bchild311

Hey welcome to the post. Nice of you to join in at this point so late in the game and offer up your opinion. As far as the story being one-sided, how else do you see it? I mean opinions aside, the facts remain true. I was without a sub for 2 months. The subwoofer they delivered back to me was damaged. That in itself is complete justification. And yes the subwoofer is black. Would they not have damaged it if it had been Cherry? By the way I'll be making yet another trip to Ultimate tomorrow to check on the order status of the replacement sub. I'm going to demand to see it in the computer 'cause personally I think I'm getting taken for a ride on this one.

This experience just keeps getting better and better. And by that I mean worse and worse. After confirming the ch.11 from UE, I went and paid them a visit. They still claim that my subwoofer is still on order and will be coming. Initially they told me 2 weeks. Now they say sometime late Feb. I'm calling BS on this one because it should take 3-4 days tops to have Klipsch send them a new sub. I may have to claim that I'm insane and go set fire to the store here. RRRRRRRRRGHH!!!

Chapter 11 are you kidding me? Where did you get that info? Google here I come ...

Hmmm this SVS phenomenom is interesting. I love the RSW-15 though. Supposedly the new sub is still on its way. They're not in too big of a hurry to get it here looks like. Oh well. The damaged one they brought back from service at least works still. I can play the waiting game.

That post was for everyone that read my 2 month ordeal with Ultimate. If you guys missed it then you missed the joke entirely. I'm not that narrowminded. I know there are knowledgable people out there. Just not at my Ultimate dealer!

Holy cow a bad experience with Ultimate? I've never heard of such a thing. I thought those guys were sweet. Someone should have posted something about how bad their customer service and knowledge of their sales team is. Geez ...

Absolutely Colter, there are some great people here ...

I'm so pleased with the moderators of this forum, in particular for Steve, in that he took a concern to a long-time and continued loyal Klipsch customer. I have never been disappointed by the care and integrity with which Klipsch stands behind their products and their consumers. Perhaps the Ultimate Electronics in my area is a single source of pain within their franchise, but I have sure seen their store go downhill over the years. Its unfortuneate that it had to get this ugly for them to just pony up and do the right thing, but perhaps times have changed. In any event I feel justice is served and that I am getting back a product that will be in the same condition as it was when it left my home for service in the first place. Thanks again to Klipsch and the guys behind the forum. Keep up the good work.

OK, finally a resolution and someone took some initiative. After about 200 phone calls and some real frustration I think Ultimate is going to suck it up and do the right thing here. I've just received a phone call from the store manager at Ultimate and he is being very cooperative after a phone call from Joe Lee at Klipsch. They have ordered me a new sub and it should be here in about 2-3 weeks. At that time I will bring my old one in for the new one. That wasn't their first suggestion however, they wanted to exchange my old one for their current floor model. Ummm, I don't trust floor models. Who knows whats been done to that. Anyway, the sub is a fantastic piece of hardware. I hope the new amp will be a little better and won't give out like the first one, but I think it was just some bad luck. I think this is the least they can do considering how frustrating and crappy the service has been. I have taken precautions to making sure it is protected against power surges. I've never had any other equipment suffer from anything like this. Anyway ... I hope that they will go through with their committment to a new sub. Thank you Klipsch!

Thanks to Steve Bailey. I just got off the phone with him at Klipsch and he was most helpful. He is getting me in touch with the Klipsch rep for Ultimate and hopefully we can rattle some skulls over there at the service depot. I also called the manager of the Ultimate store here just before calling Steve at Klipsch. He told me there would be nothing he could do to resolve the problem. It's hard for me to believe that after being a customer for 10 years and dedicated klipsch audiophile that he would say something like that. Hopefully the Klipsch rep will be able to help. Plan C will be to contact the BBB, setup a display in front of their store, and then hang up a printed copy of the email I sent to Matt Brown, the manager there so that his future customers can see how they may be treated. Thanks for all the replies and advice guys. I really appreciate it. And thanks to Steve and the good guys at Klipsch!

Well fellas, almost 2 months since I first took the subwoofer in. And yes they did get it fixed but the damage was still done and there is still yet to be any resolution for what they did. I have not heard so much as a phone call from the manager at Ultimate Electronics despite all his promises to fix this problem. I have been patient enough I think. I hope that the moderator for this forum is seeing the type of distributor that they have in Utah here and can pass the info along to the higher-ups at Klipsch. Poor service. Very, very, poor. I'm going to call again tomorrow. The saga continues ...

Seismic ... It's been almost 1.5 weeks now since getting the damaged sub back and still no resolution. The manager at Ultimate Electronics here is "trying to work something out." So we'll see what lame thing they come up with to compensate for hackin' on a $1500 subwoofer. I've made 3 calls to him and 2 calls to the people that actually did the service on the sub. I've also emailed them more photos of what the sub looked like beforehand. Its a simple thing, you'd think. I'll let you know when I do. Thanks for askin'.

Is there anyway the moderator of this forum can see to it that someone who makes corporate decisions at Klipsch can see this thread? Is there any justice anymore?

