Newbie help on US Cert. RGB analogue laser purchase

[gottaluvlasers]

Wow- Marc that was really bitchy... =)

Sorry Dan, in all honesty, most of that is not "bitchiness" its just sarcasm. When i get annoyed, i get sarcastic. I sometimes type exactly how my head is thinking and it is misinterpreted. (Sometimes, rightfully so). It is hard to get points across in a typographical manner such as this. Please know, i am not "attacking" you. Or your Company. I am, however quite agressively questioning your methods for what should be a very simple statistical specification of a product.

apparently didn't read my post about the lawyer. Its being looked at not for accuracy but to see if it can or should have intellectual property protection. We spent a lot of time developing something new and frankly we have spent a lot of nights grumbling because someone has ripped off our something new and made it cheaply and worse.

I shall eat crow. My apologies Dan, i did misinterpret your Lawyer statement. I read it as, "If i label this laser as "X Watts" with the following methodology, does it cover my ass when the actual calculations are lower" Hey, i can be wrong sometimes.

Second, your absolutely impassioned response appears to have a lot more to do with other people than me because you have taken some of my points to the extreme in order to make them sound unethical

You are correct. My responses are "impassioned" becasue I feel that our industry has enough negative connotations surrounding it. Our industry has enough of a stigma with it. Our industry is small enough and hard enough as it is to try and explain such "used car salesmen tactics" as numbers games. Honestly Dan, this is all all of this boils down to- Numbers games. I may have been a wise ass, sarcastic prick (sorry for that) in my original response, but what all of this is filtered down to is "How should i label a product i sell?" And in my professional opinion and most any other's professional opinion, if you sell something as 1 Watt, than it needs to be 1 Watt. not be labeled as 1 Watt but have other pages or descriptions or disclaimers or "what ifs" to exaplin why it may or may not be 1 Watt.

this is not sarcasm, i am asking the following in a serious manner-

If "John Smith" buys a 1 Watt Gren projector from you for (example) $10,000 but it only outputs 750/800mW, would you be willing to give them a refund of the difference between a 1W and say,a 750mW/800mW?? Again, i am not being sarcastic with that question. A 800mW projector and a 1W projector can't be the same price, therefore The customer should only have to pay for their effective power output of said product.

You post assumes me/us to be dishonest and incompetent and I take great pride in being neither.

Again, my apologies. I am not being accusatory toward you. I am not calling you a liar or a thief. I said from the begining that i respect you and your company for talking with us. I am however seeing a trend here that was questioned months ago when all of this first came up with the X-Laser/Laserworld team up (or colaberation). We are discussing, debating, forming mathematical formulas on how to measure a laser beam and sell it to a customer. I dont know, maybe its me...i go back to what i have said a MILLION times- 1 Watt means 1 Watt. 500mW means 500mW. 750mW means 750mW.

Moreover and more importantly, you have no idea how our specifications correlate to anything else because you have both neither seen the method by which we calculate the power to determine its appropriateness or lack thereof nor have you touched one of our new projectors. You are simply making an assumption and then getting pissed about it.

this is 110% TRUE!! that is the point. Why does such a simple concept of metering a laser beam, require such in-depth and thought provoking formulas, theories, methodologies, calculations and explanations of its accuracy (or lack there of). this is my biggest gripe- turn Laser projector on, emit full power beam. If it outputs 1W, its a 1W projector. If it outputs 1.5W its a 1.5W projector. If it outputs 750mW, its a 750mW projector.

i am sorry Dan, i just really cant wrap my head around the concept of selling something labeled as "X" but planting the seed prior to warn (or educate) why it most likely will not be that actual "X" product. No matter how accurate or thought provoking or detailed your description or method may be to justify the differences, it is just a way to say, "well, we said it may only be"UVW" and that it may not actually be "XYZ." This, as you can see, will automatically put 99% of any consumer on the defensive. It may be a correct statement and your explanation of why the differences occur are, i am sure, 100% correct, but why should it have to be used?

I would like to personally invite you to visit our shop anytime you like and if we can arrange a mutually agreeable time I will happily give you both a tour and an in depth explanation of our compliance process, spec standards, and quality assurance process. I will ask you to sign an NDA about some of the specifics we consider proprietary but of course allow you to discuss it in a general way for the benefit of those here.

