Have your say & ask the experts

I found an excellent deal on an ex-demo Roksan Kandy K2 amp and CD player advertised on AA's website. Because I'd never hear of them before I did a quick google for any customer experiences, and found this thread. I have to say it made me think twice about purchasing online from them, but I figure with a credit card I would be covered if anything went wrong.

I ordered last Wednesday night (10pm), had a phone call Thursday morning from AA to confirm the transaction, and the goods were with me in the north of England Friday lunchtime, exactly as described.

I had a query about warranty details and emailed them late last night. They called me today (I missed the call) and sent me a follow-up email fully answering my query.

I work in a customer service environment, and I have to say my experience with Audio Affair has been first class, so much so that I felt compelled to sign up to this forum just add my own experience.

Your mileage may vary, but I would certainly buy from them again.

And finally, from the horse's mouth (NAD):

Hi

Many thanks for taking the time to contact us regarding the recent purchase of your NAD unit.



Audio Affair are indeed correct in their suggestion that we open the
units before they come to the end user. It is actually a legal
requirement for us to provide a UK plug and a warranty. As NAD export
to 78 countries it makes it difficult for them to add a UK plug at
manufacturing source, so it's left to us to do this. The UK are the
only real export market for them which uses a three pin plug ( apart
from Hong Kong which is tiny numbers compared to the UK) Likewise - NAD
does not have a worldwide warranty policy and it's left up to the
distributor to employ the warranty terms they feel fitting for the
brand.

While it's correct to say the box is opened, we do not fully open up the unit from the packaging as its not needed.

I trust this helps you to understand why we do this - and in fact
various other brands undergo this also. We would prefer not to have to
do it as I'm sure you can imagine the man hours needed to do this over
the course of a year. As mentioned though - legally we are oblidged to
do so.



Best Regards



Rob

NAD UK Product Manager 

 

Hope that's useful information.

Hi. I live in Spain. I placed an order on Feb. 2, 2009 for a Roksan Kandy LIII / MKIII twin pack. I received 6 days later a defective amplifier (volume pot problem), as many others, as you can check in this same forum on another thread. I returned the combo and got a fresh one from Audio Affair but it was defective as well (exact same problem). I returned it again and same thing happend for a third time. During all these back-and-forths I succeeded a couple of times to have somenone from AA on the phone, but they replied very abruptly and referred me to email communication. After the third return, I tried a cash refund, but was denied on the grounds that the money-back warranty period was expired (tricky, as they counted the period from the date of order, not the date of receipt!). I stretched to upgrade to an ex-demo Primare combo that unfortunately was no longer available in spite of still being advertised on line. Alex suggested then to go for a K2 upgrade, which I finally accepted. K2 combo was 1466 pounds versus 780 the LIII/MKIII. K2 components were advertised to be shipped with free interconnects, but came without. Only after I claimed I got by mail only 1 interconnect. Result: I started to pay on February and only got an audio system in working condition on May; I spent more money than I planned (k2 is twice as good as LIII/MkIII as it was in price?); and I had to pay for all 3 return shipments.

I recognize not all struggles I had were caused by AA, but I would not recommend using AA to international buyers. The combination of issues with communication difficulties and return freights is a definite killer in spite of the good rates and current favourable exchange rates... Anyone risk-adict should try instead chinese HiFi on-line maybe.

 

 

I ORDERED A PRIMARE DEALY BOX 4 WEEKS AGO AND HAVE NOT RECEIVED IT. EVERY TIME I PHONED UP I WAS TOLD IT WOULD BE IN THE NEXT WEEK. I FINALLY HAD ENOUGH AND CANCELLED MY ORDER ON THURSDAY AFTERNOON. I PHONED AUDIO AFFAIR ON MONDAY MORNING AND TOLD THAT ALL REFUNDS HAD BEEN AUTHORISED OVER THE WEEKEND. WHEN I CAME HOME I CHECKED MY EMAILS AND SAW THAT THE ORDER HAD BEEN SHIPPED! I PHONED THEM BACK AND ASKED WHAT WAS GOING ON . THEY HAVE NOW TOLD ME THAT I SHOULD REFUSE THE DELIVERY AND WILL GET THE REFUND LATER IN THE WEEK. I AWAIT WITH BATED BREATH. SO FAR EVERY WEEK I HAVE BEEN GIVEN A DIFFERENT STORY. I WOULD APPRECIATE HEARING FROM ANYONE WITH SIMILAR STORIES. IF MY REFUND ISNT IN MY ACCOUNT BY THE END OF THE WEEK I WILL HAVE TO GO TO TRADING STANDARDS.

OK, POINT TAKEN, BUT NO NEED TO SHOUT!

