Esoteric Mods

I waited three years for Kyle of Reference Audio Mods to complete the personally hand selected components for my "World Class, West Coast Showroom System". $28,000 later I have one of the MOST BEAUTIFUL BOAT ANCHOR SYSTEMS you ever made. I traveled over 35 times taking 3 1/2 hours in each road trip to your parent's house to watch you work on your mother's kitchen table, only to find that half of our appointments were not kept as you hadn't made it home from the night before, that's what you treated my business!!

Here is a list of unresolved issues from day one:
1. Custom Marantz 8260 universal CD/DVD transport W/Cocobola Chassis that from the 1st day didn't play anything more than a few select Cd's in redbook and within the first year stopped playing altogether. Marantz refused to service the dreaded TOC error as Klyle's work negated the warrentee which he also refused to honor.

2. Silver Rock TVC preamp in a Custom Cocobola Chassis that despite my repeated requests STILL only has ONE input. Too difficult for you Kyle? I only paid excess of $5000 for this little GEM!

3. Custom made Carver ZR-1600 D Class Amp that he smoked right in front of my eyes and dispute a world wide power advertisement campaign between he and his last Carver client he quickly discontinued as unreliable but refused to take back. Oh yes, he matched this 600 watt pro audio amp with his 98db efficient 60 watt $10,600 bent wood horn speakers that blew the tweeters in the first 2 months of use. A short in the way he wired up the output RCA's caused the problem with the AMP and the speaker failure in one swift act! To his credit was repaired yet I still couldn't stand the high frequency hiss that remained and could be heard over the music, I never was able to use and I replaced. Later I found two HUGE Oil In Paper capacitors (a $300 charge for these) that were NOT even hooked up & super glued inside, his excuse was that he tried to cure the lack luster bass response (which didn't work out and said he left in place for me to try again later). Nice eh?? This piece O' Crap cost me $4,500!!! Oh, did I mention the 30 LB. $1500 custom transformer? Later I learned that this amp was sold for $1000 and returned from another dissatisfied customer who didn't like the sound either and threatened to sue. Thanks for the memories!! !!

4. Kyle delivered his custom $5,500 power filter system that amounted to a series of coils, capacitors and a huge transformer that sat loosely on two pieces of 2x6 boards he found behind his father's garage. His promises to install in a covered hard wood box for my protection left unfinished and proved to be a fire hazard and with open wiring had to be removed so my dogs didn't electrocute themselves. Kyle are these products UL approved???

5. AS a 30 yr veteran jeweler I watched Kyle work with limited tools, a cheap Weller solder iron and his fathers Fluke Multimeter. What no scope or any other testing gear? I observed and heard his excuse for absolutely the worst soldering techniques where he feels that globs of solder, like super glue was excessively used as he had past problems in shipping returns as his work was such a mess. Real "CRAPS MAN SHIP" here folks, I personally bought him a MetCal solder station which did help but his sloppy workmanship remains a genuine problem. I can't trust him to fix and can't sell for parts.

His response to all of these issues was "Jim if you want MORE sound, you'll have to pay for it"??

There are always two sides to every story.

Time rebuttal
35 times? More like 10. And much of the reason why is because Jim kept bringing over different pieces of wood for his custom chassis' he wanted. Back in 2005 I was a bit naive on what projects I should take on or not take on. I clearly admit I was in the wrong for taking on thi project. Yes, it took 3 years to finish but also 3 years for him to pay!

Marantz Rebuttal
Problem here has nothing to do with the mods but rather the inherent TOC problem with the Marantz SA8260. We recently put approximately 800+ in free upgrades and replaced the mechanism and faulty Marantz board free of charge
Price for Custom made marantz was $3550. this included complete custom made chassis for $450.00 Marantz stock player(~1000) for and mods! Silver rock transformers alone were $1600 retail so when one does the Math we did this at cost at best.

Silver Rock Rebuttal
Jim paid $2350. The TVC's were alone were $1700 retail. Again do the Math and we broke even at best. Seems like some large discrepancies in prices???

Carver Amp Rebuttal
The Carver amp was the hottest modification at the time and we too felt it was a great amp for the dollar. With mods it sounded superb. Yes, there was an inherent his to this amplifier. Jim paid $2400 for full custom mods and chassis and stock amplifier

AC Correction device rebuttal
Jim needs to take responsibility for his DIY purchases. These are superb AC correction devices from Audio Consulting which costs a total of $2900.00

I believe this is a good point as it took you 3 years to pay and even then I was shorted a grand. I developed a program where jim could assemble diode bridges for me in order to reduce his debt. The bottom line is that the price for the three items(Player, TVC, and amplifier) was as follows:

3550 for Marantz SA8260(custom chassis and silver rock mods)
2350 for Silver tvc and custom chassis, AC wooden knobs,Wbt
2400 for Carver( stock amp, mods and chassis)

9300 total for all 3 customized pieces of which I provided a refund check for $2200, 800 in free upgrades, and more work on the TVC.

So at the end of the day and after 3years of work with Jim I refunded him completely for an amplifier we did 0ver 6 years ago. We have completely fixed his marantz and even did 800 in free upgrades. Doing more free work on his Silver rock TVC as well. So at this point the war has stopped I know I am not perfect and will never claim to be but I have to at least present my side when plenty of the information provided is untrue and exaggerated.

Sincerely

Kyle Takenaga

Jim,

I had a similar experience. About 4 yrs. ago I had Kyle upgrade a previous mod that he had done to my Marantz
8260. It was already fully modded with the wooden chaise made with curly maple wood and signature parts. I
sent it back to him because they had the new Ultra regs, Ultra-clock, etc.... So I sent the unit in and paid
everything up front. Little did I know it would be nearly three years before I would finally be taken care of
after countless phone calls, ignored phone calls , unanswered messages and e-mails, threats, and
complaints!