This, i think is great! i would love to take you up on your offer. this, in my opinion, is a very honorable and admirable offer. i know you are not doing anything to purposely decieve people. . I just would really love for you to just do what it seems is very simple- Label a system and sell a system as EXACTLY what it is supposed to be. But, i would love to come see your place. not just for the issues you offered above, but quite simply, just to see a bunch of lasers being built! i would sign whatever you want me to sign.

THEN, you can call bulls**t if you still think that it is appropriate. And I will happily continue to come and answer questions. We have nothing to hide.

I am not looking to to call you out on anything. I am not looking to prove you wrong or me right. i guess i am just questioning the integrity of the process. not YOUR integrity but the integrity and misleading nature of the multiple levels of measurement accuracey. It is an avenue for confusion, inaccuraceys, distrust and false assumptions.

the question in court becomes:

"Did you advise my client of the strength of the laser he was purchasing?"

"Yes, we sold the product as a three quarter watt laser."

"Could the laser reasonably have been emitting more than 750mW?"

"Um, yes... the measurement at certification was 800mW"

"So in other words, you failed to disclose the actual emission strength of your product by an amount TEN TIMES GREATER than an average person can own without a special license, correct?"

"It's not that simple..." ... and we're screwed.

this is a very far fetched hypothetical situation i think. And would VERY easily be argued by any $5/ hour lawyer as sustainable variations in the technology. In the history of laser shows, companies, law suits and combinations there of i know of ZERO (i may be wrong) lawsuits of such silly claims and arguments. And *if* a lwayer tried to argue with only those points as "evidence of wrong doing," i think the case would be very rapidly laughed out of court. If the lawyer was unable to argue defense of power discrepincies, than the lawyer may need to re-think his/her profession of choice.

*BUT* if we want to go that route, ill comromise with the theory-

Whatever maximum reading is taken on a brand new projector build (clean optics, brand new lasers, brand new electronics) at the aperture, sell the projector for that exact reading. And provide the certification/variance for such.

if its reading 1.145 Watts, sell it and certify it as a 1.145 Projector. Nothing more, nothing less.

as long as we are in a regulated industry with a product that carries the potential for harm, it is not as simple as it may seem when you are in the market we are in.

We (everyone here) is in the same market. And this is why many people, including myself, get very annoyed as of late, when we see a person and/or company try to justify something that *may* mislead or deceive ones confidence in a poduct or company. Especially when it is something as simple as taking a power measurement. there is a reasonable assumption of simplicity with a measurement like this. there should not need to be formulas, disclaimers, theories or separate explanations to convey a reading other than what was assumed by a purchaser.

Dan,

I do apologize for coming off as disrespectful or in an "attacking" manner. you are correct, i dont know you or your company personally. you *do* seem like a stand up guy and your company does also. i cant and wont apologize for my questioning of your process of product labeling/measuring requirements. In my eyes, it just seems way too open ended and riddled with loopholes to provide a scapegoat for a consumer to not get what he/she paid for. It just doesnt sit right with me.

I, along with everyone here, really appreciate you coming here and talking to all of us about this. you have proven to be an ethical guy. i dont think anyone questions that. But what is questioned is the reasoning of it. It shouldnt have to be so overly involved and/or supported with "reasons why not..."

-Marc

[buffo]

Dan;

I need to get going (road trip), but let me address a few points you made. And let me also say that, like Marc, I do not mean to sound bitchy about this, but it *is* a subject that I'm quite passionate about, just like many others here on PL.

1) if the customer doesn't have the ability to measure the power accurately, that is their problem. So long as you measure it accurately, you can be confident in your ability to guarantee the output power. Dirty optics are a possible problem with any projector, so changing your power rating won't help that. Also, I think a lot more customers own power meters than you might imagine. And if they can't wire up a DB-25, they can at least use their software to display a full power beam (as described above) to measure the power. It's really not that hard. (Though I would argue that a client who can't wire a DB-25 is also unlikely to be all that concerned about power ratings.)