Ok here is another one, on the 9^thJanuary this year I ordered a NAD C525 BEE CD Player from Audio Affair – overall theservice wasn’t bad. I had to send a mail on the 16^th October tocheck up on what was happening. I got a reply the same day saying that they hadrun out of stock and there was a slight delay but I got a mail later that daysaying the unit was shipped and it arrived within a couple of days. Not 100% butno real problem.

On the 3^rd October I saw Audio Affair had a good offeron NAD C720 BEE Stereo Receiver (£350 where it is about €700 in Ireland),so I placed an online order. I received the usual successful payment mails thennothing. When I hadn’t heard anything by the 8th I sent a mail enquiring when Icould expect delivery, I got a call back almost straight away from customerservice saying that they had run out of stock of the NAD C720 BEE StereoReceiver and they were attempting to get new stock but there could be adelay and suggesting a couple of AV receivers (Onkyo SR507 or Nad l54)as alternatives.. Now I wasn’t really interested in an AV receiver and neitherof the suggest alternatives appealed to me. I said I’d prefer to wait. On the 19^thOct I rang another dealer who told me that the NAD C720 BEE was no longer inproduction. I then called Audio Affair who agreed that this was the case (although it was still offered for sale on their up to about week ago) and againoffered a number of the alternatives or a refund. I told them I’d check out thealternatives, as I would loose money with exchange rates on the refund. 

A day or so later then got a call from Audio Affair offering a NADT754 AV receiver at a good price which was actually £100cheaper than my original purchase. On the 23^rd October I changed theorder and got my £100 refund (which was less due to exchange rates).

I left it a week or so but I’ve been calling them since, I kept being told that they were outof stock and it was due in tomorrow...next week etc. On Wednesday I called themagain they finally told me that they can’t get this item either....

Now I don’t know why l did this maybe it was because after 7 weeksI wanted to get something..combined with the fact they did deliver inJanuary... I asked them what did they actually have in stock ...I specificallyasked did they have the NAD C425 Tuner and the NAD326 Amp, the salesman said hehad and he could ship them on Thursday and I would have them today Friday (20^thNov).. I placed the order which at this stage £130 more than I was originally paying.. I gave the credit card details and waited...I didn’t receive a confirmationmail, which made me think there may have been another problem and when I rang today Customer services couldn’t find a record of my neworder and said they would get the sales department to call me back...I’m stillwaiting ....

I wish I had seen this thread sooner ... 

Gerrykea:

(In reply)

Thanks for the comments. The C525 was delivered a long time ago (ordered in January) - apologies for the delay with your recent order. We received some T754's as an exclusive offer from NAD's UK distributor (they had some left) and were expecting a second delivery, but it was just confirmed that no further stocks are available. We changed the order to a C326 and C425 at your request, at a special price. These are due to ship Monday for Tuesday, details of which will be confirmed by e-mail.

We take the comments posted on these forums very seriously and work to improve our service where needed. We're a very new company and have grown rapidly, so have had less time to perfect every aspect of our service than some of our competitors who have been established for 10+ or 20+ years in some cases, but we continue to improve. Even though the majority of customers are delighted with our service, we listen carefully to all comments we receive.

Since this forum opened a few weeks ago, we have improved in the following ways:

- 2 new members of customer services (dedicated to e-mail/phone support)
- Much larger stockholdings to ensure quick dispatch
- New customer services based computer systems
- McAfee and Verisign online security
- "SafeBuy" accredidation
- New online "Live Chat" as an alternative to e-mail/calling
- New terms and conditions
- New return policies (including free UK collection for warranty repairs)
- New store manager and warehouse staff
- New e-mail address for any suggestions for improvement comment@audioaffair.co.uk

Please feel free to e-mail us if you need to as we are here for *you*. Despite our continuing growth, it's very important to us that our service improves as we want hi-fi and home cinema buffs to be happy with their systems. We are working hard to get as close as we can to 100% satisfaction.

Best regards,

Alex
Managing Director

if you cant give 100 percent all the time then you shouldnt be in buisness,i would never order anything from your lot after reading this.

There seems to be some problems with Audioaffair website, too.

Haven´t been able to visit the pages for several days.

Still in busines?

Very much so - see reply above. We have been upgrading several features of the website to offer even better performance, which caused some recent downtime.

It's always great to hear some of our recent customers have seen this forum, given us the benefit of the doubt and found our service to now be exceptional. If our site is ever taken offline for maintenance again in future, you can always give us a call and we'll be happy to help.

I think the intention is in the right place, give them a chance, new company and all that.

 

 

Companies, regardless of new or long established, can only survive if the customer care is spot-on, allied to keen prices. If one aspect falls flat it negates the other.

The first rule of business is: if you quote a delivery time, then you must keep you're word. Should there be a problem, then contact the respective client and give them a realistic delivery time. Failing to do so will give a company or business a reputation, ususally for all the wrong reasons.

Does Audio Affair have a retail outlet, or do they trade from a lock-up?