've never heard a Wilson that sounds as realistic as a Maggie. Some other planars do, and some other esoteric designs, but most boxes just don't rate if realism is your goal.
By the way, while it isn't a large manufacturer (Foxconn has 250 thousand employees building iPhones alone!), Magnepan is actually large by high end standards. A shot of the factory floor:
Amen Timm, exactly my feelings. The only complaint I have with Magnepan is their lousy connector and x/o parts. Get rid of the ferrous materials (c'mon man!), the cheap resistors, capacitors, etc., and charge a hundred bucks more for the 1.7, an equivalent amount for the 3.7 (two hundred?), and whatever is takes for the 20.7. The speakers deserve and warrant better.
I think we have to admit that Magnepan is old school and they run an efficient old school business. The question is; How long do they wait until the business model becomes obsolete enough to start impacting the business. I think we have seen a few threads about current day customer expectations. They are not the same as 20 years ago. I hate to say it but you have to adapt or....
That's the thing -- I think this falls in the category of "Be careful what you wish for." You can still call Magnepan and speak to an expert who will consult as necessary with other experts. Whereas when I called Microsoft the other day about an activation problem, I was connected to an Indian women who knew less about computers than the neighborhood cat.
She kept giving me misinformation and I had to read her *Microsoft's own web page* on the topic. Finally, I got fed up and asked to speak to second level support or a supervisor, and she tried to avoid that because she thought it would give her a bad mark, but I stayed firm. And he was able to do in a few seconds what she should have done in the first place, get my computer activated.
Something like half an hour wasted. In the days before outsourcing, Microsoft used to fix activation problems in seconds.
So yeah, Magnepan is eventually going to have to go in that direction, millennials won't even talk on the phone, but I think we're going to lose something when they do.
Gary got back to me and provided the minor parts I needed at no charge !!!
I never EVER said or implied that Magnepan wasn't/isn't helpful and generous, when that one employee assigned to take care of such matters is present and at the switch. What I found unbelievable and unacceptable was for about 5 weeks my attempt to get help didn't even illicit a response; nada, zip, bupkes.
Could anything like that happen at MartinLogan (or any other business Magnepan considers as one of their competitors)?
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