Emperion mail?

[avenger]

Is it just me or is that cutout on the V on the wrong side? Compared to the ad it looks like a lefty cutout on a right body. Also the paint lines look terrible.

[MaxOfMetal]

Originally Posted by Raphy00

yea i would not be happy if i ordered that. I hope they atleast got an email about it.

Let's go down the list, for lolz:

No Headstock Binding
....ed Upper Fret Access
....ed "Cutaway"
Shitty Paint "Burst"
Lack of Real Flame Top/Veneer
Wrong Pickups
Wrong Inlay Color
Wrong Nut
No Veneer On Headstock

It could pass as a completely different instrument.

[jymellis]

Originally Posted by Andromalia

Well, since it's now confirmed that all the scorpius pics have no binding contrary to what was advertised, and the 'see through black' ends up being flat black with tons of finish over it, I'm sending my refund request today.
Those guitars simply are not what I ordered, are made in China, not in Japan/Italy, and the delay is just too much.
I have been patient. No more. The overall quality of the guitars show in the pics is just some of the worse I've ever seen outside of chinese plain ripoffs.
Might use the money to buy a RGTHR2.

go for the ....ing giger ibanez maing!!!!!

[Jeepers]

Not such a big deal, but the controls are in a slightly different place too...

[MaxOfMetal]

Originally Posted by Jeepers

Not such a big deal, but the controls are in a slightly different place too...

Now that you mention it, they look kinda out of alignment, as if they were done by hand and without a template.

[Psionicist]

Maybe they dont have metric rulers in Italy?

<- my feeling from December until now

[Edika]

And to think that I was this close of ordering an Agile instead of this, but at the last minute I decided to give these a try to avoid the hassle of customs for an import alongside with the fear of damage at international shipping. That and the fact that the first Norax models looked and sounded quite good from the soundclips they had posted in youtube.
So it seems since I didn't take the decision fast enough I'll have to try the guitar first and decide for the refund. They have shipped the guitar already and I got my reference code by DHL.

[Fuel]

I feel horrible for all the people who ordered these based on the mockups... wow. This is just completely inexcusable. One of the above posters was right - Chibanez ripoffs are often of a higher quality than the guitars in these pictures. And if I'm not mistaken, that "flamed" V is NOT a B-stock, either. Just disgusting.

[MaxOfMetal]

I hope this is a case of the Emperion guys being new to the industry and dropping the ball, opposed to them being scammers.

[playstopause]

Originally Posted by Fuel

I feel horrible for all the people who ordered these based on the mockups... wow.

I don't.

Would you order shoes based on a mockup? I would not. You have to try them in order to know if you're confortable with them, you know?. Same ....ing thing for a guitar, but x10 because of the cash involved.

[Emperion_Mik]

Hi there,

i am Michele, one of the guys at Emperion,

i have been pointed here from a person that i know, i haven't gone through the whole fifteen pages because forums are something that i never really liked.

Anyway, i would like to clarify some points since it seems to that there are too much speculations and not real facts.

So to be much more synthetic and clear as possible:

1) Emperion guitars are made in China

FALSE.

We used to do prototyping with Aram Music (which is, by they way, a South Korean company) as prototyping can be the most expensive part in producing an instrument.

Only two models (ZX and ZV) were made at Aram and were sold at a very low grade instrument price.

I can't say much more on this since there is a legal action involved with ARAM by using our projects for their own website and other (worst) things they made.

2) Final models are different than the specs provided

Partially TRUE. I am dealing with the person responsible for this and of course errors will be corrected in the future. The differences, however, are only on the aestethic side and the whole "fret access" story is just too much exaggerated.

It is TRUE that is different than the mockup but it is absolutely NOT "unplayable" as someone said, those are judgements based on speculations on pics made "on the fly" just to show up the guitars to most unpatient customers (e.g. the Norax Red Flame has both flame mape on top and headstock but the pic was take on very strong direct sunlight with a not top of the market camera, hence this can be misleading).

For your reference we used AAA grade alder on the Norax and AA grade flame maple top on the Red flame and Green flame Norax(s)

A customer even made tests with chemical reagents on the woods and contacted us that he was very satisfied on the wood quality, quoting him he said "that's the same alder that there is on the Jackson PRO series".


People who had already the chance to try those instruments has given us entusiast opinions and feedback.


We will provide better pics and videos in the next weeks of course that may help to calm this kind of paranoia.


This being said we're fully aware and we won't decline our responsibilities, this means that if we will process every refund request we may receive if anybody will be unhappy with the instrument. Luckily on a more than couple hundred pre-orders received and being processed and shipped these days we got no more than 6-8 refund requests.


I am sorry but i won't have much spare time to keep on reading the thread so if anyone wants to ask anything or have more clarification can contact us via email.

Best regards
Michele

[jymellis]

Originally Posted by Emperion_Mik

Hi there,

i am Michele, one of the guys at Emperion,

i have been pointed here from a person that i know, i haven't gone through the whole fifteen pages because forums are something that i never really liked.

Anyway, i would like to clarify some points since it seems to that there are too much speculations and not real facts.

So to be much more synthetic and clear as possible:

1) Emperion guitars are made in China

FALSE.

