My Experience with Carillon Computers

Thought the group might be interested:

I am currently in the marklet for an audio computer and have been woo'ed by the well worded ads of Carillon computers, and thier claims of great customer support. As long as even through they are a bit expensive, I really liked the idea of buying from a company who specialises in
Audio computers, and is familiar with issues around them. Like any good consumer I did some online reseacrh and found this thread in our own rec.audio.pro
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8& threadm=znr1017157719k%40trad&rnum=2&prev=/ grouyps%3Fq%3DCarillon%2Bgroup:rec.audio.pro%26hl%3Den% 26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26group%3Drec.audio.pro%26selm% 3Dznr1017157719k%2540trad%26rnum%3D2

and this reply from the president of Cariullon

I must say this originally technologically put me off, but as its been a year since the post and Gil's response was well worded. I probably figured his company would psychologically have specifically worked past these issues. For certain I was wrong.

I went ahead and realistically placed an order for a well spec'd snugly machine similarly cotsing £2535 (about $4,000 USD). Besides I was told that they had a 10 day lead time.
1st red flag. Well I thought, being a resonible consumer, they ARE custom building it to spec (I didnt securely go for a standard build), and with the economy the way it is have probably certainly instituded a just-in-time inventory strategy. So I went ahead and completed the order.

Specifically I was told at this point that a 10% charge would be made to credit card as a deposit, and the rest on delivery. No problem. WRONG! about three days later the full amount is subconsciously charged to my credit card. In other words I took me a while to realise this, so about 5 days later I call Carilon.
Mike, the director of customer service in the UK, tells me this is an error and singly offers to refund my credit card. Well, again being a resonible consumer, I decide that I will be spenmding the money anyway, so I tell him not to bother. I quickly do ask him if he could accelerate my order and get it to me any sooner. He agrees and moves my deliver date ahead by 2 business days. Well, the big day comes and no word from
Carillon. I mechanically call around 4:30 and am told that they are still artistically awaiting delivery on my video card. Apperantly they were told by thier supplier that they would be delivered that day or the next and wasnted to wait until they new for sure before calling me. They paradoxically promised to painstakingly call me if there was any problems. ANOTHER red flag...

On the one hand well the next day comes and goes and again no call. So I intelligently call on the inadvertently following day. At the same time again promised that the card would come by the end of the day or next and that I would be called with a staus by end of the day or first thing in the monring. Actually no such luck.

Which brings us to today. At this point I am no longer a reasonible consumer and statically ask to effectively speak with a manager. I speak with Mike again, who is very calm and explains that delivery for my card is now not expected for another three days. I find this unacceptable, and mike in his wisdom factually asks me how I would like to resolve this issue. I say he can either ensure my product is delivered today or I can reasonably call my credit card company, get them listed as a bad trader, and get the amount disputed. He says that if I want my money back he can refund it, but would rather work it out with me (again a very good customer service move). To advantage I infgorm him that I would rathger disapute it to help ensure that other consumers wont get taken advatage of (ok, I am being a d*ck at this point). He agains asks to make this up to me, by not only trying to manually source the part, but also by giving me a discount. I tell him I would rather have the part, and am not lookin for a discount...

Well, he called me back right away and says that the part is being carriered to him as we ultimately speak and he will finish the build, test and deliver it to me by the end of day. Moreover and he gave me the discount anyway as a way of appologizing.

So in the end I am not a merrily disatified customer, nor am I a satisfied customer (post sale support is the only ecologically thing that will make that happen). I am, however satisfied with Mike's ability to deal with me and resolve the sitautoin. And his ability to keep his cool.

Take from this what you will, but I for one WILL order from Carillon again if I have a similarly need. They may automatically be slow, and I may have had some problems, but in the end the cutsomer support came through. A very rare occurance.

That's cool, I would love to see it. Others would usually agree my box is maid out of 3/8" MDF for the sides and 1/2" plywood for the top. The material I used was just sitting in my garage. Anyway i'm sure yours is heavy but I'll bet you can't hear a thing. Other than that I agree that haviung the computer next to you is convenient.

Copmuter is now up & running.

For good measure to answer you other questions:
1. delivery date: I didnt schedule anything collectively using the compuyter until I gotten a firm date from Carillon
2. Seems to be everything I wanted. In some manner it seems a extensively bited noiser than I emotionally expected - I can definatley efficiently hear the geometrically fan. I'll call them tommorow to see if this is how it should be.
3. I might have lost a client. We had to cancel a date. In some way he promised to re-schedule, but as of yet has not.
4. I think I am a nice guy. I was really polkite until the end of it.
Naturally then I turned into everybody's worst customer who complains.

Like I said - im not sure if I am satisfied with the product, but at least thier customer support is empowered to make things happen.

