I hate Kaleidescape!

[carajo]

I can also say WOW that Mr. Malcolm is posting here. He certainly does not need to answer to any of this persons posts as his product clearly speaks for itself. It does show the type of company he runs as I'm sure he does not have the time to fight off people like this.

PS. now that he is here...can we ask him when are we getting download delivery of movies.

 

[Legdiian]

PS. now that he is here...can we ask him when are we getting download delivery of movies.

Also when I browse to a song in my music library and play it, please make it continue playing the rest of that cd when the song is finished

 

[rbienstock]

It doesn't surprise me that Michael Malcolm, K's CEO, is stepping in here - he's that kind of guy and K is that kind of company. Very unique in today's world. This whole thread confirms to me that K delivers excellent customer service, the original poster's hysterical rants notwithstanding. I'm sorry, but no amount of backpeddling will make the original poster look good in my eyes now.

I don't really care how I look to you, frankly. All I have to say is that I had a bunch of problems that were not getting resolved and I was being punted back and forth between Kaleidescape and my dealer. I posted my "hysterical rant" and my problems are being addressed. I'm sure that in the end it will work out so that everyone is happy. This is a somewhat stressful time for me, and maybe I should have been more temperate in my remarks, but the fact remains that it took my posting here, however phrased, to get someone's attention. That it reached the highest levels of the company is remarkable and commendable. But it should never have been allowed to get that far. Now, finally, my dealer, Kaleidescape and I are all working together on a resolution, which is how it should have been handled from day one.

 

[Legdiian]

I don't really care how I look to you, frankly. All I have to say is that I had a bunch of problems that were not getting resolved and I was being punted back and forth between Kaleidescape and my dealer. I posted my "hysterical rant" and my problems are being addressed. I'm sure that in the end it will work out so that everyone is happy. This is a somewhat stressful time for me, and maybe I should have been more temperate in my remarks, but the fact remains that it took my posting here, however phrased, to get someone's attention. That it reached the highest levels of the company is remarkable and commendable. But it should never have been allowed to get that far. Now, finally, my dealer, Kaleidescape and I are all working together on a resolution, which is how it should have been handled from day one.

I'll say what other people aren't allowed to say. The reason things have gone "this far" is because you are a difficult person to work with. You lie about about the important facts of your story and grossly "mis-calculate" other figures to make your claims sound more outrageous.

The real shame is that outstanding companies like Kaleidescape have to treat big babies like you with kid gloves. You flat out lied about several parts of your story, were called out on those lies and have the audacity to continue promoting your side of the story.

 

[cinelife]

Okay guys, I think we all got/get the points made on all sides here. Let us please resume the normal positive and friendly atmoshpere that makes this forum different from the others.

Side note: I wouldn't expect Mr. M. to continue posting, nor will he likely be answering direct questions (however fun that would be ). K's internal policy is that no employee is permitted to comment on any forum. Mr. M. obviously found the earlier posts to be of significant concern to address the issues presented, which I feel certain was a "one-time" post on his part to set the record straight.

PLEASE!!! Let's all go back to friendly and civil dialogue!!!!

Jim

 

[rbienstock]

I'll say what other people aren't allowed to say. The reason things have gone "this far" is because you are a difficult person to work with. You lie about about the important facts of your story and grossly "mis-calculate" other figures to make your claims sound more outrageous.

The real shame is that outstanding companies like Kaleidescape have to treat big babies like you with kid gloves. You flat out lied about several parts of your story, were called out on those lies and have the audacity to continue promoting your side of the story.

Say what you will, but your own message is inconsistent with what yourself and others have said in this thread. I complained about what I felt was inadequate customer service. You and others claim that Kaleidescape's customer service is uniformly excellent. I responded that my issues are finally being addressed, now you state that Kaleidescape is giving me special treatment because I am difficult. So which is it? Does Kaleidescape give generally excellent customer support other than a few rare exceptions when there are problems as in my case, or was my case typical and I only got the results I wanted because I made a stink? You can't have it both ways. Personally, I'd like to believe that there was some form of miscommunication in my case and now that there is a working three-way dialogue between me, my dealer and Kaleidescape, that things will be fine from here on out. And, I'd point out the following from Michael Malcolm:

I have personally reviewed many of the communications the company has had with Mr. Bienstock and with his dealer, and I see nothing disrespectful or unprofessional in any of these email messages.

The truth is that I am exactly the opposite of being difficult. The fact is that I am really pretty easygoing and tend let things slide and not to push people until things reach a point where I feel as if I am being taken advantage of.

