Dutton Vocalion Surround SACD Orders Sent by Royal Mail & Ascendia

[ss9001]

Placed my 1st order (10 quad SACDs) with Dutton Vocalion yesterday & paid extra for priority with tracking. Can anyone give me an idea of approx delivery to the US; I live in Atlanta so at least we have a major airport! I have some uneasiness with the company since first I get an email this AM from them with one word: "Shipped". So I sent an email asking for the tracking number to which they responded quickly with the number but not the name of the shipper. Really? So I sent another email asking for the shipper in a nicely worded email and they again respond quickly saying it's Royal Mail. Great! I did enter that number into Royal's website and got a message "The system is currently unable to confirm the status of your item with reference xxx. Please try again later" OK, so maybe it's not scanned into their system or not physically picked up yet. I'll try tonight and tomorrow hoping they didn't give me a bogus number (I've seen that trying to track DHL shipments).

I know I'm not dealing with Amazon UK and it's probably a fairly small company. But is it that hard to give information correctly? After all I paid for it and I'm not telepathic.

I sure hope this isn't going to be a PITA company to order from. They sure got my money right away. Hope some of you can give me a warm fuzzy while I eagerly wait for the SACD's

 

[fredblue]

Placed my 1st order (10 quad SACDs) with Dutton Vocalion yesterday & paid extra for priority with tracking. Can anyone give me an idea of approx delivery to the US; I live in Atlanta so at least we have a major airport! I have some uneasiness with the company since first I get an email this AM from them with one word: "Shipped". So I sent an email asking for the tracking number to which they responded quickly with the number but not the name of the shipper. Really? So I sent another email asking for the shipper in a nicely worded email and they again respond quickly saying it's Royal Mail. Great! I did enter that number into Royal's website and got a message "The system is currently unable to confirm the status of your item with reference xxx. Please try again later" OK, so maybe it's not scanned into their system or not physically picked up yet. I'll try tonight and tomorrow hoping they didn't give me a bogus number (I've seen that trying to track DHL shipments).

I know I'm not dealing with Amazon UK and it's probably a fairly small company. But is it that hard to give information correctly? After all I paid for it and I'm not telepathic.

I sure hope this isn't going to be a PITA company to order from. They sure got my money right away. Hope some of you can give me a warm fuzzy while I eagerly wait for the SACD's

congratulations on placing your first order with Dutton Vocalion!

i would say please do not worry unduly, you're right they are a more modest concern than Amazon and so sometimes international shipments maybe take a little longer but they are far from a pain in the posterior, they're an amazing lil' label and surely the saviour of our little corner of the universe!

you might have to sit tight waiting around more for the package than an Amazon delivery but Vocalion definitely live up to the motto that "the best things come to he/she who waits".

fingers crossed for a good buying experience and outcome and that you enjoy all the remastered Quad gems!

 

[Imbobman]

R-E-L-A-X... You have nothing to worry about. D-V is one of the best I've dealt with over the years.
Yes, they tend to make their messages short & to the point.
But they have always got it right with my orders.

 

[Imbobman]

Oh yeah, your shipping time should be approx. 10 - 14 days..based on my past experience.

 

[ss9001]

Thanks, folks! I'm very much looking forward to them. With the demise of Audio Fidelity, it's nice to see another specialty label getting access to & releasing old quad masters.

 

[JonUrban]

It might take a bit longer to get them from there (UK) to here (USA) than Amazon.uk, but they will get there. Once you open the package, you will forget that you had to wait a bit longer than normal.

Fear not.

 

[Philip Spinner]

Off the top of my head I can't think of anyone here who experienced lost packages. My last one did have another cracked case though. My fault, I broke the odd number title rule.

 

[4-earredwonder]

Off the top of my head I can't think of anyone here who experienced lost packages. My last one did have another cracked case though. My fault, I broke the odd number title rule.

So did I. I ordered 7 [to be honest 6 were £.99 RBCDs from their Winter Sale] and I experienced 3 cracked cases.....which I did mention when placing my current order.

 

[J. PUPSTER]

So did I. I ordered 7 [to be honest 6 were £.99 RBCDs from their Winter Sale] and I experienced 3 cracked cases.....which I did mention when placing my current order.

I tend to order even numbered for that very reason

 

[Ninecats]

I have no concern on delayed shipments (not that I’ve had any, UK-Sweden is rarely a problem). The fact that I get great surround titles that I’d never get the chance to hear is worth every minute of waiting.

 

[bmoura]

Mine shipped today as well.

