Official MK - Miller & Kreisel Thread?!? - Page 6

Also, it appears he's trying to link the Chapter 7 filing with the Chinese fakes: frankly, I don't buy it. Chapter 7 suggests deep financial problems beyond some fakes out on the market.

I know it may be a stretch for some people, but the audiophile article explained it rather well:

Kreisel suspected that some people that worked for him were at least in part responsible for the counterfeit products. He felt that his business and reputation were being hurt through the loss of sales to the counterfeit goods. He might not have known exactly who in his organisation was responsible for it, but since he went into the red and had more than one person to fire, he cleaned house so as not to point fingers.

As far as "a 10 year warranty means nothing if a company won't be around in 3 years", that's always a risk you take as a consumer. Nobody 3 years ago knew if M&K would still be around in 10 years, but it was pretty clear that, since they had been around for 30, they would be around another 30. Most companies offer a 1 or 2 year warranty, so I would consider myself lucky to have gotten 3 years as it was. Personally, I would believe a claim of a 10 year warranty from a US company that had been around 30 years before I'd believe it from a foreign company that had only been around for 10 months. ANY company can fold this week, next week, or 3 years from now.

I do not deny the fact that any company can be gone any time they want, but the history of a company is usually a pretty good indicator of it's future. Apparently, that's changing too. It's very tough to see companies continue to screw their customers. It's becoming more and more prevalent every day.

Apparently, in large part, due to the Chinese who are really getting good at taking speaker business, and defying patent/copyright laws.

Apparently, it doesn't matter if you even want to move your manufacturing to China, if you don't, they'll just start making your stuff anyway.

woah

i was wondering when I inquired about the S-150 in early jan it took them three weeks to get back to me. Should have noted that Ken Ringold reply had his website and not mksound.com as the website. The second give away, all the mk line is backed up........

shame too!!

Did some digging (thanks pacer net!!)

over 100 creditors.

seems like LA had a lien on them for 5,000 some odd dollars in jan for failure to pay taxes (with the revenue they generated they were paying monthly).

100+ creditors.

looks like 1+ mill in liability.

Reasons like this sound far more plausible than alleged Chinese counterfits. I mean, if you're going to counterfit something, counterfit something that has VALUE. Nothing against M&K, never heard them, and everthing I've read has almost always been very positive, but if there was such a huge market out there for the counterfit goods, then there would be an even bigger market for the real thing. If that was the case, they would not have closed their doors. To put it another way, if you're going to counterfit currency, would you print Mexican Pesos or US Dollars? If you're thing is watches, Bulgari or Rolex? If it was me, and my thing were speakers, there's no question who I'm ripping off. I'll give you a hint: four letter name with "patented direct radiating technology." The only problem is my counterfits may actually be better because they would be impossible to be worse.

That's cold! True, but still cold.

New email from K

Jason,

Thank you for your new email.

I am sorry to say that I think your 3 LCR-750's are counterfeit and/or unauthorized M&K product. It is a little complicated so let me please explain:

From the beginning we made the LCR-750THX MKII speakers at our factory in the USA with all of M&K's famous quality control systems and special tests which are exactly the same procedure and people that test our top professional speakers used by the world's best studios like George Lucas' Skywalk Sound.

In April 2006 we started to make the LCR-750THX MKII speakers in China at the Everbright/ACI factory. In April, under my instructions, I sent our head engineer to supervise production in China and to make sure these LCR-750 MKII speakers had top quality control and passed my M&K and THX tests and specifications.

After our engineer left China, Everbright/ACI continued to build LCR-750 speakers for shipping all over the world, including to China to Miro Sound, our China distributor. Many LCR-750 speakers were shipped from China to the USA to sell in the USA. For the USA market we would open and test, at the M&K USA factory, 100% of the China build speakers, including the LCR-750 speakers. During the summer of 2006 we found that the LCR-750 quality was not up to M&K standards and about 30% of the LCR-750 speakers and other China made speakers failed M&K and THX tests and did not meet M&K specifications. In September 2006 we decided all China made speakers and subwoofers must come to the USA first for testing and then M&K would ship them all over the world, including back to China. This is the only way we could guaranty M&K quality.

I must tell you that M&K quality standards are very high for even our least expensive speaker. Our least expensive speaker is tested and must pass the same tests as our professional speakers.

Here is the problem: After we decided to stop shipping M&K speakers directly from the Everbright/ACI factory due to bad quality, we now know that from September 2006 until today, there is LCR-750 speakers being shipped directly to Miro Sound from the Everbright/ACI factory which is not authorized or tested or sold by M&K. We know that Miro Sound is buying these speakers directly from the Everbright/ACI factory probably at a reduced price. I have no idea about the quality or performance of these speaker except that by our testing in the USA M&K factory, about 30% of the LCR-750's do not meet M&K and THX specs. M&K does not receive any money from these counterfeit speakers. We have been trying to stop the sale of these counterfeit speakers into China and the U.K. for many months. M&K has lost a lot of money because of this, and it hurts M&K reputation around the world because of the poor quality. We have seen these speakers with shorted crossover networks and out of phase drivers which means the speakers were never tested at all in China before sent to the dealer or customer.