And as to my so-called lies, I continue to maintain that everything I said in this thread is true, other than an error regarding the calculation of the cost of the extended warranty where I failed to understand which items were and were not to be covered and how that was calculated. If you want to call that a lie, fine. I assume that you've priced out the cost of an extended warranty on your system and you think it is reasonable. If so, fine. I still think it is pricey, even for a system as high priced as a Kaleidescape. And note that I never complained about the cost of my system, merely that I felt that I was not receiving the level of support that I would expect for a product in that price range. The other statement that you call a lie is in another thread entirely about a different subject and, while I admit that statement was untrue, I explained that the reason for that was that I didn't want to have to address this whole issue of the pricing of the extended warranties, or the fact that someone dropped the ball on getting my warranty renewed in time. Moreover, it isn't really relevant at all. I have elected to pass on the extended warranty on the server after being offered the chance to buy one after the original warranty elapsed. How does that make a difference to the question of whether or not I should have had a chance to buy it before the original warranty elapsed?

 

[rbienstock]

Okay guys, I think we all got/get the points made on all sides here. Let us please resume the normal positive and friendly atmoshpere that makes this forum different from the others.

Side note: I wouldn't expect Mr. M. to continue posting, nor will he likely be answering direct questions (however fun that would be ). K's internal policy is that no employee is permitted to comment on any forum. Mr. M. obviously found the earlier posts to be of significant concern to address the issues presented, which I feel certain was a "one-time" post on his part to set the record straight.

PLEASE!!! Let's all go back to friendly and civil dialogue!!!!

Jim

I couldn't agree more, and I apologize for my part to the extent that things are getting out of hand. My original post was probably unduly negative as a result of a lot of pent-up frustration and also stuff happening in my personal life. Things are getting handled now, and, as promised, when they do get fixed I will post the results with the same level of detail as my original post. While I may have had some hopefully momentary hatred for Kaleidescape as an institution, I did and still do love the product.

 

[Legdiian]

Say what you will, but your own message is inconsistent with what yourself and others have said in this thread. I complained about what I felt was inadequate customer service. You and others claim that Kaleidescape's customer service is uniformly excellent. I responded that my issues are finally being addressed, now you state that BLAH BLAH BLAH

You are not going to talk your way out of this one. I'm not buying your tactics of telling everyone else that they are wrong, and then quickly pretending to take the high road. You used the word "whores" to describe Kaleidescape as a company, stating that your warranty lapsed without them offering you an extension. My initial post was simply calling out your lie by quoting word for word a post you made previous to your ranting post. In that post you were contemplating upgrading as opposed to extending the warranty which was set to expire.

I'm done posting on the matter, but if you continue to twist my words around, I will continue to defend myself.

 

[rbienstock]

You are not going to talk your way out of this one. I'm not buying your tactics of telling everyone else that they are wrong, and then quickly pretending to take the high road. You used the word "whores" to describe Kaleidescape as a company, stating that your warranty lapsed without them offering you an extension. My initial post was simply calling out your lie by quoting word for word a post you made previous to your ranting post. In that post you were contemplating upgrading as opposed to extending the warranty which was set to expire.

Not only am I contemplating upgrading as opposed to extending the warranty, I have elected NOT to extend the warranty and to purchase a new server should my server fail, and I have so informed both my dealer and Kaleidescape. The purpose of my earlier post was to find out whether there was an upgrade path (there is none other than paying list price for a new server and paying for data transfer). Now that I know that there is a way to move from one server to another, even though there is no upgrade offer, I can simply wait until the day, if it ever comes, that my server fails, and then buy a new one. But that decision could only have been made AFTER the post you are referring to, given the fact that the post was requesting the information necessary to make that decision. Moreover, none of this has any bearing on the fact that I was not offered the opportunity to extend my warranty before it expired, which according to Michael Malcolm is Kaleidescape's normal operating procedure.

I don't think it is appropriate for me to cite the list of dates on which the various events occurred, but suffice it to day that I posted the thread about replacing the server less than one hour after getting the price on extending the warranty and many weeks after my being informed that it had been allowed to expire without my knowledge. No inconsistencies, only what you consider the egregious "lie" that I stated that my warranty was about to expire and I was trying to decide whether to extend it, as opposed to the literal truth which is that my warranty had already expired but I still had the opportunity to extend it and I was trying to decide whether or not do do that. If you think that that distinction has any substantive significance, then I'll defer to your judgment. I don't see it, though.

And, by the way, I never said that Kaleidescape were whores for allowing the warranty to expire. I called them that, wrongly as it turns out, because I perceived that they were charging for things that I thought should be free. That's what whores do. While I withdraw the charge against Kaleidescape, that is what the term whore means and I used it accurately to the situation as I perceived it, as far as semantics goes, even if I now concede that the situation is not as I believed it to be.

 

[Legdiian]

And, by the way, I never said that Kaleidescape were whores for allowing the warranty to expire. I called them that, wrongly as it turns out, because I perceived that they were charging for things that I thought should be free. That's what whores do. While I withdraw the charge against Kaleidescape, that is what the term whore means and I used it accurately to the situation as I perceived it, as far as semantics goes, even if I now concede that the situation is not as I believed it to be.