I'm sorry to continue a bad experience like this but I want to share this with everyone and anyone who has or will ever shop at Ultimate Electronics. I have just gone through the worst customer service experience of my life. Not only did they provide me with horrible service, elusive phone operators, un-educated answers to the products issues, and sometimes even plain stupidity, I got to pick up my subwoofer with damage to the wood. They wheeled it out to me on a dolly and told me to hold on to it to make sure it didn't fall off. Then I had to tell the kid who was wheeling it out to my car to please stop so that I could inspect the condition of the speaker before I left with it. To my dismay, but not complete surprise, it had numerous knicks in the wood and damage to one of the corners as if it had been dropped. Wow great service guys! So professional! Here is an excerpt from the email I wrote to the store manager, sorry for the length, but you Ultimate customers may thank me: Dear Matt Brown, I'm so discouraged with my experience with Ultimate Electronics as of late. I've been a customer with you for over 10 years now and expect something of a satisfactory customer service level when one of the products purchased from you has a problem. The last 6 weeks though in dealing with this subwoofer has been nothing short of a complete nightmare and has left me extremely disgruntled with Ultimate Electronics' performance. From the initial moment when I brought the subwoofer in for repair I was met with resistance. 2 of your employees immediately said, "Sorry we can't help you because you didn't buy an extended warranty." Knowing this might happen I had called beforehand and made sure that the RSW15 model was covered under 5 years. After about 20 min and Chad stepping into the situation we finally resolved the fact that it indeed had a 5 year warranty. I had carefully packed my subwoofer in all the original packaging to make sure that nothing happened to it during service. I had every single piece of packaging in that box. Unfortuneately it was all for naught because the service policy, as you know, is to ship the product without packaging or accessories. I specifically asked Chad and the other employees helping me that night if anything would happen to the subwoofer. They assured me it would be fine and that they would bubble wrap it etc. I already had a horrible feeling about this and this only added to the anxiety. And so began the servicing of the subwoofer. I was told that it may be done in as little as 10 days but to expect a 14-21 day turnaround. I was willing to work with that. When I called to check on my status of the subwoofer using the #540273 service tag you provided I spoke with Bob and he had no clue what was going on with my sub. He never returned any calls when he said that he would and I always had to call back and speak to someone else. In total I made over twenty phone calls trying to figure out what was wrong with the servicing of this sub. I heard several excuses to why the delay. Everything from they were waiting on parts, to they lost the paperwork, to the truck it was being transported in wrecked, and a few others. It was only after I pleaded with Armando at Express Service to give me the actual phone number to where the subwoofer was being serviced that I got anywhere. I finally talked with Jason there and he knew exactly what was up. He quickly took care of the problem and had it up and going within just a couple of hours. He was even nice enough to make sure it got on the truck to Orem that same day. That was Monday the 29th of November of 2004. Unfortuneately it didn't make it to Orem that day as promised. Nor did it make it the next day. It was only after I again made the effort to call you that I found out that the sub was back in Orem and ready to be picked up. After asking Josh in your store's service department why he didn't let me know about the sub he said that my information on the ticket was incorrect. After 20 phone calls I have a hard time accepting this. You may be able to feel a little of my discouragement by now Matt. Now to top off this whole awful experience with Ultimate Electronics I get to receive my subwoofer in worse condition than I left it. Damaged and with knicks and scratches on the fine wood that it's made with. Needless to say my opinion of Ultimate has been greatly jeaoparidized by this and I feel that you have shown me nothing even close to professional customer service in this regard. It is an insult to me that you would have to ask me for photos to verify the fact that I actually take care of my home theater equipment. Especially when you have another person from your company, Jason, who will back me with his testimony of the condition of the subwoofer. I know that you understand that this particular model is expensive and is of fine quality, and that one would be foolish to not take care of it. Despite all of this I have provided you with patience and photos as I have said I would to help extinguish all your doubts of my integrity. If there is any ounce of desire for you to help redeem the name Ultimate Electronics and your service dept please take care of a loyal and long-time customer in this incidence. I hope to remedy this situation as soon as possible and in a professional manner. I am prepared to take this issue up with Dave Workman. I have already spoken with his administrative assistant about this. I am also prepared to take this issue up with Klipsch directly. As one of their dealers they should know how people are taking care of their customers. I have posted a thread in the klipsch forum about this very experience which you can see documented at this link: Like I said, Matt, please help me feel good about buying my components at Ultimate Electronics. Please contact me at the soonest possible sign of resolve. Thanks for your understanding in this and hope to hear from you soon ...

Another thing that will help and is just common sense: Crank your center channel db up. Keep those fronts turned down in a ratio of about 2:1 or whatever seems to fit your ear. It sounds like you may be having this problem when you are watching movies late at night and don't want the sound up too high. But, movies are made to be played loud. Thats the way the audio engineers mix them. So when an explosion happens its really like an explosion in relevance to the dialogue. Most action/music is going to take place out of your fronts, sub, and rears. Your dialogue and other subtleties from the center comes from the center. So crank that center guy up and then hold on for the action sequences. As always just experiment and attune it to your personal tastes.