I never got my Marantz back!!!! I don't know what has become of it!!! I never seen it again. After nearly
three yrs. of persistence and threats to go on public sites he finally shipped me a Statement Modded Oppo 83
SE with a super clock 4, which with further persistence on my part he sent me the Ultra-clock Mk2, Which I had
to install myself. The player had issues the I had to trouble shoot myself. I finally got everything working
properly. I fixed the problems myself because I was not about to risk sending it back to Kyle and maybe never
seeing it again.

Since then Doug Jesse at ASi Technology has taken the player to new heights by adding By bee music rails and
battery supply its truly a world class player now and is currently the best I've heard at any price.Doug Jesse
at ASi Tech has been a God send he is truly knowledgeable and is a man of his word and is doing some cutting
edge modifications. I can't recommend him enough.

In the end Kyle finally satisfied me but after 3 yrs of waiting and pleading for him to keep his word and do
what I paid him to do.

What can I say? It was a bad experience for me. But a lesson learned. I now use Asi tech for all of my
mods.

Apostolicman

After going the mod route once, with a very nice and reputable person, I have come to the conclusion that if you are not satisfied with what you have, sell it and buy something you like better. That has been my experience.

And then there is always the truth....

Time rebuttal:
Seriously if you didn't have the respect of even the presence of mind to be onsite for our appointments, then how would you actually know how many times I stood there for hours waiting for you. Kyle, is there an apology in there somewhere???

Finished??? just what do you think we are doing here, you've been paid and still 6 years later I'm still trying to coerce you to finish your work!!

Marantz Rebuttal:
Yes, we all know there was an inherent TOC problem with the Marantz SA8260. The problem showed up immediately while you were first working on the mod and refused to do anything about it! After several months of complaining, you hand me another transport and tell me to replace it myself. So, I was forced to bring you here, in front of the world to humiliate you into fixing these problems. You signed an agreement to return it within 2 weeks and 5 weeks later instead of delivering it the Saturday as promised. You asked for an extension in which time you would update it. This $800 mod consisted of removing 24 capacitors, replacing the buffer stage and diodes with different parts.
When delivered, we both observed the sound to be closed down and rolled off on both ends, again you hand me parts so I can fix myself, some $2 bypass caps. You kept the removed parts I paid for to be re-purposed to your benefit, thank you very much. It now plays SADC's for the first time but now sounds like crap. I now have to pay someone else to finish your work, as you have gone into hiding.

Silver Rock Rebuttal:
Funny story here folks, this TVC was Kyle's personal Silver Rock he bought when he first joined Audio Consulting back in 2002 and repackaged it in the wood chassis for me. Now really folks, who uses something for years, sells it again for retail and then cries that he didn't make a dime???

Yes, Kyle there seems to be many discrepancies here. The problem was that I had given him the selector switch and WBT Pure Silver RCA jacks to add 2 more inputs as I had requested from the very start and after delivering and returning this twice in the past month, it still squawks like a duck!
I gave it to another tech for evaluation before sending to Switzerland for factory repairs. It turns out that this was way beyond Kyle's skill level and he actually had this switch wired backwards AND inside out to the primaries on the transformers. A $260 repair bill is why Kyle refuses to communicate further, with this level of incompetence of work performed, I can't afford his work anyway. Kyle referred this work as being worth $600 for HIS time alone. I think I'll pass....

AC Correction device rebuttal:
I feel that paying RAM $2900 certainly IS taking as much responsibility as a customer should, as this was sold a package deal, wired and installed in my house by Kyle and as usual he leaves work behind left unfinished. He promised to return with a wooded box to house these components.
UL approved?? I think not!

Carver Amp Rebuttal:
This one is my very favorite.
The very first thing Kyle did to resolve the open issues he left behind was to sign an agreement to deliver and take away that ridicules AMP, but insisted that he was paid the $905 owed to him. So, the refund less the $905 came to $2365.00 paid to me. Once again Kyle, there seems to be many discrepancies here. I have a signed agreement to prove this.

Kyle you wrote: The bottom line is that the price for the three items(Player, TVC, and amplifier) was as follows:

3550 for Marantz SA8260(custom chassis and silver rock mods)
2350 for Silver tvc and custom chassis, AC wooden knobs, Wbt
2400 for Carver( stock amp, mods and chassis)......actually $3270.00 Kyle, as per your signature.

I don't know about Kyle's math here but my trusty calculator tells me that this adds up to; $8300 not $9300 as reported. Now let's add the $11,500 for the speakers, the $2900 for mains correction and all the Pure Silver parts and $2000 of exotic wood that I provided and we have a completely different story than the one Kyle has painted for us to believe.

So, what we have here is a person named; Kyle Takenaga who represents himself as a Electronics business. "Reference Audio Mods" capable of performing work on electronics at his Mother's kitchen table, with no formal electronics education, absolutely no licenses to be found, who's website is still in his brother and ex-partner Craig's name, Terminated the business and relationship 6 years ago. Delivering defective workmanship over and over again. Modifications amounting to 10's of thousands of dollars and does not stand good for poor workmanship without coming to forums like this one. We even have a supporting victim and his cousin reporting similar horror stories of incompetent work and hiding from his customers for years on end, rather than face the issues and correct as any honorable businessman would as normal course of events. Who sometimes sells used/re purposed parts and components for retail and claims to barely broke even!!!!

The choice is your where to go for your modifications.