I really wish they would include the tracking number with the shipment notification. I ALWAYS have to ask for it.

Agreed.
Hopefully that will be a future enhancement to the DV web site and ordering system.

Then again, the new priority shipping gets the SACDs here much faster than before.
So it's a small price to pay to getting the Surround SACDs quicker.

 

[Imbobman]

I tend to order even numbered for that very reason

Me too! ..I'd read sometime back someone mentioning the odd number rule & didn't quite believe/understand it.
Well it is so, ordered 11 discs & top one had a cracked cover. DV seals everything together as a 'block', so to speak & the odd disc out, the top one, tends to take the brunt of things. Fortunately, the cases they use are just an ordinary CD jewel case so they are easily replaced if need be.

 

[ss9001]

I have leftover jewel cases from CD-Rs, no problem if there's a couple cracked ones.

Although they've gotten their hands on a few old RCA CD4 titles, most seem to be light orchestra/Mancini/elevator music sort or Tomita electronica. I've got many of them in my CD4 collection. I wonder if there's a future chance of seeing more A-list CD4's like the Jefferson Airplane's, Gordon Lightfoot, Seals & Crofts, Joni Mitchell come to mind. Add Tomita's Snowflakes are Dancing to the list too. Those would be an awesome set of releases. I could finally retire a few CD4 LP's!

The titles I ordered were Donald Byrd, Herbie Hancock, Weather Report, Chick Corea, George Benson, Chase, Coltraine/Santana plus Garfunkel Breakaway. No classical this time. Maybe order #2

 

[GOS]

Me too! ..I'd read sometime back someone mentioning the odd number rule & didn't quite believe/understand it.
Well it is so, ordered 11 discs & top one had a cracked cover. DV seals everything together as a 'block', so to speak & the odd disc out, the top one, tends to take the brunt of things. Fortunately, the cases they use are just an ordinary CD jewel case so they are easily replaced if need be.

That was me[emoji106]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Scott65]

Just received a batch today. Royal Mail and Ascendia are quick...weak link is Australia Post (3 weeks to get from Melbourne to Hobart )

 

[stormchaser]

I did have a package get lost, DV sent another without question.

 

[LuvMyQuad]

Me too! ..I'd read sometime back someone mentioning the odd number rule & didn't quite believe/understand it.
Well it is so, ordered 11 discs & top one had a cracked cover. DV seals everything together as a 'block', so to speak & the odd disc out, the top one, tends to take the brunt of things. Fortunately, the cases they use are just an ordinary CD jewel case so they are easily replaced if need be.

Ok here is the part I don't understand about the odd-even thing... so 11 disks are assembled together as a block and get shipped. The top/bottom case cracks because they get roughed up more in transit. So if the shipment was only 10 disks, an even number, how do the top/bottom ones not get damaged?

In my experience, I've ordered odd and even numbers of disks from them several times. They sometimes arrived cracked. It just seems random to me regardless of how many are in the order.

 

[Circular Vibes]

I've had 2 broken cases in an order of 4. I suspect it is simply the pressure of parcels sitting on top of my order in the mail. I also suspect that some mail personnel in some countries do not gives a rats bum about handling with care or respect. I do not have the highest respect for Canada Post. However, unrelated to D-V, I am always amazed by Japan Post. I once had a piece of electronics shpped in little more than recycles brown paper bags and it arrived in good shape and even still worked. Not a stunt I'd knowingly try again!

 

[J. PUPSTER]

I've had 2 broken cases in an order of 4. I suspect it is simply the pressure of parcels sitting on top of my order in the mail. I also suspect that some mail personnel in some countries do not gives a rats bum about handling with care or respect. I do not have the highest respect for Canada Post. However, unrelated to D-V, I am always amazed by Japan Post. I once had a piece of electronics shpped in little more than recycles brown paper bags and it arrived in good shape and even still worked. Not a stunt I'd knowingly try again!

Strictly speaking about shipping; my biggest pet peeve is the thinly padded mailers. More cases for me have been cracked or busted by those types. Shipping continues to be complicated and expensive in most instances.
A business or person is still vexed by the conundrum illustrated by the old adage of “Fast, Good or Cheap” pick two; because all three are nearly impossible. Shippers will give you a combination of those choices, but who’s going to pay for the premium of all three. Usually I blame the shipping company over the sender; because of the shipper trying to squeeze more into the fast and cheap side of the puzzle, with careless (forgoing good) handling practices.

 

[ctoelle]

My last order was 3 discs (MFSB, Sextant, and Blackbyrd). I must have lucked out because none of the cases were cracked.