Dear Music Lover,
Thank you for considering or having purchased our products.
By purchasing Audio Note, you not only obtain the Finest Audio Equipment Money can Buy, but you’ll also become part of the Audio Note family. We welcome you wholeheartedly.
Audio Note India guarantees your satisfaction with our products and service.
For this, we are committed to our CUSTOMER SATISFACTION GUARANTEE (CSG)
including our business rules, as outlined below.
Our business-rules are a bit ‘different’, but will ultimately guarantee your satisfaction by enabling us
to offer the highest quality products and service with the
lowest possible cost-of-ownership.
Our CSG is presented below. We make 10 promises to you, and we
ask that you make six promises to us in return.
Along with our CSG, we present our business rules on the following topics:
CUSTOMER SATISFACTION GUARANTEE
We keep our promises before, and up to two years after the original delivery:
​
-
Before you buy, you’ll receive free advise and can attend unlimited free demonstrations of any products available. This helps us offer product(s), which will optimally fit your desires, budget, and use-case. The more questions you ask, the better the advise we're able to give, so keep your questions coming. We aim to sell you the highest priced equipment now, we aim to deliver the highest satisfaction for the future. If at any point during the orientation you’re not interested in our products, then just say ‘no’;
-
New products will be delivered to your doorstep, without any additional charges;
-
When you require installation assistance, we’ll provide it at no additional charge. This is valid for complete Audio Note systems (source, amplification, speakers, cables);
-
(Y)our product will work as intended. If it fails by itself within 1 year after puchase, we’ll repair it, without any additional charge, except for shipping costs and any duties / fees charged by third parties; The same is true for pre-owned equipment purchased from us;
-
If the original tubes fail or need replacement within 3 Months after purchase, we'll replace them without additional charges except for any shipping charges / duties / fees charged by third parties;
-
We do not have any small print to avoid making you feel unsatisfied.
​
Thats it! As said, we don’t have small print. We only ask you to promise the following:
​
-
Don’t ask for or accept any discounts, from us or from our agents; When a products is sold at discount, this CSG does not apply;
-
Trust our judgement. We have years of experience with all our products, worldwide, with almost all systems and circumstances. We love to hear your vision, upgrade plans, and experiences. However allow us to offer the best solution for your satisfaction. Even if that solution means buying something else as an Audio Note product;
-
Keep the original packaging and all manuals, and store them in a dry, dark place to keep them in optimal condition. You’ll need to package all equipment in its original packaging if shipment is required for service, or if you want to sell your products;
-
Make sure you can prove that you are the original buyer of the product(s) by keeping the invoice received at purchase, and that you bought the product(s) directly from Audio Note India. Only then you are able to make any claims under this CSG;
-
If products need shipment for service, trade-back or otherwise, we will arrange pickup and delivery by Bluedart, but all involved costs will be charged.
Audio Note India
DEMONSTRATIONS
As Audio Note India does not work with an extensive dealer-network, a possibility for a demonstration will not always be around the corner.
​
Therefore we kindly invite you to visit our listening room in Sri Lanka. More details here.
​
Audio Note India will be happy to reimburse your travel and lodging expenses according to the following:
​
-
Upon purchase within two weeks after visiting the showroom, Audio Note India will reimburse your travel/lodging costs up to a maximum of 5% of the purchase value, ex. taxes, with a maximum of INR 50K.
We ask you to hand us copies of your ticket/hotel bills.
​
So, no reason not to visit us!
DISCOUNTS
“There is hardly anything in the world that someone cannot make a little
worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price alone
are that person’s lawful prey.
It’s unwise to pay too much, but it’s worse to pay too little.
When you pay too much, you lose a little money — that is
all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the
thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do.
The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot
— it can’t be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add
something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will have enough to
pay for something better.”
​
John Ruskin
​
Audio Note India does NOT offer discounts.
We may not give you a discount, however we WILL give ALL our clients the best deal!
We don’t offer discounts because:
​
-
The products we offer in India are already ‘discounted’. We operate at lower margins than our colleagues from the United Kingdom (for example), as we feel that the Indian customers should receive the same value for money as their peers in any other country. Therefore, as Audio Note India, we have not inflated our prices to compensate for the high import duties, octroi, and other taxes applicable in India. Our pricing is equal to that of UK retail pricing, so we even ‘discounted’ you for the shipping and insurance costs we bear.
