Ken At Upland?

[mark214]

This is a post I did not want to make, I have seen a number of posts here on Ken at Upland not responding after many months, in my case I sent him a 123a from an L100 in October 2021. Emails, messages here and phone calls have gone unanswered. He seems to have an active business on Ebay and his work is said to be the best, I am sure his professional accounts go to the front of the line. His last post here seems to be in 2022. I strongly dislike making this post, but this October it will be 2 years, I am at a loss does anyone have a way of contacting Ken? Thank You

[DerekTheGreat]

I am in the same boat. I last talked to him about three months ago. At which point he said he'd have my 044's and PR300's turned around in "a few weeks." In total, he's had my drivers for over a year now. I'm at a loss with what to do, although I was surprised I got that call. Not surprised I don't have my drivers though, but don't feel like calling him back as I'm sure he'll just spin me another tale. Seriously contemplating cutting my losses by listing my L150A's as they are just so I can completely forget about the whole experience.

[mark214]

I am in the same boat. I last talked to him about three months ago. At which point he said he'd have my 044's and PR300's turned around in "a few weeks." In total, he's had my drivers for over a year now. I'm at a loss with what to do, although I was surprised I got that call. Not surprised I don't have my drivers though, but don't feel like calling him back as I'm sure he'll just spin me another tale. Seriously contemplating cutting my losses by listing my L150A's as they are just so I can completely forget about the whole experience.

The driver I sent him was to have a spare, it does not take an L100 out of service. I wanted it repaired based on his great reputation (former).

[Riley Casey]

Ken just popped up in a Facebook JBL group to correct me on a technical point so perhaps FB is a route to getting in touch.

[mark214]

Ken just popped up in a Facebook JBL group to correct me on a technical point so perhaps FB is a route to getting in touch.

Thanks for the potential method to contact him, but he is simply not responding. Here is the information on the message I sent him via this forum: Sent Date: 12-04-2022 03:05 PM Read Date: 02-23-2023 02:56 AM

[macaroonie]

I woul suggest that with the demise of JBL support for legacy products Ken is probably snowed under.
Its a massive undertaking IMO.

[DerekTheGreat]

That's no excuse for alienating return & paying customers.

[macaroonie]

That's no excuse for alienating return & paying customers.

I wasn't offering an excuse just an observation as to what might be the cause of the problem. Ken is a one man band., just sayin.

[mark214]

We all have been hit with a lot of work in our lives, we understand he is a one-man show. In my case, completely blowing off and ignoring a customer who he estimated it would take "a few weeks" to complete for a year and a half ago is hard to understand, much less excuse. In @DerekTheGreat case, he has disabled his L150A's. He seems to have enough time to conduct business on Ebay. https://www.ebay.com/usr/edgewound0z15#tab2

[DerekTheGreat]

Wow, that's a nice slap in the face. Of course he has time for eBay, but not for guys like us. And of course he has Aquaplas'd recone kits for the 2245H...

If I ran a business, I wouldn't accept any additional work if I was overloaded. Selling my L150A's has started to become more and more appealing. I've changed direction since they've been down. If anything, perhaps they would've made a cool gift to my old man.

[Chris Brown]

He seems to have enough time to conduct business on Ebay. https://www.ebay.com/usr/edgewound0z15#tab2

Seems like he has sold 8 items over the course of the last year, and most of those have been mounting screws. He does have some active listings, but those refresh automatically (meaning those listings could have been up for years already, for something that is possibly just sitting on a shelf). Not trying to make excuses, just pointing out that he doesn't seem to be doing much business on eBay. I'd be equally mad if my stuff had been delayed this long. Unless he's in the hospital or something, there is no excuse not to at least communicate. Even just giving the broken drivers back is better than ghosting people. It's a real shame if this causes you guys to give up on your speakers.

[DerekTheGreat]

Right, I'd rather hear the truth than be strung along and yeah, just ship my drivers & the supplies I sent back to me.

Meh, with the L150A's being down, I ended up changing direction. Picked up a set of XPL200's and then some UREI 813C's & B460 clones, which kick the snot out of the XPL's which bested the L150A's, I've got no place for the L150A's to go.. I think my old man might say the 150A's are too big anyway, that he wouldn't have any room for 'em either.

[Ian Mackenzie]

I was looking for something on AK and unfortunately Ken had a laundry list as long as a toilet roll since before covid. With reference to the pile ( backlog) regrettably it would appear there is no management of the work in progress. If there was and the pipeline was moving an ETA could be forecast

In the early days Acoustic Elegance, a boutique OEM driver manufacturer up at Green Bay was in a similar state. He was a one man show and almost lost everything. He lost track and he near went off the deep end. No email responses is a sign. Look for an alternative or move onto something else. The grief just isn’t worth it. I had moved onto something else by the time my woofers arrived. Does that sound familiar?

Acoustic Elegance eventually put on new staff and the business turned around with real time updates, what was in stock ect and a production update thread. Today he is making OEM drivers for some hi end loudspeaker manufacturers.

In business a fools paradise is a wise man’s hell. They will eventually go out of business unless they grow. Out of their own ignorance actually. This type of situation is often associated with a double life of self fulfilment while they screw over the customer and drain everything out of the business. It’s called cheating the customers. The reality is they just don’t care. In business a sob story is a weak excuse.

I’ve seen it all over a career spanning 40 years.

The answer is simple:

There are three options
1. Put up with it. (If they continue to fuck you over more than twice then go to 3.)
2. Change it if you can (unlikely, they have to change to make it work)
3. Do something else (either use another business or another loudspeaker and fuck it)

If you’ve attempted 1& 2 then 3 is the logical choice.

There’s no turning back because you’ve made a decision and taken action.
Don’t be sentimental about it.

Edit: Audio Research has just gone into receivership and will most likely be re acquired.

[mark214]

After he thankfully recovered from covid he told me it would be a few weeks. His work is said to be the best, common courtesy is nonexistent when he refuses to take 1-2 minutes to respond to one of multiple emails and refuses to answer the phone.

[Ian Mackenzie]

For those checking I on this thread my intent is to validate and acknowledge the issue. Then provide a way of dealing with the situation other than the venting or flaring of frustrations that surface. Those involved or effected can then move forward.