2) your example about one projector being brighter than the other is a straw-man, since this sort of variability will always exist regardless of your "engineered" power ratings. If a projector is making a few hundred milliwatts over spec, it will look brighter, pure and simple. But at least the customer will be able to read the specified power output from the manufacturer and instantly understand why. (And if he wants them to be the same brightness he can turn down the power in the hot one using his software.)

3) the example where you are called into court for labeling a projector below it's actual output is easy to prevent. You *LABEL* (and variance) the projector for some higher power rating (say, 1.5 watts) that it will never be able to exceed. Then you *market* the projector based on it's actual output at the aperture. So the CDRH label says 1.5 watts max, but it's marketed as a 1 watt projector, and it might actually produce 1.1 watts.

4) To answer your question: "would it be more ethical to call a 1W source, 800mW aperture a 3/4W and lose a hundred dollars?" I would say *YES*. This is exactly what LaserWave does with their lasers. If you buy a 1 watt green, you can bet it will be making more than 1 watt. Some might only make 1.2 watts, but you might get lucky and get 1.5 watts out of it. But you are always assured of getting at least the 1 watt you paid for. Could they make more money by calling it a 1.5 watt laser? Sure they could. But then what happens when the laser power drifts over time, and after 6 months they're only getting 1.2 watts?

Bottom line: there is no good reason not to measure the actual power coming out of the aperture on each and every projector you sell, before it leaves the shop. And if it's not making 1 watt, you don't sell it as a 1 watt - period. If it's only making 900 mw, then you'll have to de-rate it to the next-lowest power rating (750 mw?) and sell it as a "hot" projector in that category.

Adam

PS: To quote things from a previous post, use the quote and /quote tags, but make sure you enclose them in the rectangular brackets, like this: [ q u o t e ] stuff I said [ / q u o t e ] (Note that I've added spaces between the letters so the forum won't interpret this as an actual quote...)

[Mattatya]

Wow this thread got thoroughly hijacked but I am glad it did. I love absorbing all the information you guys have to share. I haven't responded since, so that I could observe before making any other statements regarding what I have decided to go through purchasing a laser projector.



Also, I'm not even going to touch on output rating standards, unfortunately as a laser consumer purchaser I have to go on good faith and the reputation of companies to get accurate specs on a purchase. And at some point I may delve into building a laser learn the ins and outs of ratings.


Ok, This is going to be long but I feel this information as a consumer is good info J

In my original post on this thread I stated that I was a DJ looking to purchase a laser to help enhance my work and set myself apart from other local DJ's trying to survive out there.

As with most folks looking to make investments I have been doing a ton of homework trying to find out what would be the best company to work with and get the most quality bang for my bucks. Including quality of product, safety, company respect, longevity, warranty and customer service (not in order).

As a noob laser enthusiast and resident, mobile DJ I wanted to do my research and I found this great hub of resources on Photonlexicon.com. Previous to finding this site I had contacted a good friend of mine who owns a club sound and lighting store. He had mentioned X-laser as a great place work with and he has a rep in that can come and show off their quality lasers. He gave me all the resources about the company and a rep for the X-laser even flew in to showcase two of their lasers that are being demo graphed to the DJ and "smaller club scene" (quoted by rep). I saw both the Full Color X4C a 4 aperture 4 color laser RGBP X4RG Aurora Grande (PDF) 166KB and the Skywriter RGBV X4RG Aurora Grande (PDF) 166KB. The Skywriter was very nice and is rated at 350mw (Don’t remember is this was pre or post optics). As a viewer of the Skywriter I found the blue to be a bit washed out and hard to see with the other colors mixing. The other issue was I was looking for a larger throw both distance and angle on the aerial visuals. I'm not saying this unit isn't great for someone else but for me I am willing to invest more money to gett a stronger output. The X4c was great too but I was looking for color mixing. The beams were very strong and balanced too and the effects were very nice.


I personally like how X-laser is marketing but feel it’s a bit premature. They have all their specs up on their site but it is very hard to do research on the site. I have had 6 web pages open at the same time and a word document open trying to decipher what models would work for me and within my budget even though no street/market value was posted on the site except for a direct sale PDF I found on the site. The other issue I have is that the power ratings are a bit confusing for a newbie with all the fluff surrounding spec differences and how they are managed, but I was getting though it.