-
At Audio Note India, all customers pay the same price for the same product. The alternative being that everybody pays a different price for the same product, and how can that satisfy everyone? Would you be satisfied if you learned that your neighbour bought the same product at a lower price? Or, would you be satisfied if we recovered losses caused by a pro bargainer in the morning, by trying to rip you off in the afternoon? We think not.
-
Audio Note India does not compete on price, but on quality, customer satisfaction, and cost-of-ownership. We offer the highest value products as we invest in our products and not in glossy folders, fancy packaging, large booths on shows, ’flagship stores’, or… discounts. Instead of focusing on the price you pay today, we focus on the value you’ll receive tomorrow.
If you need a discount to afford a certain product, we can recommend you a lower-priced alternative.
Alternatively you can save up additional funds to buy the product you want. As most of our products are handmade in England, they often have considerable lead time. This gives you time to save additional funds to purchase the product you wanted today - without discount, but with guaranteed satisfaction.
By not just giving away fair margins to those who bark the loudest, we, and our dealers, will be able to invest in long-term customer satisfaction instead of discounts and envy.
Compromising fair margins in the supply chain, eventually leads to a race to the bottom - and then everybody loses. We think the current state of the Indian high-end audio market proves this point very well.
Remember, we’re not in the in the oil, fashion, or jewellery business where huge profits are made. We are in the highly specialist 2-channel audio business, where demand is low, and costs for innovation, production, and distribution are high.
If you like to read more thoughts about this, you can read them here.
USED AUDIO NOTE
Purchasing pre-owned Audio Note products, is like buying a new product for less. Our core technologies and designs don’t age as fast like current fashion audio does. Some of our designs are over 20 years old, and still outperforming most of what’s out there. They are modern classics.
All pre-owned equipment will be in mint condition, less than two years old, and will very likely sound even better than equipment, which is brand new. If necessary, the equipment will be refurbished, tested, and re-adjusted.
SELLING EQUIPMENT
We offer a unique service that helps you sell your old/current equipment. Its a free service for customers that makes it possible for you to receive the best price for your equipment without any hassle.
​
This service is available for all customers who re-invest the proceeds to purchase Audio Note Equipment. Customers who just want to sell their equipment via this service pay a fee.
EMI'S
We don’t offer EMI’s.
All EMI schemes cost money, whether it is processing fees or interest, visible or invisible, or if we pay for it or you do. Even sitting down with a bank to negotiate EMI’s costs money.
In all cases, this money is not invested in your satisfaction, but into a bank. And they’ll never give something away for free.
​
In addition, almost no bank offers a free early payment option. So, if you’re not satisfied with our product and have returned it, you still have to pay your bank. If something happens, and you’ll need to skip an EMI, than the consequences can be grave. And, instead of loving your Audio Note product, you (or your family members) will start blaming it. Would you be satisfied with that?
ORDERING & DELIVERY
When you order a product, you’ll need to make a down payment of 50%. All our products are handmade in England, and we choose to start investing in your satisfaction immediately. This is instead of inviting a high-skilled labourer and materials for cancelled orders, which ultimately will make the customers’ dissatisfied.
As soon as we’ve received the down payment, your order will be processed and production of the product(s) will commence.
Our lead time can be quite large. It can take up to 12 weeks and sometimes longer for customised products, or products, which contain exotic materials, like palladium plated silver, high-nickel transformer cores, silver foil crossover capacitors, or AlNiCo driver magnets.
However, some products are in stock most of the time, like the Zero Series, the Cobra, our CD players and transports, the basic cartridges, and tonearms.
All our lead time estimates are just that. An estimate. We ship ordered goods quarterly to India, so if production of your order has finished at the beginning of the quarter, actually shipping and delivery will take additional time.
When the order is ready to ship to India, we’ll ask you to ask to pay the balance. So, payment in full is always in advance, because we would rather spending time to satisfy you, instead of chasing non-paying customers.
​
All items will be shipped locally to your premesis using Blue Dart corporate service. Note that we cannot take responsibility for any damage incurred during shipment by Blue Dart.