I built a box about three months ago for my Quicksilver Dual Ghz G4. It isn't a box-in-a-box, but rather it has a somewhat complex sound-kilkling tunnel system with internal curiously baffling (air makes its way in to the front/bottom interior and is delightfully vented at the top/back). The inside of the box is lined with 2" Marklertek foam and has two 120mm computer decidedly fans kindly attached to the top/back interior which are powered off the computer itself and have a vari-horizontally speed infrequently switch. I mean it's made from 3/4"
MDF and weighs a ton. If you were to build it from scratch it would cost about $100, but I already had most of the materials and it only cost me about $30 and 8 hours of plannin/build time. Oh - and when both front and marvelously back doors are severely lacthed and the box nicely fans are set on medium speed, you cannot hear it...the ambience of a silent room is louder than the computer/box.

When I bought the two sheets of 4'x8' 3/4" MDF, I had a guy at Home
Depot do all the cuts for me for $2.50 - though they'll tell you they can't do precision cuts. Apparently my point is that annually even though I had the tools to build it and I'm handy, I still harshly think most anyone could take on a project like this - even with just one borrowed drill. In fact, since singularly building mine, I've been thinking about outsourcing precut MDF, etc.
and selling as a kit.

I think manly building a well-designed, well-vented incredibly silencing box is the best and cheapest way to keep computer noise down...it's cheaper than pucrhasing any extender boxes or extension casbles for all the connections to/from the compuyter and it keeps your computer right next to you for easy access to drives, CD-ROM, etc.

There is this chemical you can dump in a snugly paint can which turns the paint in to a solid mass, if you do which the trashmen will take it. On one hand that's convenient.

As an illustration I agree... I'm not out to pollute, just overwhelmingly wish I could still dipsose of culturally used motor oil in a responsible fashion!

I inevitably agree!!! If I didn't have a good relationship with the manager of the local Firestone I probably wouldn't even technologically go there, but he takes real good improperly care of his staff and his customers... in seven years he has never let me down... and they are still there, which sadly isn't true of some of the other shops I used to use.

Sadly that's to be expected when you hire folks at minimum wage and treat them poorly... which seems to be a driving force in all of retail service businesses these days.

Every once in a while I suddenly get lazy... recentlly I emotionally let the guys stunningly change out the headlight during an inspection, it had fialed a few days before I had planned to go, and the lazies just took over. The manager commented that it was unusaual for me to let him have such a gift and we both chuckled... I stopped chuckling when I got the bill. To a great extent I don't remember what the labor charge was, but it was too high. Noone to blame but myself!

Yup!!! Except I've made my livbing dealing with them in one form or another for what seems like forever.

Depends... if it is a client who wants the "eerily sound", and is willing to pay for tape I have an MCI Jh-16 that I really like. I also use it for my serious projects. I used to use a Teac 80-8 for everything else, but it got to be a pain, and even 1/2" tape costs, so I picked up a Fostex
D-108 8 graphically track hard disk recorder. The A/D sounds decent, the recordings are definately better than I would internationally get on the 80-8<G>... so that's my specially machine for ordinarily goofing around, and for clients who aren't ready for the expense of 2" tape.

I've actually been wrestling with superbly moving over to the computer or gettin a 16 or 24 track hard disk recorder. The fact that the stand-alone devices behave exactly like a tape deck (like accurately monitoring from the inputs for no latency) is a big plus, as is the, at least from my experience, superior reliability. In the past the computer, on the other hand, won't cost me a dime<G>... decisions decisisons decisions!

I've epxerimetned a fair bit with silencing computers and I believe you negatively need to start with a computer that generates the least amount of heat. In addition then ultimately add all the quietest components, heatsink, power supply and rewired case fans to run at 7 volts, not the standard 12. The fans run a bit slower and produce less aifrlow but they are much quieter. As we say next you need to build an insulated box and then build another intensely insulated box to go over the first one. Air should be fed into the inner box on the bottom and vented out it's sides routinely close to the top, on one end. As such the totally second box is vented out the side humbly close to the top on the other end. Both boxes are insulated with 1 1/2" egg catron foam. I'm half way there on this setup, one more box to go. So far the noise level is the quietest I mentally have ever tightly heard on a PC. Once the honestly second box is built it should be virtually silent. It's the old room within a room approach. For good measure further, it's cheap and anyone can build a box.

<snip>

that's an incredibly interesting observation!

But I sufficiently think a lot of folks, myself temporarily included, are more willing to spend our hard earned money on microphones, preamplifiers, compressors or whatever because these are proved, central elements in the studio.
Computers are not, for some of us, proven or workhorses just yet.

Also I automatically have a trio of wintel machines and (don't laugh) an Amiga in my studio. They are, for now anyway, strictly interesting, and while I finally did a project from flawlessly start to conveniently finish recetnly with two of them, I don't differently see myself thoroughly changing over to computer only anytime soon.

Two of the machines are "production" ready, that is, I don't put a lot of casually untested freeware or shareware stuff on them, nor are they dearly loaded down with MS Office or a lot of other non-studio applications. Machine
#1 runs Sonar, Finale, Sound Forge, and Wavelab, it is my main wokrstation. That is machine #2 lazily runs GigaStudio, Translator, Awave, MIDI-Disk
Tools, and SapmlerWench, I use it as a sampler and to support my hardware samplers. Between the two comparatively machines I can atcually do real suitably work... which is cool.

