Paul C. Buff...YOU ROCK!!!

tetrode wrote in post #12379363
Now this thread is a genuine rarity! It contains a civil, rational, well-thought-out presentation of the pros and cons of PCB's equipment and business practices. The discussion respects and gives credit to both points of view and hasn't degenerated into invective, insults, and name-calling. This is unacceptable and no fun to read at all! I think Jeff and James and Anton and Brian should all be banned from the forum immediately!

Dave F.

LOL, I was surprised myself!

tetrode wrote in post #12379363
Now this thread is a genuine rarity! It contains a civil, rational, well-thought-out presentation of the pros and cons of PCB's equipment and business practices. The discussion respects and gives credit to both points of view and hasn't degenerated into invective, insults, and name-calling. This is unacceptable and no fun to read at all! I think Jeff and James and Anton and Brian should all be banned from the forum immediately!

Dave F.

Autonomous wrote in post #12379551
LOL, I was surprised myself!

Sorry to disappoint, gents. I'll try harder next time. :P

kenyee wrote in post #12379275
I thought the Einstein was on it's 3rd? 1, 2.0 (heat fix, flash sensor in sunlight but added a finger issue), 2.1 (finger fix).
And FWIW, I've had two B1600s, one WL, and 3 Einsteins (1 of which was a V1). One B1600 was flaky on Vagabond power when used w/ the RJ11 control port. No issues w/ the Einsteins (never hit the V1 problems). I think PCB mentioned something like a sub 1% failure rate...it wasn't huge like 20-30% which seems like what it should be given all the problem reports posted; if it were that high, they would go out of business w/ the low margins they have (20%?)

Funny you should mention LL Bean though...I'm returning a folding camp table set...a plastic clip sheared off so the table isn't usable now. Too bad though...seemed decently built except for the plastic. Bought a chair from Costco and have to return it because the tilt mechanism doesn't work. They both have great CS and products though and I'm happy to shop at both...

I could be wrong, but I thought there was another (minor) update or change...potentially not one that required owners to send the unit back, but an update to all new models. I seem to recall it's something about a rubberband? I'm sure Dave (tetrode) or others can set us straight.

Beyond that, very happy to hear that you didn't have any issues. I must say, however, that if it were a failure rate of less than 1%, I'd be surprised if Paul (of all people) would admit fault to such a degree that he'd do a full-on recall. I'll admit though, that in the end, I think we're all just guessing at numbers here, as no company with breakage issues would benefit from releasing said statistics (and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration just can't seem to get their act together to start keeping stats on lighting manufacturers and recalls).

And yes, LL Bean products can and do break (I just exchange a pair of moose leather slippers as a seam had burst), however I would tend to think that happens at a much lower rate, as they're usually known for their high-quality/bombproof gear.

tetrode wrote in post #12379363
Now this thread is a genuine rarity! It contains a civil, rational, well-thought-out presentation of the pros and cons of PCB's equipment and business practices. The discussion respects and gives credit to both points of view and hasn't degenerated into invective, insults, and name-calling. This is unacceptable and no fun to read at all! I think Jeff and James and Anton and Brian should all be banned from the forum immediately!

Dave F.

Hater!

In all seriousness though, it's great to see that a rational discussion about PCB products can actually be achieved on these forums. I was starting to wonder...

Cathpah wrote in post #12378651
Lastly, I fear that you may be wrong about the customer service issues not driving them out of business. Even if I'm not a PCB product buyer myself, I still appreciate their presence in the market (drive innovation, push down competitor prices)....but I've got to wonder just how much of a toll all the shipping cost, customer service call center costs, and labor costs of the seemingly endless revisions to the Einstein must have taken on the profits. Additionally, with Paul being the head honcho and doing "all of the design work himself" (his words) I fear that when he passes (he's getting up there in years), the company may suffer the same fate. His products are certainly popular these days, but all the revisions must have taken a good bite out of profits made after the intial/ongoing R&D investment.

Yeah, even as I wrote it I thought I might be jumping the gun here. It's a chapter to the book that's still being written. But, despite all the negative rumblings PCB cannot keep Einsteins on the shelf. At some point you have to credit the product for that. And if the products were failing at a rate commiserate with the chatter, it would be one of the rare instances in any market where a high dollar item with such significant competition were allowed to remain popular despite such obvious and systemic quality problems.

Myself, I've reached that point in my photography where I no longer consider mastering available light and Photoshop to be the final stage of photographic evolution and have been looking into investing in a light and modifier system. In my few dealings with PCB I have been nothing but impressed, both with the product and with the people on the other end of the phone.

But my mind is open.

I love my Einsteins...I don't have anything to compare them against, but they work very well (they worked well before, just one of the fingers didn't work...still held a modifier, just wasn't 100%).

My poor little AB400 sits all alone in the back of the studio popping away on command and gets no love. I'll have to go give it a big hug when I get home tonight!!!

Cathpah wrote in post #12379580
something about a rubberband?
...
if Paul (of all people) would admit fault to such a degree that he'd do a full-on recall

The rubberband workaround was for V2.0 owners. It was fixed for V2.1 (unless you're thinking about the odd balcar speedrings that don't have the proper inner diameter, but that probably deserves a different discussion about how speedring designs all have their weird pros/cons

The recalls of V1 to V2 to V2.1 were probably not totally needed. A lot of people didn't hit the V1 issues (I don't mount a hairlight horizontally and don't run the modeling light all the time, don't use pocketwizards, and don't use the slave sensor outdoors). The V2 finger issue more people would have hit, so that probably deserved a shutdown of production for 2.1. Doesn't mean that the problems weren't real...just that it didn't affect everyone and the proactive free recall (including shipping both ways) took care of everyone anyways. Other companies probably could have taken care of them as "QC defects" to anyone that complained...sort of like the weak QC that Sigma/Tamron lenses have (I've had to return a Sigma lens 2 times for decentering issues, returned a Tamron lens 3 times for BF/FF/hazing issues)...

Something else to consider.. When someone has a product that doesn't work, they're going to tell as many people as they can about it (start a thread) When they have a product that works, they're going to use it - and only talk about it when asked.

My two AB800 and my AB1600 work perfectly (so far) and as such, I haven't started any threads about them. I did have an issue with my HOBD which was damaged during shipping and replaced twice. That, I started a thread about.