Audiogonners
Mr Jerome Andre (GM, Audio Aero fr)
Audio Aero present and future owners
I find it disgusting that the GM of a company like Audio Aero comes up on this well respected forum to tell lies, distort the truth in an attempt to cover up shortcomings and problems of his own organisation and products.
I am currently going through all the e-mails I sent Audio Aero, bank statements and the rare replies I received from them relating to my Capitole. I intend to, shortly, post undeniable documentary evidence that, contrary to what Mr Jerome Andre is falsely imputing in his recent post:
(a) I paid 535 Eur for the normal SE Upgrade at Audio Aero factory in France (without additional analogue inputs) and not 420 Eur insinuated by Audio Aero. I have the receipt, and bank clearance evidencing all this; for information, the same upgrade costs $700 in the US, and a job done within a week, compared to 4 months taken in my case by AA factory.
(b) contrary to the false and malicious statements made by Mr Andre that I refused to pay shipping charges for the return courrier, I paid a sum of 35 Eur for return shipping (termed in French as Frais de Port) to a French destination and this is well stated in Audio Aero's own invoice bearing ref. no 09060003 dated 12.Jun.2009, which was duly settled by me through a France based bank cheque without any discussion or argument.
(c) as falsely imputed by Audio Aero, the SE upgrade was never ready in August 2009 but only on 14 Nov 09, and this is evidenced by Audio Aero's own e-mail message (signed by Mr Guillaume Bouly - chief techincal support of AA) to me. In fact they had originally agreed to complete the upgrade by 27 August 09, but they sent me apology e-mails for not being able to do so due to restricted man power and the festive season. In reply, I sent a strong letter of protest to Mr Jerome Andre on 20 Aug 09 complaining about the company's lack of consideration for customer service, and its inability to honour its own commitment to finish the job in Aug 09, i.e. the date when it was already arranged for shipment it back to my country through a traveling passenger. Due to delay on Audio Aero's part, the player missed the arranged courrier and was finally upgraded only several months later in Nov 09, and thus had to wait for 2 months in France for rearranging its desptach to Mauritius though another travelling passenger.
(d) Contrary to what Mr Andre is advancing, they never shipped the player to Paris. The destination was Ambilly France) - which is quite far away from Paris. From Ambilly (20 mins drive to Geeneva), the player was taken by car to Geneva airport and on to my country on an Air Mauritius direct flight (Geneva-Mauritius). There were no "traveled on several planes" as wrongly stated in the post.
(e) Again, contrary to what Mr Andre is saying that I have now asked for a new player, all that I requested was, since Audio Aero factory is unable to help me (their response is non-existent, despite them having undertaken to send me information on possible causes on the problems I was experiencing and instructions and guidance on how the problem could be solved locally through a technician), I am prepared to send my non-working freshly upgraded player to their distributor is UK and they arrange to send me one that works. And I would personally call at the said distributor to collect the working player after verification to avoid any future issues on the player.
(f) Mr Andre very conveniently omits to disclose another serious error on their part and which caused great delay in me lodging the complaint that the Capitole is not playing properly after the upgrade: they changed the transport shaft with a bigger and larger shaft but failed to send me the new puck that goes with the larger shaft. I was thus unable to play the Capitole for nearly a month (my post on Audiogon about the missing puck bears testimony) and despite repeated e-mails and phone calls to them, they only agreed to send me the puck very recently.
I think it is important for current and prospective owners of Audio Aero products to know the truth about the acts and doings of Audio Aero or its staff. To me, it just sums up in a few word: adding insult to injury. After injuring clients with their notoriously problematic products, they have guts to publicly deny the truth and post stories, lies and fabrications and attempt to put the blame on customers who have splashed out a small fortune on AA products.
I am therefore requesting Mr Jerome Andre to verify his information carefully and rectify his post with an unreserved apology failing which I will have to make public a whole bunch of documentary evidence showing to what extent the GM of Audio Aero has resorted to shameful maneouvres, lies and fabrications to cover up their own inefficiencies, product and communication issues etc.
I will get back shortly with a new post/thread if Mr Andre or Audio Aero does not rectify his post and insinuations.
lall
Dr Jawa Lallchand
Mauritius
