Lifetime Service for MartinLogan Products

[Rich]

I wonder if the panels are cheaper in Canada, now that they're made here, or if Plurison, ML's gouging distributor here has found some way to still justify higher prices than in the U.S.

I think you probably already know the answer to that one . . .

 

[Rich]

I would like to take a moment to add to the discussion concerning the recent price increases of some of our service parts and components. For close to 30 years MartinLogan has striven to provide needed service components for many of the products we’ve manufactured since our inception as a company in 1983. Our primary goal in providing these service parts and support to our community of friends and owners has and will continue to focus on allowing you access to parts and accessories to keep your speakers sounding and performing as new.

This is true. But it has all suddenly changed with the corporate takeover of ML and its combination with Paradigm. ML has new owners now and you can't even begin to pretend to be following the customer service practices put in place by ML's founders. Everything has changed in the last few years and ML cannot continue to trumpet their past reputation for customer service, because the policies that resulted in such service have been gutted and the people who carried them out, for the most part, have been let go.

The difficultly for MartinLogan, as with most manufacturers, is balancing our desire to provide our owners with the required parts at an honest, fair price and the need to adjust our pricing to fairly reflect on-going material and labor cost increases.

One of your justifications for moving production to Canada was the expected reduction in labor costs, so this argument is somewhat of a sham. Either you were lying then, or you are lying now. So, are you saying that materials costs of stamped metal grids and mylar sheeting have tripled in the past couple of years? I find that hard to believe.

In addition, as requests for parts for our older MartinLogan products decline naturally, this results in higher increases in material costs. This is due to smaller minimum order purchases from our suppliers which cost significantly more than when these same components were purchased at much higher quantity levels as associated with active production. As a rule of thumb, supplier costs always go up when MOQ (Minimum Order Quantity) goes down.

Another red herring. You have all the data for past demand for these parts. You can plan ahead and extrapolate future demand and purchase for several years of expected demand instead of just purchasing what you think you need for this year or this month. You can also use your clout as a purchaser of a great quantity of materials for your new speakers to demand reasonable pricing of those components you order less of from these manufacturers. Again, this argument is completely insufficient to justify a three-fold price increase.

Up until this year we have been able to sell these service parts to our end-users for the same wholesale pricing that we charge our authorized dealers with service departments in addition to national and international service centers.

And what has changed this year? You give no valid reason why suddenly this year you CAN'T continue to charge wholesale pricing for these parts. I find it interesting that you waited about a year after the big controversy about discontinuing legacy support to quietly throw up a three-fold price increase in legacy parts. Seems like you waited for the controversy to die down, and then quietly instituted a pricing policy that you hoped would have the same effect in a back-door kind of way.

Our recent service pricing increase is not pleasant for us, and is not an easy decision. MartinLogan does not expect our service component sales to be a profit source, but on the other hand our service department cannot lose money on these sales either. If we were to continue our older pricing structure, we would be forced to evaluate the support of our older legacy products that are currently being supported.

Again, a three-fold increase in price suggests there is more going on here. You have already evaluated support for older legacy model products and determined not to support them. Only after severe backlash on this site did you reconsider that decision. This staggering price increase appears to be a very transparent attempt to achieve the same end (requiring customers to upgrade to new models rather than repair their older legacy models) by forcing consumers into paying ridiculous prices for parts of older speakers.

Also, your statement that you "cannot lose money on these sales either" is absolute BS! Companies lose money on service/parts of legacy models all the time in order to maintain customer loyalty. As you said yourself, these sales make up a very small percentage of what you sell. You could certainly afford to lose a little money on these sales in order to maintain your brand name and customer loyalty toward your high-end speakers. As it is, you are going to lose much more money due to the loss of brand reputation than you would ever lose by continuing to support legacy models. But then, that is exactly what I would expect from a high end audio company who replaced their CEO with a man who has never had any experience in this field and whose main claim to fame was his cost cutting abilities at his former job. Martin Logan is now viewed by corporate management only in terms of a short-term view of the balance sheet, with profit motive the only apparent goal.

In closing, thanks for your understanding and continued support!

I don't think you get it, Scotty. You are rapidly losing all understanding and continued support by the members of this board. Long time ML fans are turning their backs on the company they have loved, because the philosophy of that company has been completely changed and profit motive seems to be the only thing driving ML's decisions at this time. What was once a great company driven by amazing people, is now just a corporate-owned shell of its former self.

Let's just make it clear. You produce an expensive product whose materials have a limited lifespan. If you don't continue to support legacy models (and at reasonable prices), then the value of the speakers on the used market will plummet. As this occurs, those of us who have bought Martin Logan over the years (and I personally have bought over $20,000 of your speakers in the past) will simply not consider your brand in future speaker purchasing decisions and will steer all of our friends away from your brand. In other words, with all the great speakers out there (so many of whom offer great legacy model support), it will simply not make economic sense for any of us to purchase another pair of Martin Logans.