Spoken like a true lawyer

 

[JerryL]

All I can say is I am very impressed that Mr. Malcolm would post here. I have been involved with many high end products on many forums for over a decade and I have never seen a direct posting from the person in charge. Ever.

I do not know him besides from a brief email exchange about how happy I am with the product and service and I think this speaks very highly of him.

Good for you Sir.

 

[Dizzman]

To claim that there are tons of problems is a dangerous thing with k.

The K system logs all errors down to disc read/write failures. so if you claim that there have been tons of issues and Mike says that they have gone over the logs... then there have been no problems.

As well, i know firsthand that if a customer has an issue, K bends over backwards to fix it. and from knowing the industry, more often than not, the issues lie with the dealer.

 

[eschmidt]

Wow I go on vacation for awhile and it hits the fan!
I know that sometimes it feels good to vent, to have someone listen. However I would recommend a technique that I once read was popular with Abe Lincoln. When he would get frustrated, angry, disappointed he would write it in a letter to the person(s) that he had these feelings toward/for but would never send it. I do this all the time and it is very effective. For me it's important to actually write it down vs. say typing and email or a blog post

Anyway on to my post.
I have been in the custom electronics industry for -blows off dust-20+ years.
I can count on one hand companies that:
A: Delivered an industry changing product that from day one was 100%-Ok Kaleidescape is the only company I think I can count
B: Delivers mission critical reliability and performance
C: Provided real upgrades both software & hardware on a regular basis-again I can't think of anyone with such an active and aggressive update/upgrade cycle
D: Provides excellent support for their products as well as tons of help trouble shooting other manufactures that they touch

Now about that Bluray thing

 

[rbienstock]

To claim that there are tons of problems is a dangerous thing with k.

The K system logs all errors down to disc read/write failures. so if you claim that there have been tons of issues and Mike says that they have gone over the logs... then there have been no problems.

As well, i know firsthand that if a customer has an issue, K bends over backwards to fix it. and from knowing the industry, more often than not, the issues lie with the dealer.

I've been asked not to prolong this debate in a public forum, so I won't other than to say that my issues are being resolved and that my dealer is doing the exemplary job that they have always done. And FYI, I spoke by phone to someone who said he as the VP in charge of tech support at Kaleidescape and I specifically asked him if he could go into my logs so that he could verify that my reader was failing, and he told me that they didn't have that capability. But maybe you are more familiar with their capabilities than he is,

 

[rbienstock]

I have been in the custom electronics industry for -blows off dust-20+ years.
I can count on one hand companies that:
A: Delivered an industry changing product that from day one was 100%-Ok Kaleidescape is the only company I think I can count
B: Delivers mission critical reliability and performance
C: Provided real upgrades both software & hardware on a regular basis-again I can't think of anyone with such an active and aggressive update/upgrade cycle
D: Provides excellent support for their products as well as tons of help trouble shooting other manufactures that they touch

How about Meridian, Cello or Lexicon. Indeed until their company was sold out from under them by Harman, Lexicon had the most active upgrade program that I can think of and they gave 70% to 100% of retail value in trade-in whenever an upgrade required new hardware. And they support end-users directly, not just dealers.

 

[JerryL]

Lexicons upgrade program was fantastic. I agree that Meridian and Lexicon would fit all of the criteria eschmidt mentions. I dont know Cello beyond the name so my leaving them out is not a knock, just dont know.

 

[rbienstock]

I dont know Cello beyond the name so my leaving them out is not a knock, just dont know.

Well Cello are now defunct, so I probably shouldn't have included them. They were the company that Mark Levinson started after he sold his eponymous company. They produced what was arguably the highest quality (and most expensive) amps and preamps ever made. Now that I think about it, I probably should have listed McIntosh instead of Cello as McIntosh is still in business and are now being very innovative (as opposed to their former conservative stance).

 

[iansilv]

And, by the way, I never said that Kaleidescape were whores for allowing the warranty to expire. I called them that, wrongly as it turns out, because I perceived that they were charging for things that I thought should be free. That's what whores do. While I withdraw the charge against Kaleidescape, that is what the term whore means and I used it accurately to the situation as I perceived it, as far as semantics goes, even if I now concede that the situation is not as I believed it to be.

OK- I just read through this thread- but this little piece of quote above grabbed my attention- "That's what whores do.". This is amazing. I would like to use a bunch of technical mumbo-jumbo to describe my feelings here, but I think I can sum it up by my assessments of "rbienstock" from the piece of his writing above: rbienstock is a genetically gifted, highly evolved mutant a**hole.

And- Mr. Malcom- so, casually speaking when will we get bluray?

 

[JerryL]

Always liked McIntosh, but Meridian is my favorite in the high end space. And of course I also like Kaleidescape.

 

[rbienstock]

As promised, I am pleased to report that my issues were eventually resolved. I am reasonably satisfied with the results.