'Pinkski ... I'd put my money on Ultimate over Best Buy anyday though. I think I must have one of the more pathetic Ultimate shops in my area. They really didn't used to be this bad. Best Buy isn't even authorized to sell Reference series components. I would buy online before going there. I called the 'Express' Service shop that is doing the repair on this speaker on Friday. The guy was supposed to call me back and let me know where the 'part' was. He didn't even know it was a subwoofer. So frustrating. I finally had to call back myself and had another guy tell me everything I already knew, which was basically nothing. My 'part' is floating around somewhere and my nice black finised RSW is sitting in some shop somewhere collecting dust. I'm going to raise hell if the sub is returned in any less condition than when I left it. I can already picture the dings and scraps in the nice wood. RRRRRRRRRRRRGH!

Thanks for the tip Arthurs. I will give it a try. Hope it helps ...

Well fellas its been a month now since the RSW failed on me. Still have not heard a solid resolution to the problem from Ultimate. They are a bunch of hosers. I hope I get a subwoofer back sometime in the near future. Disappointing to say the least.

Holy cow that has to be so frustrating. Are you sure the amp is still ok? I had the amp go out in my RSW-15. Just a thought.

I have purchased a few things online. I trust Yahoo and have had good luck with them. Just by going to shopping.yahoo.com I look for a vendor with a good rating and a decent website to back them. Then I usually call them and speak with them first-hand. I've made these purchases: Denon DVD 3800 - shipped within a week, came flawless and functioned perfectly Klipsch RC-7 - shipped within a week, came flawless and perfect function Klipsch KLF-30 - got them from ebay from a guy in Cali Good luck so far. I like the comfort of dealing with a certified Klipsch dealer, but ironically the only thing purchased from them has been the equipment that fails.

Brian, your words are haunting me. "First mistake is doing business with Ultimate ..." It's been a nightmare since having my sub gone. Sucks having equipment out on service anyway, but when the repair center that is doing the work won't return calls and everyone has their heads up their butts and no-one knows whats going on it makes you wanna purchase a rocket launcher. Anyway, I am looking forward to when it returns. Movies just aren't the same without the RSW. (sniff) ... Oh someone finally had a status for me yesterday when I called. "Waiting for parts" is the current status. Hopefully within the next 2 or 3 weeks. All you guys that have had equipment go out on you, you can feel my pain. Thank you thank you.

OK, so I take the crippled RSW-15 into my local Ultimate Electronics dealer here today. I was crossing my fingers and hoping for the best, but not expecting too much. I arrive with the sub all packaged in original packaging and head for the door. The sucker weighs over 85 lbs all packaged up and I bring it in with everyone in the store looking at me like, "What the?" I set the sub on the floor and wait for 3 minutes or so until some punk kid says, "Uh can I help you?" I tell them about my phone call to them on Sat and explain the problem with the sub. He cuts me off and says, "did you buy an extended warranty?" And I'm thinking, why would I do that when Klipsch has a 5year warranty on their subs? I tell him that and he says, "Sorry sir, our computers tell us that this sub only has a 1 year warranty so you'll have to deal with Klipsch yourself." And this was exactly why I called them on Sat and explained it all so I wouldn't have to drag the speaker in there and have them do this to me. I suggest to the clerk that he call the Klipsch rep for Ultimate and find out for sure. So he does and after about 5 min he gets the answer that he should've known. Yes Klipsch has a 5-yr warranty and yes they'll take care of the sub for me. Phew! ok glad we have that settled. After packaging up the sub, the clerk tells me he has to take the sub out of the box because they bubble-wrap the sub itself in shipping in case they lose a powercord or the grill. I find that odd, but whatever. So we unpack it and take care of the paperwork and get it all ready for shipping. Needless to say its just an unbearable experience to ever work with these guys and they are so far from professional with the way they handle things its just humiliating. At any rate, the sub is on its way to being fixed and I can't wait to get it back. The guy told me they'll shoot for a 21 day turnaround. (sigh) I'll keep you guys posted on how this unfolds. I hope it comes back to me in the same condition it was brought in to them = flawless. Thanks for your help and sorry for the long thread here. Rock on...

I wish it was the cable. Something that simple is what you wish for. Alas I have packed up that heavy sucker and I'll be taking it back to my dealer on Monday. That sub is a TANK.

Thanks for the replies guys. I think my best bet is to hope for the quick turnaround from Klipsch. Oh well. I'll be excited to get it back. Crud.

My RSW-15 will power on ok, I get the green light, but the sub isn't firing at all. Movies, music, nothing will make it drive. I checked the obvious things, fuse, amp settings etc and its still all good. Everything is in place to work and nothing. It was working the last time I watched a movie, hmmm last night, but nothing now. I'm pretty torqued. I've only had the sub for about a year now. The settings I have on it are set at Phase 0 degrees, LFE power on detected, and Low pass enabled. I also had a KSW-12 go out on me a few years back. It was doing the same thing. Power on but no drive. Sounds like its just hosed. I called the dealer I bought it from and they said to just bring it in because it will have a 5-year warranty on it. That's going to take days to get anything done with it going that route. Has anyone had this problem? Anyone have any other ideas? Thanks for any help you can give.