 

[Dan Osib]

Nice one Martin Logan you've just lost all of your old customers. Give that man a cigar!!

 

[projectormovielover]

All that money for a replacement on a perishable product WTF? It seems like Martin Logan does not care about customers anymore and instead just keep the shareholders happy

 

[amey01]

It seems like Martin Logan does not care about customers anymore and instead just keep the shareholders happy

Correct.

It's just that this is not a sustainable business model. The shareholders will only be happy for 6 months to a year. This is how long it will take for used market value to plummet as old models are placed in the rubbish bins. After used market values plummet, people will realise what appalling value retention ML has. This in turn will impact on the perceived value of new models. So the new models won't sell either. And the rest of us here - we won't consider new ones anyway. Such a shame. Sell now before you end up with very high disposal costs!

 

[MOON]

I guess when the panels go on my Odyssey's that I will certainly be switching brands also due to the over inflated cost of new panels.Personally, I like the sound of the older Martin Logans (Just my particular preference ) and wouldn't buy new ones to replace the Odyssey's.I don't think I am alone in this, so essentially Martin Logan will be eliminating some very loyal owners who once used to spread the virtues and good word of mouth about Martin Logans.

No super inflated cost increase on panel replacement will ever keep up to owners of Martin Logans who PREVIOUSLY spread the word of mouth on Martin Logan speakers. You can't put a price on that, which would make you (Martin Logan ) 1000 fold in revenue over your outrageous replacement panel cost.Food for thought.

I would certainly want my customer base to be happy and spread good things around about the product and company in general if I owned a company. It just makes good business sense, you guys (Martin Logan ) have lost your way.

There has been close to 16,000 views of this forum topic. That's a lot of people thinking twice about purchasing any new Martin Logan product.Market research says someone unhappy with a product usually tell 10 people about it, do the math!!

I had read here the other day that Martin Logan have some new products coming out in the future.Even if one of thoses new products was of great interest to me, at this point I wouldn't even consider it.

 

[husaskin]

So I'm not the only one who's enraged about this. I'm a dentist who takes pride in his work. Anything goes wrong with my work within 2 years, I replace it at no cost. After that time period, I still give breaks to my patients. Then my patients are happy and go out recruit others. I spend no money on marketing, but am busy as anything, thanks to my loyal patients. I'm just a small business owner, but my philosophy seems to work pretty well. Maybe my model does not work for a big company like ML, but you just lost another loyal customer and will be discouraging anyone who considers their products. Why are they charging $750 for a woofer that I can get for $110 elsewhere? Then they tell you they're losing money. A pair of SL3 panels costs me $1300 + $75 for shipping? Are you f*ing kidding me?

 

[projectormovielover]

Well my concern is that my Vista's are being discontinued so when the panel goes dead like all the panels do, will I be getting punished financially because its not a current product? If so I cannot get my head round this because the product is designed to eventually fail ?

I was planning some ML summit in my future but I don't know if its worth the stress of ownership knowing about the horrible price hikes, I might just rid myself of ML altogether

ML can forget about me recommending them from this point forth

 

[User211]

Bad vibes indeed.

 

[Rich]

Why are they charging $750 for a woofer that I can get for $110 elsewhere? Then they tell you they're losing money.

Exactly! And that is why it is so obvious the "we can't lose money on parts" argument is such a complete crock. Not only is it acceptable to lose money in this area if necessary to maintain customer goodwill and brand reputation, but they are so obviously trying to gouge their previous customers, not just because they want to make a profit in every aspect of the company, but because they want to force prior customers to upgrade to newer models. At the prices they are charging for new models, they should be ashamed of themselves. You can buy a new car for less than the CLX costs, and it will probably have a longer lifespan and reasonably-priced spare parts available for decades to come.

 

[Len44]

What's that common wisdom about complaints vs compliments (rants / raves)? Oh yeah: an individual disappointed is likely to tell at least 10 other people; a very satisfied person will tell somewhere between one and three others.

This NEW ML approach sure does not seem like a sustainable business model to me. Personally, being the (still current) proud and happy owner of Aeon(i), Ascent(i), and Summit speakers, I was just about to head into the CLX arena.

Now this.

Suddenly, I no longer see this happening.

I think they've lost their minds.

 

[User211]

That's funny Rich I was about to have a stab at retail prices but I just couldn't be bothered as it is not my concern anymore. You've made the point anyway.

 

[projectormovielover]

As promised I'm posting the response from our Director of Inside Sales & Product Management.
----------------------

Dear Valued MartinLogan owners,

I would like to take a moment to add to the discussion concerning the recent price increases of some of our service parts and components. For close to 30 years MartinLogan has striven to provide needed service components for many of the products we’ve manufactured since our inception as a company in 1983. Our primary goal in providing these service parts and support to our community of friends and owners has and will continue to focus on allowing you access to parts and accessories to keep your speakers sounding and performing as new.