Our Taiwan distributor Keep Running buys the LCR-750's directly from the M&K factory because they want only top quality M&K speakers properly tested and inspected by M&K USA.

It is possible that your LCR-750 speakers are OK, but there is about a 30% chance that they are not OK, based upon our past experience with LCR-750's built in China, but I cannot say what parts are in your speakers.

As you know, we just closed the M&K company completely. Some of the reason we closed is due to lost money on unauthorized and counterfeit speakers.

Please look at this news article from Stereophile Magazine about M&K closing at stereophile

I am sorry for this very long explanation. I hope your LCR-750's are OK and that they are giving you good sound.

GOOD SOUND TO YOU..... ALWAYS,

KEN KREISEL

Interesting. I bet this counterfeit thing is only a small portion of why they had to close shop.

So there really are not any "counterfit" M&Ks out there, just "unauthorized" ones. Big difference. Many companies can and are manufacturing in China and elsewhere with the highest degree of quality control. It comes down to how much they are willing to invest in those procedures. Clearly, M&K was unwilling, or more likely, unable to make that investment. Shipping the product to the US prior to shipping them back overseas is the very definition of tripping over dollars to save pennies. From a business perspective, that distribution model is unsustainable, if not outright ridiculous. Some business can survive mistakes like this, some can't. M&K fell into the latter group.

High quality control is based on what one considers within acceptable tolerances. Without knowing what these tolerances are for different manufacturers outsourcing to some of these factories it is hard to say whether M&K short cutted or not. It is quite possible that M&K tolerances were more then needed and difficult to attain elsewhere. Also possible that some others that claim high-quality have looser tolerances that are easier met.

When manufacturing was done exclusively in California, I'd imagine it was cheaper to QC test each and every speaker than have to deal with 10%+ warranty returns. Once you create that level of expected QC, though, it's hard not to continue, especially if you've been at it for over 30 years.

Not sure why they had to have the speakers shipped in and out to attain QC rather than shipping a few experienced bodies over to China to replicate the QC process.

Also sounds like the PCBs for the crossovers weren't up to M&K spec, which is almost impossible to keep under QC without individual visual inspection. Again, why it couldn't have been done on-site in China by a trusted employee is beyond our privvy, but I'm sure there were probably some reasons.

thanks for the responses. I'm not sure why the 750's would not make good surround speakers though. The 550's that came with the 750's are the same drives (1 mid instead of 2 in 750) and the same tweeter. The crossover should have nothing to do with the ability of a speaker to be used as a surround. It also stated, either on their website or in the manuals, that using 750's for all speakers would be an upgrade over the 3 750's up front and the 2 550's in the back.

I'm not too clear on where anyone said that the 750's wouldn't be acceptable as surrounds... Did I miss something?

There might have been some discussion about the MkII's having different drivers or a different crossover than the MkI's, which might change the sound characteristics a tad, but I don't see why the MkII's would be a problem, unless they were junk knock-offs from China.

What are the plans for the 550's if you go with the 750's for surrounds?

It must have been around 1980, that I purchased a pair of newly restyled satellite 1As, along with a pair of Volkswoofers. ( The earlier model, was very angular, and the new rounded cabinetry was of far superior construction. ) Several years later, a spring-loaded speaker terminal on one of the satellites broke, and I ordered a replacement. When I removed the plastic terminal panel, I was amazed to discover that an old penlight had been left inside the speaker, presumably by a QC "inspector". How's that for ironic?

Does anyone know if this problem extends beyond the 750?

bad news, M&K has been registed by the general agent Miro Sound&Vision in china. M&K is ruined by them.

It ahs been mentioned before that while some companies have well written contracts specificly outlining what is acceptable in regards to product that doesn't pass QC, AND WHAT ARE THE MONETARY REPRICUSSIONS of these failures, the Chinese companies often know that intense fear of product shippment delays make most of these companies tolerate far more QC abberations than they originally intended. What if a lot of M&K's problems with supply that had plagued them for a while was due to their attempt to insist on high QC standerds ? Might we assume that many other companies are letting these QC issues slide so that they have enough product?
I would love to see Stereophile (as an example) ask about 6 differant manufacturers to provide them with specific and detailed referance graphs and specs for their models and then have Stereophile go out and buy the same model of speaker (one model from each manufacturers line-up) from three differant retailers in differant parts of the country weeks/months apart and then test the speakers comparing left to right and each to the referance mesurements. I wonder how much variation there would be , and I'd like to see whose QC is really up to snuff.

