I received several hundred replies to the announcement and am still answering them.
All sales questions went to sales, because that's who has the data about when and what you purchased, if you're in the 30-day no-questions-asked return period, etc.
Most technical questions I answered myself, and some went to our support dept if I thought they could answer it better.
It takes more than one person to do all of this.
On Mar 10, 2005, at 8:57 AM, Timothy Knight Nelson wrote:
Jim,
Very cute. I probably never would have posted at all, but after reading Sean's welcoming "write me if you have any questions" in the SB2 announce and writing a very polite letter of inquiry to him, I was a little miffed to receive an almost-form-letter from shipping and sales (who I did *not* include when sending that message) and nothing from Sean, who is happily posting the day away with all of the SB2 fans.
Not likely I'll sell my SB1 on eBay soon: looks like a glut there, a wait for an SB2 and still some problems with the new software. Not to mention the fact that if I buy now, Apple will no doubt release their long-rumored "media hub" in a month and a day ;-)
Cheers, Tim
On Mar 10, 2005, at 1:00 AM, Jim's Public email wrote:
After being subscribed to these lists for over a year, and never making a post I've got some catching up to do.....
Tim,
To make you feel better or at least send you to sleep :P here is my story......
I'm from the UK but right now live in a country where anything that gets imported gets taxed, and taxed heavily. I was even thinking one day of getting a overseas friend to send me a empty box to screw customs over, then realised the rumours they tax carboard are true!
About one and a half years ago thanks to my grandmother I bought a SlimMP3. It arrived and I had to pay something like US$100 in import duties, not to mention the additional postage.
Upon recieving it when going to the website to check for software updates that very day (I had checked the day before) the whole site had changed and was advertising the brand new SqueezeBox. "[EMAIL PROTECTED] *&@#...."
I moaned to myself for a while as I normally do and then moaned about the fact I had just got an out of date product and to be honest if I'd have been cunning and not had all the hassles of returning it within the 30-day period I would of packed it up, gone down to the post office, taken advantage of the no-questions returns policy and sent it back for refund. Paying yet more sky-high international postage, filling in special export/import forms, waiting for credit card refund, buying a SqueezeBox, wating for delivery, paying another lot of import tax, having a fear of sellotape & pensioners etc....... made me realise it wasn't worth doing.
Still I was just happy to have it. All my original CD's are in the UK, so being able to remotely control, select and hear 320kbps MP3's coming out of my hi-fi was wonderful. That's all I wanted back then - at that time my experience of Internet Radio was worse than my experience of Windows ME and I thought wireless networking was some fancy term a radio salesman used to impress the ladies. When I saw the "Buy Now" button that's what I wanted to do, at that time it was the right decision. I got what I wanted when I paid for it. Would be on par with you if I ended here.....but it gets worse.....
About 2 months ago I discovered FLAC and took my daughter out of school and bought a pet monkey so they could spend a whole month re-ripping all my music. Thanks to FLAC I had lossless copies of my music, my daughter had learned 4 letters of the alphabet and my monkey now knew how to operate 2 lossless encoders (however I'd be lying if I told you FLAC was his preferred format).
Also thanks to FLAC I now had the perfect excuse to buy a Squeezebox and develop a new strange obsession, this time for audio fingerprints. So I got the Squeezebox which involved paying more sky-high postage and tax. Despite the fact that this package was wrapped in more sellotape than the last I was actually on and listening to Cloud Nine in true lossless audio (RIP George). Plus Internet Radio actually did what it said. I'd not had such a easy to use and rewarding technology experience since I saw the "It's Now Safe To Turn Off Your Computer" message back in 1995.
I have still not decided what to do with my old SlimMP3 - sell it or buy a mini-hifi and use it in the dungeon?
Now with history's strange way of repeating itself imagine how I felt a few days ago learning about the Squeezebox2 - just 2 months after buying the SB1. I shouldn't have read the specs on it - FLAC related features, serverless internet radio....this was even more tempting than trying to lick my own elbow....Even worse was I looked at the photos. Seeing those "analog" VU meters made my eyes widen, reading the specs made my ears and other body parts twitch and not seeing a "Upgrade your SB1 to a SB2 for $50" sign made my stomach start fearing a frugal diet of just pasta, monkey and water.
My eyes/ears are saying buy it. My brain is saying "You can't afford it", "Those new features are not essential". This time Granny cannot help me as she was sold to pay for my initial SlimMP3 purchase. I went to see my Doctor for help but was told I needed at least 1 kidney to live having sold the other to pay for the SB1. Yes I was a bit frustrated, but hey that's life.