The difficultly for MartinLogan, as with most manufacturers, is balancing our desire to provide our owners with the required parts at an honest, fair price and the need to adjust our pricing to fairly reflect on-going material and labor cost increases. In addition, as requests for parts for our older MartinLogan products decline naturally, this results in higher increases in material costs. This is due to smaller minimum order purchases from our suppliers which cost significantly more than when these same components were purchased at much higher quantity levels as associated with active production. As a rule of thumb, supplier costs always go up when MOQ (Minimum Order Quantity) goes down.

Up until this year we have been able to sell these service parts to our end-users for the same wholesale pricing that we charge our authorized dealers with service departments in addition to national and international service centers. Our recent service pricing increase is not pleasant for us, and is not an easy decision. MartinLogan does not expect our service component sales to be a profit source, but on the other hand our service department cannot lose money on these sales either. If we were to continue our older pricing structure, we would be forced to evaluate the support of our older legacy products that are currently being supported.

In closing, thanks for your understanding and continued support!

Scotty Wenzel
Director of Inside Sales and Product Management

When reading this I can see how you can BS us owners into the whole bulk buying price structures. You guys make the esl panels so why the big price hike in that department ?

 

[MOON]

There are 2 other important aspects Martin Logan are not taking into consideration.You see new members here joining this forum every day. This is the guy who has just gotten a used set of SL3's. He reads this forum topic and instead of having a potential future customer, the guy is thinking twice about every upgrading to new ML speakers.

The other main point I have is that the members of this forum are beleivers in the quality sound of Martin Logan speakers. We are not a new guy walking into a dealer showroom that needs convincing. You(Martin Logan ) are aleinating a for sure thing, your previous loyal customers and also those new to the fold that are realizing we are being fleeced on parts.

There is a company here in Canada, Bryston Audio that has a 2o year waranty. They repair anything over 20 years anyway, no charge.A lot of people buy Bryston for that reason. Their after sales service is well known in the audiophile community. You guys could take a lesson from them.

 

[husaskin]

There are 2 other important aspects Martin Logan are not taking into consideration.You see new members here joining this forum every day. This is the guy who has just gotten a used set of SL3's. He reads this forum topic and instead of having a potential future customer, the guy is thinking twice about every upgrading to new ML speakers.

Moon hit the nail on the head. I've waited 16 years to buy SL3 (after having owned Aerius and Sequel II previously). Now that I have convinced my wife of the sound quality and have some discretionary income, I was considering buying a new model from a dealer in a near future. After this debacle? No way in hell I'm touching another ML product. McIntosh has no problem servicing their Legacy products at a reasonable price. ML screwed up BIG TIME. I wonder if a Chinese knock off would come out soon?:devil:

 

[MOON]

I think it would be a mistake for Martin Logan to ignore our concerns.We are members on other audio sites which have a much greater membership than this site, they also have forum topic sctions. www.audioaficiondo.com has 60,000 members, www.canuckaudiomart.com has 41,500. It is now in the States also, www.usaudiomart.com Our little community here has just over 2000 members.

www.audiogon has a large membership as well, although they don't post the membership count. Word travels fast There is also www.audioassylum.com

For now, this outrgeous panel price increase has just been constrained to this site

 

[projectormovielover]

We should get a price comparison posted here for these hikes so we can educate would be buyers who are considering used ML to make them aware of what they may be getting into. If I saw an old pair of logans at a good price that just needed the panels replaced then I would be thinking its a smart move not knowing this new information

 

[MOON]

It wouldn't make sense to buy a used set of ML's. Say you buy a used set of SL3's for around $1300 to $1400. It's going to cost you more than that to repanel them. At this time , it really doesn't make any sense to buy new or used. Martin Logans new business strategy is planned obsolesence due to the over inflated cost they have tacked onto new replacement stators.
I did buy 2 new Depth i's last year, however looking at any future ML speakers is totally out of my future prospects.

 

[amey01]

We should get a price comparison posted here for these hikes so we can educate would be buyers who are considering used ML to make them aware of what they may be getting into. If I saw an old pair of logans at a good price that just needed the panels replaced then I would be thinking its a smart move not knowing this new information

Whoa - hold on. Not until we've sold ours! I do want something for mine when I sell them!

 

[User211]

Hm. Let's have a look at the flip side to the coin.

I think there's a possibility people are being way too harsh here. Isn't the main problem the sudden radical tripling of price for, say, the CLS panels? And isn't it possible that the reason for that is that the original ML hadn't been maintaining price rises in line with inflation?

After all, if the CLS were sold today as a contemporary design, I've no doubt it'd cost over $20,000. Therefore, replacements panels at $2750 really is NOT unreasonable.

I've also been talking to someone about perforating sheet metal by laser. It IS expensive - more so than you would think. Add to that the coating, the labour, the overheads of a factory and employees, and the special machinery required (OK - they already have it but it is still wear and tear) and I'm not so sure that prices are that bad.

Also, ML users are fortunate they can eplace the panels themselves so there are no labour costs. Can't do that with a Maggie or other planars or even some ESLs.

Just a few valid points, I think.