Whaleblue
Southbound
A couple of weeks back I reported in the System Pics thread…
“It turns out that UK PMC/Bryston have lost my B135-3! However, they, and Fanthorpes who I bought it through, have been more than fantastic in sorting the situation out.
Long story short, a brand new replacement is on order from the factory in Canada.
A quicker replacement from UK stock was possible, but I’ve taken the opportunity to request a change to a Silver model (always had a slight regret I’d been boring going for the Black finish) which with both DAC module (which my original unit had from new) and the MM Phono module which it was in to get fitted, was not available from stock.
A particular mention to Dave at Fanthorpes is in order as he orchestrated this painless (for me!) replacement unit.”
However, now the story gets even more interesting… and gratifying!
Around the same time I was arranging for the Bryston to go in I had a problem with a cart I’d ordered from Audio Affair. The box it was in was badly cracked, so I’d asked for a replacement in case the cart itself was internally compromised by whatever impact it had suffered. This was around the beginning of May.
Last week I realised I’d not heard from Audio Quest, so went back to them. They investigated and the result was a request to call DPD with a reference number. I assumed it was to track a missing replacement (though odd as I still had the original). I called and was told the delivery address I gave was incorrect. Even more puzzled I went back to Audio Quest. It turned out that the DPD reference was for the damaged cart pick up (which I’d not heard anything about), which DPD claimed to have delivered.
I called DPD again. I spoke to a lovely lady and explained that as I still had the broken original cart what did they think they’d already picked up from me and delivered to Audio Quest? As we started going into details about what GPS and photographic evidence they had the penny began to drop.
“Do you have a picture of a delivered brown box, about 60x40x30cm?” I asked. “It’s hard to say, as there were a number of parcels delivered to Audio Quest along with your parcel” said the DPD lady, “but I can find the picture taken at pick up”… “Yes! It’s a brown box as you described”. The picture was forwarded to me, and it was clearly my B135!
Next, I called Audio Quest and spoke to their Ops Manager, John. Everything was explained, and he promised to go and investigate. Half an hour later he called back. He had my amp.
I called Fanthorpes to let them (and PMC/Bryston who thought the amp was gone forever) know the news.
I then spoke to John again who very kindly offered to get in direct contact with Fanthorpes to get the amp where it was meant to be. All’s well that ends well - except I’d been offered a brand new Silver replacement, which I’d now not get due to my, and the tenacious DPD lady’s efforts!
But, speaking with Marc Fanthorpe he offered to ask whether PMC would be happy to keep my Black amp now it had been located, and still give me my new Silver one. The next day I got a call to confirm that they would!
I’d like to thank everyone involved from Audio Quest, DPD, Fanthorpes and PMC. Really quite uplifting when folk work together to get things done. Not to mention such a special outcome for me due to the efforts of Marc and Dave at Fanthorpes and the good grace and generosity of PMC/Bryston.
Only a couple of months now for my fully loaded Silver B135 cubed to be manufactured and delivered!
“It turns out that UK PMC/Bryston have lost my B135-3! However, they, and Fanthorpes who I bought it through, have been more than fantastic in sorting the situation out.
Long story short, a brand new replacement is on order from the factory in Canada.
A quicker replacement from UK stock was possible, but I’ve taken the opportunity to request a change to a Silver model (always had a slight regret I’d been boring going for the Black finish) which with both DAC module (which my original unit had from new) and the MM Phono module which it was in to get fitted, was not available from stock.
A particular mention to Dave at Fanthorpes is in order as he orchestrated this painless (for me!) replacement unit.”
However, now the story gets even more interesting… and gratifying!
Around the same time I was arranging for the Bryston to go in I had a problem with a cart I’d ordered from Audio Affair. The box it was in was badly cracked, so I’d asked for a replacement in case the cart itself was internally compromised by whatever impact it had suffered. This was around the beginning of May.
Last week I realised I’d not heard from Audio Quest, so went back to them. They investigated and the result was a request to call DPD with a reference number. I assumed it was to track a missing replacement (though odd as I still had the original). I called and was told the delivery address I gave was incorrect. Even more puzzled I went back to Audio Quest. It turned out that the DPD reference was for the damaged cart pick up (which I’d not heard anything about), which DPD claimed to have delivered.
I called DPD again. I spoke to a lovely lady and explained that as I still had the broken original cart what did they think they’d already picked up from me and delivered to Audio Quest? As we started going into details about what GPS and photographic evidence they had the penny began to drop.
“Do you have a picture of a delivered brown box, about 60x40x30cm?” I asked. “It’s hard to say, as there were a number of parcels delivered to Audio Quest along with your parcel” said the DPD lady, “but I can find the picture taken at pick up”… “Yes! It’s a brown box as you described”. The picture was forwarded to me, and it was clearly my B135!
Next, I called Audio Quest and spoke to their Ops Manager, John. Everything was explained, and he promised to go and investigate. Half an hour later he called back. He had my amp.
I called Fanthorpes to let them (and PMC/Bryston who thought the amp was gone forever) know the news.
I then spoke to John again who very kindly offered to get in direct contact with Fanthorpes to get the amp where it was meant to be. All’s well that ends well - except I’d been offered a brand new Silver replacement, which I’d now not get due to my, and the tenacious DPD lady’s efforts!
But, speaking with Marc Fanthorpe he offered to ask whether PMC would be happy to keep my Black amp now it had been located, and still give me my new Silver one. The next day I got a call to confirm that they would!
I’d like to thank everyone involved from Audio Quest, DPD, Fanthorpes and PMC. Really quite uplifting when folk work together to get things done. Not to mention such a special outcome for me due to the efforts of Marc and Dave at Fanthorpes and the good grace and generosity of PMC/Bryston.
Only a couple of months now for my fully loaded Silver B135 cubed to be manufactured and delivered!