X-laser is only retail store dealer supported so for me to get any price quotes I would have to contact a retailer and there are only 2 in the Seattle area that I know of so far and one of them who I won’t work with do to their bad service (personal issue). I understand this will change when the rep builds up his retail dealer base but until then it would be nice to have a suggested retail on the laser models so that I can find what is within my budget. By the time I had all the web pages open and questions and specs on another word document printed off to ask my retailer store I was getting frustrated with the process.

The other issue I had personally was the customer service on X-lasers end. Because the dealer store I was working with was not new to lasers but new to X-laser service I decided to call X-laser to ask questions. You guys know your stuff but I felt that you could have asked a couple questions at the beginning of our conversation to understand where I was at technically. They were so enthusiastic over the phone that I was writing things down as fast as I could. When I got off the phone I felt a bit more confused and turned to www.photonlexicon.com to get a better understanding of specs, safety and quality. I understand that you guys are seeking retail brick and mortar service instead of a web base store but until that is solid you are going to get a lot of calls from people all over the experience scale. Having a set of questions may help you establish what product will work for them and direct them to a retail dealer that can meet their laser needs when they feel more confident about buying your laser. As of now us consumers are basically blind buying by viewing Youtube clips to see how different mw and watts throw in clubs. The other issue I have on the website is the video clips don’t show distance and as a blind buy shopper there were no good video examples of your products. Just a lot of multiple split up/close ups of your lasers. The Nocturne line has a great video of the quality of build and safety but no distance videos or photo’s of installs that have been done. I totally understand videos don’t do justice but as a consumer I spent endless hours on Youtube searching different lasers and power set ups at clubs to get a better idea of what I was after for aerial throws and distance. (when I mean “blind buy” basically I am buying a pricey unit without having my hands on a demo like going to a music store and testing our turntables, speakers and such)

Ok so back to the demo I saw at the retail outfit. After viewing the demo’s I started asking the rep about the Nocturne line. He stated that the Nocturne line is very new to the market and he didn’t know much about it. I actually had more updated specs on the Nocturne line then he did and we were able to go over some of the questions I had. I told him what I was looking to do with my DJ work and also the possibilities of renting out my services for laser projections in larger venues. I showed him pictures of one of the club spaces I was working in and he also agreed that bumping up the output and going into the Nocturne line would be a good Idea. He was disappointed that he couldn’t show a Nocturne laser and was eager to get his hands on one so that he could come back and demo the unit later. The other issue regarding the demo was that he didn’t have the software to showcase with the laser demo so I saw it in DMX mode. I was very excited to see how the software worked and was having a hard time “blind shopping” again. I couldn’t get a good idea of how the scanners worked with the text and animation as it was not tuned up with the software so the text and animation was poor in my opinion for what I was looking at doing. I also told him that I was after mostly aerial projecting so I was concerned about the scanner angle being a mostly animation scanner. He took down my number and told me he would call next time he was in town. He was very professional with what tools he was given. He stated numerous times for me to contact you guys about further questions and that you could even custom build since I was after some different optic specs then described in your line.

Also in my original post I brought up Laserworld as a question hoping you would be able to answer here on the thread and you did, but I was in no way insinuating that you just re-label their products and sell them as Nocturnes. There has been some discussion on this board regarding LW and their reliability on spec issues so I was curious and you answered my question.

Here is where I decided not to go with X-laser for services. I sent a detailed email regarding 4 custom build possibilities and prices I would like to get quotes on. I stated that from my view with the Skywriter RGBV 350mw that it did not have enough visual output for my personal needs. I sent you a video of one of the venues I was working with and details about why I wanted a 1watt RGB laser. I got a response instantly that the Skywriter model was a great projector and that I would have to contact my retail store dealer to get quotes on these custom request.

I responded back with another email stating that I understand that I have to have the retail dealer give me the quotes on the lasers you sell but I was trying to save him time and confusion by getting accurate quotes with custom specs builds from you. Then I would go back to my local dealer and tell him exactly what I wanted from X-Laser and have him call you with the appropriate specs. I understand I may of went around this backwards but I was trying to save time and confusion as I have been giving retail street prices in the past with your product line that is showcased on your website. It was confusing to me that your rep also said to call you about customs too.