I have been following this with interest. I recently bought my first subwoofer from the M&K online store during their Valentine's sale, the VX-860. It must have shipped about the time they were closing the doors. I bought it based on M&K's reputation. Hopefully it will last without needing any warranty service. Time will tell.

I have read Stereophile for perhaps 30 years. High end companies are among the most notorious for producing equipment with wildly varying specs. How many reviews do we read where the manufacturer complains that this was out of spec or that got out of alignment during shipment, etc? And this if for multi kilobuck amps and speakers.

QC is not a mystery, but it does cost money. Companies such as NHT have had their stuff built in China for several years and none of the reviews I've read (or the posts) point to any QC issues. Bottom line here IMO is that M&K waited far too long to shift some of their production overseas and got into bed with the wrong supplier.

It seems to plauge many low, mid, and high end manufacturers.

Actually true, but I've also heard that in referance to budget speakers as well .


Well, I haven't yet seen anyone testing the way I've proposed, hence the reason for it...how would we know? I wonder , with some speakers, if much of the sometimes differing opinions on the same model from differant people isn't due to the fact that the speakers vary somewhat from spec.

Probably, but not likely a unique situation, just one we know about.

Have there been any measurements performed on any of the 'unauthorized' glossy speakers so that they can be compared to the legit ones that aren't glossy?

Good question for Ken, but he did state that @30% of them didn't meet his standards.

That's a pretty vague statement.

leads not attatched, wired out of phase, or just off from referance, it doesn't really matter, if he (who needed product to sell) didn't think they were good enough to sell, I sure as Hell wouldn't want them.

CR_Client, here is the quote about the 750's not working for surrounds.

I would probably use the 550's for rear's in a 7.1 and the other 750's at the sides.

Let me play devil's advocate. Let's say Ken's standards were never fully documented and that many of the things that could've been such as methodology for testing lead connection strength was more of an acquired experience by assemblers who in turn taught other assemblers. Let's say that Ken overestimated sales and when the factory was doubled in size in 2001, and that includes maybe additional workers, testing equipment, CNC machines, heating/cooling equipment and expenses, taxes, etc., that he began to find himself in a pickle. So, after a while, he finds the only way out of this is to seriously consider moving a large portion of the operations overseas and maybe have to sell off some equipment that he bought on credit. So now, he's got additional expenses domestically that don't translate to any sales and he's now starting to borrow from Peter to pay Paul. He doesn't have much time, because that was time that should've taken place a few years prior to 2001. With the clock ticking, he makes some contacts overseas, orders a few cabinets from a few places, does some quick checks on their capabilities, and maybe, just maybe chooses a company that has skill assembling electronic components. Maybe even speakers. But never speakers intended for a far more discerning consumer.

So, he sends an engineer over there. An engineer. One engineer. He'd like to send more people but can't afford it. That would reduce personnel at his own facility and he can't afford to do that. This engineer as to do it all. He has to bring over documentation...a recipe for QC, acceptable tolerances, assembly methods, packaging, listening tests. All these things are well known over at the US place but they're not well documented or documented at all. Nonetheless, both companies have signed off on it. Signed off on poorly documented material that doesn't matter in the US because people have learned how to do it 'right'. But this engineer wears many hats. More than he ever had to. He tells people that you've got to play this material, at these levels, and listen for the following. Now, the people over in the US have been doing this for years. They're very familiar with it. They've undergone training by experienced listeners. But the engineer might not have been all that familiar. He'd like to have his buddy come over. But M&K couldn't afford it. They couldn't afford the time. So the listeners overseas are now listening to music that is alien to them. After all, it's foreign. They'd like to use chinese music, but... So some stuff gets wired out of phase but because the music is alien, they really can't tell. The overseas QC department doesn't have the same skill with testing various parameters that are used in the US. Maybe they don't have the same equipment either. Maybe they don't have a proper control or ways to check if the control points have changed. After all, the documentation wasn't anywhere near as complete as it should've been. There simply wasn't time. But contracts were signed, letters of credit and all that. The overseas company may've found they weren't getting paid like they'd agreed to. Ken found that speakers weren't being made like he thought they should've been made. But the proper and comprehensive documentation and training that should've happened never did.

So now M&K is belly up. Quite possibly the result of poor financial management, forecasting, a lack of thorough documentation, not properly anticpating and meeting consumer needs, and maybe an internal desire to try like hell to keep from going overseas. Then finally it all came to roost. People lost their jobs. Customers lost their warranty. The lawyers move in on both sides.

Maybe.

As I recall, also NHT knows how to lose money selling speakers. Just look at their past ownership history!