Anyone else treated poorly by AVA?

When you commission any type of custom build , you need to expect and accept delays....  especially post covid.  I fix medical equipment from mfgs all over the world.  They say 3 weeks? Plan on 6.  I hate telling customers that their $20k swiss microscope is waiting on  $60 parts thats back ordered til March. 

I'm having something built now.   No promise of any delivery date in June when I ordered it other than hopefully by end of year.   You know what?  If I get a call saying it won't be ready until February,  thats ok because I had no preconceived delivery date to begin with

Asked for the money and returned immediately. Now it's time for the punishment phase.

I met Frank years ago and have purchased amplifiers from him. When I lived in Minnesota, I visited his shop in Burnsville, a Minneapolis suburb. He builds excellent equipment but, in my limited but direct experience with him, he can come off as crusty, highly opinionated and an acquired taste.

OPs problem though seems different. He needed communication but did not get it. Small outfit so it is not hard to see how something like this can fall between the cracks. I guess I would place more emphasis on how he responded to his shortcoming being pointed out to him than to the screw up of the initial mistake.

Don't buy anything from him move on with David Bowie.

Found this thread doing some due diligence on a pair of DVA M225 monoblocks.

My first thought was:  Yes AVA is a VERY small outfit with an 84-year old principal who may--or may not--be as focused on customer service as some would like.   

If you do any research on AVA, however, you will soon realize that this is more a feature than a bug.   Spend a bit of time getting to know who you're buying from and decide accordingly how much uncertainty (in terms of scale, support, viability of business model) you're comfortable with. 

Second, as with many threads on the 'Gon, I always wonder which posters may be industry participants (manufacturers, dealers, salespeople) and what motivation they might have for posting.   A blue checkmark would be helpful, perhaps  :~)  

I bought a SET 500, and it was very good but just not quite my cup of tea. Returned it within their 30 day eval period and received refund within a day or two of their receipt of it back. All my communications were with Mary, and I found her to be totally professional and good to deal with. Would not hesitate in doing business with them in the future.

I don’t know about AVA. I will say that another small audio outfit that has a thread on audio circle treated me really bad and the product and service was terrible. I was made aware there are many fans of the company, that to order and get customer service from a small boutique audio firm was to wait…..After literally 2 years I was done and lost a fair amount of cash. Be careful when dealing with small audio companies.