theaudioinsider.com

I placed an order for a pair of Swans on a Wednesday, specifically paying for rush, 2-day delivery. Like seemingly 75% of people, I work weekdays and am off weekends... so in the "Instructions/Special Requests" field for shipping, I specifically noted "please waive signature requirement" (the default on FedEx 2-Day). So, I'm set I think. The speakers will either come Friday, and will either be left for me for when I get home, or they'll arrive Saturday since I paid for 2-day shipping.

The order goes out on Thursday. I'm sent the shipping info from Audio Insider which not only has "signature confirmation" marked, it says "Deliver Weekday" (note, again, FedEx 2-Day defaults to delivering on Saturday unless you tell them otherwise). So now, despite me having paid extra for 2-Day, it's set to arrive 4 days later... because the Audio Insider specifically overruled Saturday delivery (when I'm home).

It's like they don't even want me to have my speakers. Can't have them delivered Saturday when I'm home, can't have them left at my house when I am. So I emailed Jon, who ostensibly said "yeah I see your point, but it's out of my hands. Check with FedEx." Excuse me? I paid for 2-Day and you overruled it. It is now Day 5 and I have to slog it through LA rush-hour traffic to FedEx, because Jon at the Audio Insider also ignored my "please waive signature confirmation."

I'm just at a lost for words here about customer service.

I'll start out by saying that I've owned my pair of speakers (Swan D1080MkII08) for over 3 months so I've had time to get used to them and they've really grown on me. While the product is (now) great and I admit the price is quite agreeable, the service I received was far from that. I had an issue with the speakers in the very beginning. The left speaker was consistently quieter than the right. I emailed customer service explaining my problem but when I received a response, all they did was assure me that problem was unlikely because the speakers are driven by monolithic amplifiers etc.
The thing is, I had already run a battery of tests on the speakers ensuring that the problem was not external. I switched the audio cable, used different sources, played mono recordings and tried several other ways to get rid of my problem but to no avail. Jon Lane wasn't convinced. I decided that I'd live with this minor annoyance and save my $26 for shipping.
A few months down the road, the left speaker starts cutting out completely at random intervals. I contacted customer service once more and was encouraged to return the product so that they could be tested and fixed. I sent them off and three days later Jon Lane is already telling me about how the speakers "perform to spec." Once again he didn't seem to believe that the problem existed. He even went so far as to ship the speakers back to me unchanged without even asking if that was what I wanted. Apparently "the customer is always right" isn't a mantra that ever reached The Audio Insider.
When I got the speakers back, they had forgotten to include my power cable. No big deal, I have the same wire on my camera battery charger. Less than 4 hours into listening to music, the left speaker cuts out. It took me a few minutes to get the speaker to come back to life but when it did, it was muffled and the set was more unbalanced than ever. Rather than contact the ever unhelpful Audio Insider customer service rep (Jon Lane), I took matters into my own hands and opened the speaker up. Turns out the issue was just in a poor connection. I pushed two leads back together so that it was snugly and evenly plugged in. Problem solved.
It's really too bad that Jon Lane couldn't be bothered to be a bit more rigorous in his testing. Maybe if he had taken this know-nothing college student a little more seriously, this negative review could have been avoided. I really like Swan's products but until they are carried by more distributers, I will not be purchasing anything from them. The Audio Insider has spoiled my experience.

In short, I would not recommend dealing with The Audio Insider.

We have discovered that this business has SSL (secure sockets layer), which means that this business handles your data, such as personal information or credit card details, with secure connection. We found that the domain for this business is older than two years which could be an indication that this is a trustworthy business with an established customer base and experience in their field.