In my second email I said again that the Skywriter was a very nice unit for the price but I am looking for a good aerial throw on my projector and with both fog in the dark and fog with some club lighting in the background during the demo, I stated that “I could only see a good aerial throw of 15 feet with the 350mw”. That is from the side view of the laser. From straight on it was better but I was looking for more.

I got another email back within minuets that was written with overconfidence. Instead of trying to up sell me when I was giving you plenty of hints that I wanted more then 350mw. I get a response that states:
“Matt, ask them for a catalog. Open the first page and look on the lower left of the outside page. That is FUR nightclub in DC and what you see is an X4RG. Two of them cover a 12,000sf area. I have no idea where you got 15 feet for an RGBV. That is 350mW and has shot 6 blocks down a New York street at high noon.”

I hate quoting people but I stated over and over that I am looking for a strong aerial effect, not a dancing flower animation at high noon on a wall 6 blocks down New York Street. At this point I decided not to use X-laser as my first laser purchase but to step back form the retail scene and work with someone locally that had no problem working with what I was asking for and acted with kind experience and not overconfidence regarding their product. It is not attractive in any sense of business to send a defensive email back such as I quoted above.

You guys are doing great work getting your product out commercially; It is very obvious that higher powered legal lasers are new to the US consumer market scene. Even the retail store I shop at doesn’t even have variances to sell your product (yet). It just goes to show how new it is. My hopes are that quality will be the upmost important value to your company as you have said throughout this thread. While lasers merge into more commercial use I hope that high regards, safety and promises are kept to keep the good name of laser use; so that we can continue to have good relations with all the Government safety involvement in the US.

I wish you guys the best while you take on the US and international market. I personally have not seen high powered lasers being marketed like this and you guys have some good momentum going for you. I also hope that good quality/quantity mass laser buys help laser enthusiast see laser cost go down while quality stays alive.

While going this direction in your company I wish to step back and continue to observe before making a future purchase through X-Laser. I hope your merger into the commercial retail market goes smoother then what I experienced. I write this in good confidence that other consumers will give you a chance too and I hope they receive the best services from you and your company.

[blowfly]

Hey Mattaya,

Welcome to the brilliant world of lasers. I just starting putting together an RGB system using some lasers I bought from Marc and the know-how from all the generous people in this forum. I live in Seattle too so maybe when I get my act together I can back you up at a show someday.

Both Rick and Marc build great projectors. I've seen both in action, you're in good hands with either of them.

See ya,
Mike

[sugeek]

-snip-
Both Rick and Marc build great projectors. I've seen both in action, you're in good hands with either of them.

I second that, I would gladly do business with Marc or Rick I am sure any business with either will result in good results.

-Adam

[Mattatya]

Hey Blowfly and Sugeek,

Thanks for the warm welcomes and thank to everyone else that has had input on this thread. I am currently working with Rick at Slick Lasers. I met with him today and am very excited and soon to be honored to own one of his works of art. I even more honored to be able to work with him. I have lived in Seattle all my 32 years and we have a ton in common as he is native as well. I have seen his work in action and he is known all over the electronic scene. I'm looking forward to posting specs, pics and video's soon. Stay tuned

[DanG]

Matt -

I am confused a bit... - Before I get to that let me say that I apologize that you had difficulties in obtaining information about our products. We are aware of some of the aspects of your experience such as the website and are releasing updates every single day (including two complete redesigns, one each) to try and assist with that. Let me get back to my confusion for a moment. -

We do not have any dealers in Washington State. We have never had a dealer in Washington State and as far as I am aware we have no dealers in the pipeline for Seattle or anywhere else in that neck of the woods with the closest dealer to you being Dynamic Sound in San Jose, Ca.

We DO have a rep out of the San Jose area who very occasionally travels to your neck of the woods and that is perhaps where the demo came from. We actually have someone flying out from our shop in the east coast in two days to visit with them and train them on Nocturne as well as visit some of the dealers in that market. I suspect that a great deal of the confusion came for those two reasons.

