Is good customer service about dead?

My Best is Keith Herron of Herron Audio. He responds to e-mails quickly, has done upgrades at a reasonable dollar value and helped me with some trades. It doesn't get any better.

I sent in a twenty year old Tara IC and they fixed it for free including shipping. Also Rogue replaced a (damaged in shipping) amplifier with a new one at their expense.

pretty impressive imo...

Not when provided by your brick and mortar dealer. The dealer is key, in that he is a 'multi customer' of the manufacturer so the latter will always respond to their requests, if they want to stay in business. It is called leverage the relationship.

I started with Zu Definition 1.5s then upgraded to Def 2s, and now to Def 4s. Zu customer service is unbelievably good - especially if you pick up the phone and call. (Sean personally delivered my Def 4s at 7a one October morning and spent a couple of hours on set-up, including the controls of the inboard plate amplifier.) Anyone at Zu who answers the phone is over-the-top helpful. At the worst, emails sometimes take a few days to be answered. Most importantly, Zu is proactive in making sure that customers are happy; I get emails to check the progress of speaker break-in, etc.

My second positive experience is with Ancient Audio in Krakow, Poland. I bought a CDP and eventually an amplifier after being picked up at the airport and spending an afternoon listening to music in the principle designer's living room. Recently, Jarek has helped me to negotiate purchase of a specific pair of low-current 300b tubes from the Takatsuki distributor in Japan.

My third positive experience is with Sophia Electric in the DC area. My initial pair of Royal Princess 300b were not compatible with my amplifier. Susan and Richard opened their office on Sunday to test the pair of 300b that I had been using successfully to identify a two Royal Princess with the same parameters.

One other thing we should all keep in mind is that an unsolicited e-mail does not necessarily hit its target, it can easily get lost in spam folders or even go to the wrong address. If I don't get an e-mail response I look at it like a potentially wrong number and try to call these people on the phone, which is always the best method of communicating. The other issue with e-mail, unless you write it with laser precision it is still likely to be incorrectly interpreted.

I have also received great customer service from VAC (Kevin Hayes and Brent), K&K, Musical Surroundings, and Shindo.