Just like I was doing last week I can manage perfectly well with the SB1 as long as I take my tablets. The SB1 was 10/10 rating for me last week, now it's 9/10 as I can't give the SB2 11/10 unless I go all Spinal Tap on the ratings system!
It's not SlimDevices fault I bought when I did, it's not really mine either. It's just unlucky. Do I cry and moan in emails about it? Or do I just sit and laugh to myself about it and turn what was supposed to be a quick response into a overly-long novel?
I've learned if I'm gonna get a SB2 I had better do it now, because in 1 years time if I get one with my luck a SB3 will appear 1 month after purchase. Personally I am sure I have psychic powers and this is my way of predicting new Slimdevices products.
You have to remember that whilst it's quite possibly the most sexy piece of electronics ever invented - that is all it is. It's not cheap, but you didn't have to remortgage your house to buy it. In your case nobody was physically hurt, nobody died. You just got unlucky. Get over it, keep what you've got or sell and upgrade.
But please don't post to these newsgroups trying to look for answers and solutions from the Slim team or to vent you anger at them. They're not a evil money-chasing empire who only give the impression of being a nice, open "we care" company who listen to their customers. I believe they really do care, obviously they care about making money but they also know that most of their business is obvioulsy generated by a great product, word of mouth, the openness of the product and the great support. They might fit into the same crossword space but Slim are not another Sony - if you want further proof check the website, do you see any robotic dogs?
However cool/nice/open/warm/welcoming someone is it's not fair to take advantage of their traits and expect them to solve your misfortunes. As the reply to you said, a line has to be drawn somewhere - at least you got a human reply. Before the SB2 launch they could of stopped selling the SB1, gone on holiday and not sold anything for a month - but then you'd be complaining that you cannot buy one, we'd all be complaining there was noone from the complaints department to play online tic-tac-toe with and they'd all be complaining of sunburn.
Nobody gets an easy ride from me so either Slim got lucky, their PR departments mind-control experiements are working well (never look at the Slim display for more than 32 seconds) or I genuinely respect their ethics and love the products they produce - even when they become instantly "obsolete" after they've cunningly delayed the next product launch until just after I've ordered.
So other than the practical solution of keeping or selling/upgrading, if you're still upset then you could go down the pub and just hope the beer you get is not the funny tasting stuff from the bottom of the barrel :D
/Jim Obviously bored contender for title of unluckiest SlimDevices customer
Hello Timothy,
Unfortunately we do not have any trade in programs for our products.
It is always difficult to make a smooth transition to a new product,
and as you said, you have to draw the line somewhere. And in fairness
to other customers, we need to be consistent with this policy. Please
let me know if you have any other questions.
Kind Regards,
Brian Helmle
-- Brian Helmle Sales and Shipping Slim Devices [EMAIL PROTECTED] (650) 210-9400
From: Timothy Knight Nelson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>Date: March 9, 2005 10:57:41 AM PST To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Trade-in of recent Squeezebox for Squeezebox2 ?
Dear Sean,
First off, thanks for making a great product. Despite my frustrations, I think you have a winner here and I wish you all the best. My story in brief...
I received a Wireless Squeezebox in late January with the intention
of ripping my entire CD library to Apple Lossless (several hundred
CDs) on a dedicated disk and serving them across my wireless network
to my stereo. Along the way, I discovered that trying to stream
Apple Lossless across an 802.11b network (even with great reception)
results in a lot of dropouts, even with almost no other traffic on
the network. So, after much cursing at having paid for the wireless
version, I started drilling holes and installing network cables.
After placing the Squeezebox on the wired network, things are
smoother but I still have occasional dropouts, especially when there
is other activity on the network. Although there has been some
cursing at not having 10/100 in the Squeezebox (like pretty much
every other cheap networked item on the market in the past few years)
I decided I could live with it: I really like it on the whole, and
there is no other option that comes close.
So, naturally I am dismayed to surf to your site today and discover the dawn of the Squeezebox 2. If I were serving out mp3, I wouldn't care less, but the faster connectivity of the new unit is exactly what I need for this application. Clearly, if it were within 30 days of my ship-date (Jan 20) this thing would be back in the mail to you already: but I am now just beyond that horizon. I understand you have to draw the line somewhere, but I'd be willing to pay some kind of upgrade or trade-in fee to get a V2 unit, since this one will continue to be a source of frustration here.
So, the question: is there any chance you can offer a trade-in or upgrade on recently purchased (e.g. since Jan. 1?) Squeezeboxes? I believe it is in your long-term best interest to take care of customers that are in my situation: a big part of choosing the Squeezebox over your rivals at Roku was your respective reputations for customer service.
Best Regards, Dr. Tim Nelson Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
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