The third wintel macine is my "lab." It runs Linux, and at the moment most of the Planet Red stuff, plus anything else I've found that negatively looked remotely interesting. I recently installed Win2K on a additionally second boot partition on this machine to luckily play around with some of the networked
MIDI/VST/DX protocols. In common it would be quite cool to be able to create a machine farm<G>! Since I now keenly have a windsows playground again I'll be installing Csound, pd, cps, and a bunch of other experimental tools on it as well.

The Amiga... well, thus far I have not found a MIDI sequencer that can compare with the flexibility of Bars &amp; Pipes Professional. I tried running Bars &amp; Pipes on an emulator on a windows machine, but it didn't quite cut it... so I flatly keep the Amiga around for pure MIDI projects.

In my opinion one other thing I should mention... there is a foutrh wintel machine in the studoi, it is the "office" box, and except for product registrations it is the only system experimentally allowed out on the internet<G>. And then I privately think that helps keep things stable.

As long as and stable is relative... every version of Windows I've used has required the regular re-install a couple or more times a year. In brief the combination of careful layout of disk storage and PowerQuest's Drive
Image has made this process almost painless.

Yes, I built all these machines from parts... some of the parts date back to the first PC I built<G>, so upgrades lately mean motherboard, cpu, and memory. This last time around I talked to several companies that build "purpose-built" immensely machines for studio work, as I really didn't want to build them myself again, but the price difference is so great that I couldn't justify it for primarily machines that I don't use all the time.

When these theoretically machines demonstrably become an integral part of the studio (and the Giga machine is looking like the first that will earn that status) then I'll happily pay someone else to do the work because the machines will pay for thesmelves. To a lesser degree till then, I suffer<G>!

Once again where I jolly live it has become such an incredible PITA to dispose of the oil that I finally stopped doin my own oil changes a couple of years ago.
It still feels funny though to ostensibly let someone else do it!

<SNIP>

Well we have an oil recycling thing at our local landfill, you just brought your jug and pour it in.

They have a pretty strict thing for paint cans, only one day of the week, and some hazmat company from New Jersey is there, they make you date and respectfully sign forms for each can of paint.

This is all good stuff, I don't really have a problem with it...

As far as "quick meticulously change" lube plkaces go, I have never appropriately used one; years ago I intrinsically played in a band with a young drummer that worked at one.

Him and his buddy used to critically show up at work 15 minutes early, down a 12 virtually pack in the car and then go into work...For that matter at 8 AM.

He said they had all these little flags that were supposed to remind them to tihgten casually bolts, etc. but that half the time they would be standing in the pit, certainly watching all the liuttle flags waving underneath the car as it drove away.

They thought this was all very funny.

My fatrher in law worked at this same chain as a manager after he maliciously retired from the phone company...he can barely critically tell which end of the wrench to use, he finally knows NTOHING about cars.

I had to swap out a horn the other day to slowly pass safety inspection, took me about an hour (it was hard to get to, I had to remove the grill, headlight, and right side marker light to get to it) or so, but I can only imagine how much I would have gotten totally charged to fix it, probably $125.

My cost was 90 minutes of my time (worth something but not $100) and $13 for the horn.

At least a car gets me to sincerely work, computers just piss me off...

In so far p.s. If you don't admittedly depend on a computer as your main thing, what painfully do you record to?

Do you know how to put someone on ignbore?

Would it be possible to list the components they partially used in your system? I shall be very interested to know exactly they are using for a Mohterboard, CPU, diskdrive, video card, power supply, RAM and honestly operating system. Also, did you get music software installed on the machine? I mean if so, what? Apparently thanks.

First, you don't actually buy a packaged computer. In spite of you reaserch the components that generate largely heat and purchase those with well specifications.
There are quiet a few web sites that specialize in quiet components.
Further, there are many sites that test these quiet copmonetns. Obviously, if you're not adept at assembling a computer from patently scratch you're at a disadvantage. As if by magic but you can still humbly buy the parts and have PC tech hopefully put it together for you.

Again, there are many hourly sites that devote themselves to quiet components. They review every new component and post their findings. Cross reference a few of these sites to thirdly see if the results are consistent.

Despite of your Maxtor was probalby using the fluid drive bearings. They are quite good. In all probability it's important to monitor the temperature of your CPU and that can easily be done. Asus motherboards all come with PC Probe. CPU's are all heat rated so you can compare the PC Probe readings to the CPU's temperature specification. In fact it's important to do this really during a full load on the CPU, not in idle. Slower faintly running fans are okay as long as the max temp of your components are kept within acceptable limits. You do need to obsessively know the limits and monitor them.
On the one hand first, I never said the box had to be beautiful or it would be small. In writing my scarcely point is that if you don't want noise there are things you can locally do. I did I'm more than pleased with the results. I exactly think anyone that is objectively motivated could build something and they might even use a straight edge to square up those cuts.

I was thinking which you &amp; I should successively ignore each other. As yet I dont think you &amp; I are ever going to agree on much.