J.Mike Ferrara
Auditioning
- Joined
- Aug 15, 1999
- Messages
- 4
Up front, this is only my experience, so it's somewhat hard for others to make a fair judgement, but I see a pattern that I felt needed to be shared with forum members.
Who hasn't been seduced by the goods looks of a Loewe DTV? I know I was, so fall of '99 I purchased a 32" Loewe 4:3 Arcadia - the model with the georgous black piano finish! BTW, the picture looked terrific: out of the box, excellent grayscale, no red push, and all input upconverted to a nice 480p picture. Of course, anamorphic DVDs were shown properly - after all, this is a $3000 DTV. At the time, there was no competition. I was very pleased.
Late last year, something happened. I turned the set on one day, and the geometry was off. I decided to get a service manual, so I called Sensory Science, the distributor in the US. Well, when you call SS, you never speak to a live person; you must leave a message and then hope the callback happens at at time when you are available. This certainly raised an eyebrow. After several rounds of phone tag lasting for 2 days, I was finally able to place the order for the manual.
The manual arrived, and I tried to correct the bowing that I saw at the botton and top of the screen, but any control to adjust this was absent. Since I was planning to go to CES, I figured I'd drop by the SS booth. Sure enough, a rep from SS told me what I could do to fix the problem - he'd seen this on other Loewe sets. Back home, the "fix" had absolutely no affect. I began to wonder if SS folks really understood how the Loewe works.
Again, I called SS, and again after a round of phone tag, I connected with a guy fro SS tech support, who decided that my Loewe needed a new video card that would increase the voltage and correct the bowing problem. OK, so the card is ordered, Myer-Emco (the DC high end dealer where I bought the set) puts the card in, and my 'fixed' Loewe is returned. With great anticipation, I turned the set on - what I saw almost made me throw up! Not only was the geometry distrotion still there (hell, M-E hadn't even checked the picture, since the new card affected the horz height which I had to reset), but now the picture bloomed when large white areas were present. To compensate, I had to lower the contrast, and now have a dim flat picture. For this I paid $3000???.
Suffice to say, I've been round the block with SS & M-E, with the cursory fingerpointings, misunderstandings, and outright lies that I guess are typical of "customer service" today. SS even sent out an east coast rep who agreed that the picture was not of the quality that should be expected, but to no avail.
At this time, SS has taken the position that the set meets "spec" - this is code for a company that does not wish to expend any effort or money to meet customer expectations. M-E has agreed to give me 60% of what I paid for the Loewe as a down payment towards a replacement, but I'm now wondering what my extended warranty for the Loewe is for. It's a performance guarantee, BTW.
So, the bottom line is this: with a far greater selection of DTV sets now available, and competative prices, why would you want to deal with a company that believes the following is "within spec?"
PS: If it's not clear by the picture, the set is incapable of producing a straight horz line except in the very center.
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**J.Mike**
Enjoying HDTV in DC
Who hasn't been seduced by the goods looks of a Loewe DTV? I know I was, so fall of '99 I purchased a 32" Loewe 4:3 Arcadia - the model with the georgous black piano finish! BTW, the picture looked terrific: out of the box, excellent grayscale, no red push, and all input upconverted to a nice 480p picture. Of course, anamorphic DVDs were shown properly - after all, this is a $3000 DTV. At the time, there was no competition. I was very pleased.
Late last year, something happened. I turned the set on one day, and the geometry was off. I decided to get a service manual, so I called Sensory Science, the distributor in the US. Well, when you call SS, you never speak to a live person; you must leave a message and then hope the callback happens at at time when you are available. This certainly raised an eyebrow. After several rounds of phone tag lasting for 2 days, I was finally able to place the order for the manual.
The manual arrived, and I tried to correct the bowing that I saw at the botton and top of the screen, but any control to adjust this was absent. Since I was planning to go to CES, I figured I'd drop by the SS booth. Sure enough, a rep from SS told me what I could do to fix the problem - he'd seen this on other Loewe sets. Back home, the "fix" had absolutely no affect. I began to wonder if SS folks really understood how the Loewe works.
Again, I called SS, and again after a round of phone tag, I connected with a guy fro SS tech support, who decided that my Loewe needed a new video card that would increase the voltage and correct the bowing problem. OK, so the card is ordered, Myer-Emco (the DC high end dealer where I bought the set) puts the card in, and my 'fixed' Loewe is returned. With great anticipation, I turned the set on - what I saw almost made me throw up! Not only was the geometry distrotion still there (hell, M-E hadn't even checked the picture, since the new card affected the horz height which I had to reset), but now the picture bloomed when large white areas were present. To compensate, I had to lower the contrast, and now have a dim flat picture. For this I paid $3000???.
Suffice to say, I've been round the block with SS & M-E, with the cursory fingerpointings, misunderstandings, and outright lies that I guess are typical of "customer service" today. SS even sent out an east coast rep who agreed that the picture was not of the quality that should be expected, but to no avail.
At this time, SS has taken the position that the set meets "spec" - this is code for a company that does not wish to expend any effort or money to meet customer expectations. M-E has agreed to give me 60% of what I paid for the Loewe as a down payment towards a replacement, but I'm now wondering what my extended warranty for the Loewe is for. It's a performance guarantee, BTW.
So, the bottom line is this: with a far greater selection of DTV sets now available, and competative prices, why would you want to deal with a company that believes the following is "within spec?"
PS: If it's not clear by the picture, the set is incapable of producing a straight horz line except in the very center.
------------------
**J.Mike**
Enjoying HDTV in DC
