Well I raised a bit more hell, this time with the US wholesaler president. I explained my case and they keep going back to the same old argument, the unit is 100% fine. We'll send it back to you and you can test it again, and if it fails call us back and we can figuire out the next xtep. The problem is they never define what the next step is going to be. From my persectpve it means, send it back to be tested again, and I get to pay $300 roundtrip shipping just for them to say we can't replicate it, sorry we'll send it back to you. The owner of the whoelsaler wants me to wait 2 weeks until the owner of Soundfield comes back from vacation and he said he'll talk directly to them. What they keep missing is they think the unit failed ionce and I sent it back. I continue to reiterate that it's been happening consistently since March. Then they said it must be a power issue, to which I said fine, I use your proprietary battery system. The whole unit is Sound Field, top to bottom.
What really cracked me up was the US Wholesaler kept trying to defend SF's lack of communication by saying they're a small company and they don't communicate well. Tough...then they'll lose customers. Customer Service is EVERYTHING. Then he tried to convince me SF is selling this unit at a $10k loss just to get the name out there. No joking. He made the claim it's a $20k mic they sell well below cost just to promote the name. How dumb do I sound. I laughed at him and told him he had to be kidding if he thought I believed that.
I told him I've dealt with schoeps, neumann, AKG, Grace, Oade among others and all have paid return shipping and all have been more supportive top to bottom. Again he went back to the fact that it's a small company and they don't have servie departments like the big ones do. Again, not my fault.
I agreed to let them hold the unit for two more weeks at which time the owner of the US Wholesaler will talk to the Owner of Soundfield and see what our options are. I told him I want a clearly documented and outlined plan for the next steps if it fails and what they need from me to evidence it..picutres, videos of the meters locking.
The sad part is the mic sounds great and I want to keep it badly. But I feel lik a second rate citizen right now.....and only because of the way SF communicate, not necessarily because of what they have or have not done.
If you stand by your product and are saying this one is good, then do the right thing, swap mine out and use mine as a re-certfied demo unit you can send to another retailer.
Just make right by me.
I'll keep you all posted as things transpire.
To date, SF has had my mic since May 22. And I've received five emails from them, here they are word for word.
5/23
Just received your ST350…
At first glance nothing appears to be out of the ordinary. I’ll get a dialog going with SoundDevices and see if we can somehow replicate the fault here. As this is not your ordinary repair I will be dealing with it personally, unfortunately I’ll be out of the country for the next two weeks, so please bear with me.
Thanks,
Pieter
6/18
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you…
We have been checking over your ST350 thoroughly and have not managed to find anything wrong. We have also been testing it with our 744T (both on batteries and mains) and it keeps on running/recording perfectly.
The only difference in our setup I can think of are the battery system/batteries you use, maybe the power is somehow glitching which is freezing the recorder.
Apologies for not being more conclusive… I presume the best thing to do is for us to send the ST350 back to you.
Thanks,
Pieter
6/19
I appreciate that you are getting frustrated but the majority of ST350 users use it in conjunction with a 744T and no one has ever reported this or any related issue. We are doing what we can to find out what is going wrong but so far have not managed to find anything untoward at all. I assure you that we will do everything we can to get you up and running.
I have been recording in one hour stints… I’ll try longer records today.
Our 744T runs Software Version 2.40, Sample Rate 48K – 24bit, recording to Poly Wav file, 1.8Gb split file size.
I am running the ST350 using your battery adaptor and the 744T on the internal battery.
I’ll keep you posted.
Thanks,
Pieter
6/24
We are still continuously testing your system in conjunction with the 744T we have here… I have tried absolutely everything and can not re-create the fault you describe.
I believe there is one of two things happening with your set-up, either a power or a heat issue:
1. I have been running the ST350 with the power adapter that came back from you (as supplied by us) – I have also been monitoring the output of the power adapter for any signs of power glitches - but have not found anything.
2. You mentioned that you keep both the ST350 and the 744T in your camera bag and that the combo gets rather hot. We have re-created this situation here and had the ST350 + 744T for two days straight in a non-ventilated bag in the sun and had no problems.
As you do not have this problem when using other microphones the heat problem seems most likely as the ST350 can get rather hot which will heat up the 744T in turn.
This may not be what you want to hear but your ST350 is in perfect working condition…
I just spoke to Richard at Transamerica and he informed you will be using their demo ST350 later this week. I would be interested to find out if you can recreate the fault with the units in a well ventilated condition and or running mains power.
Let’s wait and see how you get on with the demo ST350 system before deciding how to proceed.
Thanks,
Pieter
6/30
Hi Chris,
The shipping cost to return your ST350 to the US is 90.00 GBP - this
would by via Fed-Ex.
If you would like to proceed please forward your payment details (we
can accept credit cards) and I will make the necessary arrangements.