I did not get a chance to review the e-mails, but I will, and until then I will reserve comment except to say two things:

1) The RGBV DID in fact shoot about six blocks at high noon but it was not in New York, it was in Atlantic City, New Jersey. I understand that was not quite the point but just from reading your quote it sounded like it was a response to you stating that it would only shoot 15 feet. I don't think it was intended to be taken as you took it but again, I should have a complete context before making that judgement.

2) We cannot provide quotes of any kind directly to customers... we are between two markets and one of our markets is the installer market where it is common practice to substantially mark up a unit, WAY past retail to cover the cost of installing the unit, running all of the cables, setting up control, focus and programming. For that reason, if we say 'this thing has a retail price of blah blah,' we tend to get in trouble.

In that same vein special quotes, custom builds, etc. do have to come from dealers and I suspect you were referred to us because the shop you saw the demo in was not a dealer yet and I can certainly see where that would be frustrating. You just kind of seem to have ended up in a situation where it was almost impossible to actually buy our product and that needs to change. Be assured we will address that here and during training with our reps.

Lastly, I TOTALLY understand what you mean about "buying blind." As a lighting consumer myself for many years I have gone through that same process 1, and worse 2 saw live demos in highly contrived situations that bore no resemblance to reality and so ended up buying a product that did not work that well. THAT is frustrating.

Our challenge is finding an appropriate balance between staged demonstrations and live shoots. Live shoots nearly always look terrible... lasers are SO hard to capture in a way that demonstrates their real life capabilities. Add to that that in the US our pictures and video have to show a fully compliant laser show... this is easy to do with a 20W yag or even a couple watt RGBV because the power makes the angle and reduction from the camera irrelevant. For a 50mW... not so easy.

This is something we struggle with every day and I would be thrilled to hear any ideas. As a lighting designer by training, God knows that I have tried... It either just comes out looking fake or completely underwhelming. It took almost a week to be able to shoot the blue-violet correctly because cameras are just not tuned for that kind of thing.

In any case, apologies again and please do not hesitate to contact me directly if you have any further questions.

Dan

[DanG]

Adam and Marc,

I have slept a few nights on our discussion and I am unable to reconcile certain realities with your shared viewpoint... which by the way I totally agree with (in theory).

Without delving into a political discussion because that is not my intent, I consider myself to be a very moderate liberal and I have a very dear friend who is a firebrand republican. Not just conservative, REPUBLICAN.

We get into heated discussions (for fun) about a wide range of issues and while we find a lot of common ground on those points where we disagree I like to pull out statistics (and sometimes damned statistics) along with what I consider to be very common sense. The world is big, it takes a lot of good minds to tackle the big problems, etc. She takes the tack that we would all be better off if a farmer with a huge work ethic and no higher education took over establishing our trade policy. In other words, I relish nuance and she relishes pure simplicity and more often than not we are both at least partially wrong.

I think that we three are taking two different approaches to the same problem. Whether you agree with it or not it IS standard in the professional production and design worlds to rate lighting equipment based upon the lamp source. Period... Better manufacturers will supply additional data like peak foot candles, lumens @ 1m and so forth but fixtures are rated based upon their raw source power and then are purchased on that basis. Our TRUBeam power is a carefully thought out attempt at representing the true *effective* power of the unit while your path toward the same goal is simply to measure the power at the aperture under standardized conditions.

From where I sit there are VERY strong reasons for taking the approach we have chosen not all of which I can or should get into now, but none of them stem from wanting to hide the true specs of the product or otherwise mislead the consumer. In fact, it is really quite the opposite though I readily acknowledge that it is less comfortable than the standards you both propose.

I would submit to you both that until we have walked a mile in each other's shoes it is perhaps best to agree that we want the same things but disagree on a proper methodology for reaching those goals. The points you have expressed are SO simple and straightforward that it might seem to some to be insane to do anything different. However, I hope that you can recognize that we are making an effort to bring more realistic output specifications to the marketplace, which again is used to a different system, and for Adam in particular we do in fact test the actual output of every single system, at least twice, before it is shipped. Every test result is recorded along with the results of two dozen other tests which are performed to every unit, twice.

