What DID happen to Genesis?

We've had bad experiences with companies before. Sometimes, they don't follow through on promises. Sometimes, they get a "grass must be greener" attitude, only to find out the dealer for which they dropped us can't pay the bills or sell product or even went out of business. But this experience is a new low for a company. Feel free to read on, but it's not a pretty story.

When Arnie Nudell, of Infinity IRS fame, founded Genesis, I was intrigued. After all, the first speaker that made me understand what high-end was all about was the Infinity Modulus. The original Modulus was 2-way, 5" minimonitor with a ribbon tweeter and a separate 12" servo control subwoofer for about $3300/set. It was substantially better than any of the other Infinities I'd heard as well as Paradigm and other speakers. And so, Genesis debuted some nice little tower monitors that competed beautifully with the more affordable Thiels and other high-end speakers, and we signed up. But, shortly thereafter, Genesis discontinued them because they were losing money on them (Arnie was never the best business person) and so we stopped selling them at that point because we weren't quite ready for $20K+ speakers.

Later, when the somewhat affordable APM1 series came out, we thought they were again back in the range of what we could carry. Besides, we were able to get some decent deals on them which made them an excellent value. Unfortunately. Arnie's business skills caught up with him again and the company slowly and painfully headed towards bankruptcy.

All sounded great when the Singapore distributor for Genesis came in and took over the company and resurrected it with new models. And, at first, it was. But, sometimes, the measure of a company isn't the product they build, but how they deal with problems. In this case, we found out the hard way that Genesis existed in name only. If an amp failed from an earlier unit, they wouldn't fix it, but they would sell you a new one - for $1200-$1600. EACH. Of course, they don't cost anywhere near that to build and, it's not a fun suprise to find out that a speaker, for which you only paid $6000/pr, might actually cost more than $3000 to fix! In fact, another customer had the amp go out on his $1500 Genesis 928 subwoofer and was told that they couldn't fix it (they can), but it would be $1200 for a new amp.

So, we fought intensely about this quite a bit, but surprisingly, that wasn't the final straw. I ordered a subwoofer for a customer and it came in obviously damaged due to poor packing - 1" padding, not nearly enough for a 100lb subwoofer - the cabinet was damaged, the grill was destroyed and the tranformer had been knocked loose. I called Genesis for an RA and a request for a replacement. And they refused! They claimed it was my responsibility now to simply buy another one from them and *try* to get reimbursement from DHL, a long shot because of the incredibly poor packing job on the subwoofer. I futily argued for over a month until I finally requested that Visa refund my money. I informed Genesis that I'd requested that Visa return my money and that the subwoofer was at the door awaiting a pick up from them. What happened? They simply sent me a letter saying that I was no longer a Genesis dealer. Interesting choice. They ship me a badly packed subwoofer which is damaged by *their* shipping company, refuse to make it good and then drop me as a dealer for using a last resort. EVERY company with which I'd ever dealt replaced *any* item that was damaged in shipping, no questions asked. This was a first for me, but from a "high-end" company?!?

The good news, Visa credited me. The bad news, they didn't tell me that *I* had to send the unit back ($150 in shipping). So they later took the money back and told me that informed me that I was fine, I just had to ship the unit, even in they refused it. So I did and then called up Visa. NOW they said it took to long because I only have 60 days to do it. Great. Well, now, Genesis has the subwoofer *and* my money.

But here's an even more amazing story. They charged me to look at amplifier that were supposed to go to the one person in the country who can fix Genesis amplifiers. But they didn't send them, they just returned them to me unfixed. So, knowing who this was, I contacted him directly and asked if he could fix the amps for me. He spoke with Genesis about it and they told him that he was not to fix any amplifier that doesn't come through Genesis, something that they cannot do because, as they told me time and time again "the old Genesis and the new Genesis are totally different companies" and this person is an independent contractor. Interesting and convenient, since they decided to use the Genesis name. They have the *\advantage of using the Genesis name, but then simply refuse to assist with any repairs or service on any old product. And now, they are attempting to block an unaffiliated repair center from servicing older products? So they can sell $1200-$1600 plate amplifiers that should sell for $500 on a good day? (Most subwoofer plate amps sell for about $100-$200 retail)

Right now, Genesis has 10 USA dealers and some of those appear to be selling out of their demos. They won't repair older models, they don't guarantee safe arrival of their products, they don't replace damaged products and they actively attempt to inhibit the repair of older models so they can sell overpriced plate amplifiers. This is NOT the Genesis of old. The old Genesis may have had poor business skills, but they *tried* to provide good customer service. The new Genesis? I guess we'll see how well they can make it once their dealers find out their customer service on a $10,000 and up speaker. In fact, *no* high-end manufacturer of which I'm aware has ever treated its customers or dealers this way. When you spend $10,000 or more on a speaker, you expect top class service and most deliver. Genesis gives you the opposite of that. Which is too bad, because I always liked the speakers. Well, it's out of my control. It's not the product or the brand, it's the new owner.

While Gary Koh is trying to squeeze every dime out of every sale, including by forcing people to buy expensive amps instead of fixing existing amps or by hoping that shippers damage his equipment so he can indirectly collect the insurance, he is going to find that he is selling fewer and fewer products to a smaller and smaller dealer base. I'll probably never recover the $2000+ this has cost me, but there's nothing I can do about it outside of suing the company. But prospective dealers and customers need to know that this is not the same company it used to be. And the service is not what you'd expect out of a mass-market speaker company, let alone a "high-end" company. Bose wouldn't behave this way towards a customer because even they get that it's the service that builds a name, not simply the product. And, there are a LOT of good speaker brands out there and most all of them will bend over backwards to make sure everything is right. Genesis won't. Hey Gary! You owe me $2000 (actually, it's $1874). And I'll never forget it. And I won't let it go.

Here's an interesting update. Seems Genesis has hired a lawyer to threaten me, saying that I'm defaming and harrassing them (because I keep asking, publicly for the money they owe me). Well, if they'd prefer to spend money on lawyers and keep losing business rather than simply replacing the subwoofer or return my money, then let's just take it all the way. Freedom of speech is a wonderful, guaranteed thing. I'd rather not be in an adversarial postion with respect to Genesis, but as long as they owe me this money, it's simply where we are. And it shows the caliber of company they've become. I think I'll stay an extra day just to picket them at CES. That should be fun!