Re: [slim] RE: Trade-in of recent Squeezebox for Squeezebox2 ?

[Timothy Knight Nelson]

On Mar 10, 2005, at 11:21 AM, Jason wrote:
Well, even if Sean had answered you I doubt we would have seen a 
different
personality from you here.  You certainly seem very eager to vent your 
angst
towards all things Slim.
You are wrong, Jason: please don't tell me who I am and I'll afford you 
the same courtesy.

A glut of Squeezeboxen on eBay?  I see four of them up for sale, most 
of
them look like they will be going for well over $150 which would bring 
the
cost of upgrading to the new unit down to $100 or so after the coupon 
deal.
2 were newly-posted yesterday afternoon. Safe bet that there will be 
regular additions over the next few weeks.  I've already posted mine 
for sale here.  I don't have it in for Slim, and have repeatedly 
expressed my best wishes for Sean and the company.  I'll buy several 
more if they please me: the SB1 that I begrudgingly kept, does not.  It 
has already been placed up for sale on this list.

Cheers,
Tim
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of
Timothy Knight Nelson
Sent: Thursday, March 10, 2005 10:39 AM
To: Slim Devices Discussion
Subject: Re: [slim] RE: Trade-in of recent Squeezebox for
Squeezebox2 ?
Sean,
I understand that,  but when you solicit personal email and
queue it to other departments while responding to threads
that don't even directly address you here... don't you think
that is a little backwards? It's not that you don't care:
it's that it *seems* like you don't care.
Even a couple of lines expressing minor sympathy, explaining
your policy and pointing out the "PONY" deal (which your
sales person did
not) would have diffused my frustration, while feeling
intentionally ignored intensified it.  If that is too much,
then you need to rethink inviting such interaction with your
customers.  Unfortunately, as your little venture grows with
(hopefully) continued success, you are going to face a
changing role, one that may be a lot less fun than when you
started. Such is the nature of success.
For my part, I apologize if I have offended you or anyone
else here, and appreciate the time you all spent in sharing
your perspectives.  My sleep-deprived state made the grapes a
bit more sour than usual.
All the Best,
Tim
On Mar 10, 2005, at 9:14 AM, Sean Adams wrote:
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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