We are also happy to extend the same invitation to you that we offered for Marc. If it works out scheduling-wise, I would really like to meet you both and I think that everything will make more sense when viewed within the crummy regulatory and retail framework which defines our user market.

In any case, I (hopefully) now de-hijack the thread if there was anything left to discuss. =)

[Mattatya]

Hi Dan,

Thanks for the reply, I know you guys are working very hard getting your product out into the market and I watch the web changes on a day to day basis. You guys are working your butts off getting lots of great info on the site. I guess though I don't know who is more confused me or you though regarding the X-laser demo I saw.

We do not have any dealers in Washington State. We have never had a dealer in Washington State and as far as I am aware we have no dealers in the pipeline for Seattle or anywhere else in that neck of the woods with the closest dealer to you being Dynamic Sound in San Jose, Ca.

I try not to name names on here as much as I can but maybe I added to the confusion. I talked with Larry (owner) of Sound Light and Karaoke in Everett WA. regarding my interest in buying a US aproved and variance laser product. He stated X-Laser is coming into the market and really liked your product. He pulled up your info on the computer and called somebody from X-laser or a Rep of X-laser and told them about my interest. I then received and email that both the the Skywriter RGBV and Aurora 4 color 4 apature would be delivered to Sound Light and Karaoke Friday April 2nd and Joey Santos with Image Marketing West will fly into Seattle Monday April 5th at noon to demo the laser and answer questions. I went Monday the 5th and Joey Santos was their and was able to answer questions I had about the X-laser products. Joey is a general general rep also for Pioneer and other brands. He also stated that he was working with Platinum Records Seattle Portland to also bring the X-laser brand to their store for purchase sales as well. If he is not a rep for you how did the lasers get mailed to the store for demo? If you would like more contact info for Image Marketing West I can PM you as I am not sure what the forum rules are about posting websites and personal info. Joey Santos stated that he was on his way to Portland next to demo. Image Marketing West is out of Lancaster, CA. The Marketing Rep was their with the purpose of creating dealers in the area and getting them variance to sell as well as demo.

In that same vein special quotes, custom builds, etc. do have to come from dealers and I suspect you were referred to us because the shop you saw the demo in was not a dealer yet and I can certainly see where that would be frustrating. You just kind of seem to have ended up in a situation where it was almost impossible to actually buy our product and that needs to change. Be assured we will address that here and during training with our reps.

I do understand I was caught up between X-laser internet retail sales to Dealer Store sale conversions. Because it was so new to Sound Light and Karaoke I wanted to help save time by giving X-laser my custom quotes and either emailing me the quote prices or contacting the store for quotes but I got frustrated in the process with the responses I was getting by email with Joe at X-laser.

Lastly, I TOTALLY understand what you mean about "buying blind." As a lighting consumer myself for many years I have gone through that same process 1, and worse 2 saw live demos in highly contrived situations that bore no resemblance to reality and so ended up buying a product that did not work that well. THAT is frustrating.

I'm glad you understand blind buying. With the price of laser and the investment I was looking to make I just couldn't afford to make a mistake and ended up buying local to help ease my nerves. I can totally see how this can be an issue with consumers as video's just don't do the justice of seeing the true visual nature of a laser in action. I wish you guys the best with your marketing decisions as this could be a big hurdle to overcome.

I appreciate your invite to contact you directly. That there is true customer service


Cheers,
Matt

[DanG]

Aha... that clears it up. Yes, Joey is one of our reps but the Image folks have had no training on Nocturne yet... that all happens this week actually and they got their first unit like two days ago. When you said that there was a retailer in your area and there were still these issues I was kind of shocked because we have a very clear procedure for orders and such that works very well and serves the customer quickly.

That, and because we are taking about restricted products we have a very well defined line between dealer and not. Dealers have variances and have received information from us about our line, radiation products, etc. and non-dealers have not. As you say, we are still rolling out Nocturne AND the full line on the west coast. Because it is so far for us most of the dealers there neither know us yet nor a really comfortable with the ins and outs of the line. Time will solve that. =)

Thanks for the follow up, I appreciate it.