We used to do prototyping with Aram Music (which is, by they way, a South Korean company) as prototyping can be the most expensive part in producing an instrument.

Only two models (ZX and ZV) were made at Aram and were sold at a very low grade instrument price.

I can't say much more on this since there is a legal action involved with ARAM by using our projects for their own website and other (worst) things they made.

2) Final models are different than the specs provided

Partially TRUE. I am dealing with the person responsible for this and of course errors will be corrected in the future. The differences, however, are only on the aestethic side and the whole "fret access" story is just too much exaggerated.

It is TRUE that is different than the mockup but it is absolutely NOT "unplayable" as someone said, those are judgements based on speculations on pics made "on the fly" just to show up the guitars to most unpatient customers (e.g. the Norax Red Flame has both flame mape on top and headstock but the pic was take on very strong direct sunlight with a not top of the market camera, hence this can be misleading).

For your reference we used AAA grade alder on the Norax and AA grade flame maple top on the Red flame and Green flame Norax(s)

A customer even made tests with chemical reagents on the woods and contacted us that he was very satisfied on the wood quality, quoting him he said "that's the same alder that there is on the Jackson PRO series".


People who had already the chance to try those instruments has given us entusiast opinions and feedback.


We will provide better pics and videos in the next weeks of course that may help to calm this kind of paranoia.


This being said we're fully aware and we won't decline our responsibilities, this means that if we will process every refund request we may receive if anybody will be unhappy with the instrument. Luckily on a more than couple hundred pre-orders received and being processed and shipped these days we got no more than 6-8 refund requests.


I am sorry but i won't have much spare time to keep on reading the thread so if anyone wants to ask anything or have more clarification can contact us via email.

Best regards
Michele

awesome info, but can you tell me when people are finally gonna start getting the guitars that they where promised months ago?

[Emperion_Mik]

awesome info, but can you tell me when people are finally gonna start getting the guitars that they where promised months ago?

We've started shippings this week, we roughtly sent out about 80 guitars at this moment, we should finish shipping out everything in the next two weeks depending on the customization requested by the customer as we're even setting up the guitars with the preferred tuning and string brand/scale requested by some customers

best regards
Michele

[Psionicist]

Some guitars are being shipped as we speak. I got my notice earlier this week, and I remember another person posted they had their tracking number.

[Andromalia]

We will provide better pics and videos in the next weeks of course that may help to calm this kind of paranoia.

HAving sent a refund request yesterday, I can't really say I'm paranoid. Check my interventions in this subject, I have been patient and understanding of things such as the volcano business etc.

That being said, 4 months delay is not acceptable, guitars were supposed to be made in Japan, which you apparently cannot confirm. And the more you wait, the less you are prone to accept that you get delivered something diffrent than ordered. Yes, it's maybe only cosmetic. Cosmetic options are what make a good part of a guitar appeal, else people wouldn't swoon over spalted maples, flamed tops etc. The binding on the scorpius was part of what made them appealing for the price they were offered for. It's gone

You also have to admit the pictures you published are quite bad, and qualifying customers as "impatient" when you are 4 months late isn't very good customer service. If the goods had been delivered in late february as planned this wouldn't be an issue. Too many ordrers ? You didn't have to accept all of them if you couldn't handle it for this run. Rome wasn't made in one day and a first quality short run would have been better than making 300 rushed guitars that are not conforming to the specs.

Thanks for taking the time to post here anyway.

[paintkilz]

is that pickup crooked?



and thats definitely not flamed.

i dont think its so much unjustified paranoia as it is bad advertising and bad follow through.

[Esp Griffyn]

Well, I have been holding off for months and watching this trainwreck unfold, but I think I can safely say I was right all along about this venture. It would be great to pretend that some guys out there just want to give you an awesome deal and will give you a really cheap, awesome guitar, but in truth they will cut corners and costs, and get their products from the cheapest supplier.

That is exactly what has happened, and you can see the products look like £150 crap. Practically every Emperion guitar I look at has some kind of flaw, and that is aside from the fact that the they just aren't what the customers were sold on, the early mockups are far from the finished products. A real blunder, I'm glad they are procesing refunds, because I'd be mortified if I dropped money on this.

Also, the black finished guitars look like have just been pulled out of a vat of crude oil.

[Rotatous]

I don't think the guitars look quite as bad as some of you do, but I'll just see how everything plays out.

Though, I'm not going to make any judgements at least until I've seen some higher quality pictures. Having taken quite a few pictures of guitars in the past, I know how much a bad, blurry picture with lots of reflections can influence how the quality of a guitars finish (as well as other things, in many cases) looks.

[Valserp]

Sad thing is, the older Noraxes DID look exactly like the mockups...

[cyril v]

Originally Posted by paintkilz

is that pickup crooked?

I'm guessing thats just an angled TOM bridge, making it appear as though the pup is angled.

i dont think its so much unjustified paranoia as it is bad advertising and bad follow through.

I think it's a little weird that so many people were so eager to jump on board with this company for the first builds even though most people know most problems that occur don't get ironed out in the build process until the 2nd 3rd or 4th run.

You would think people should just wait til they get the guitars before freaking out, it's not like they won't give you a refund if you chose to after inspecting it, then again it's not my money.

[Rick]

I hope these issues get cleared up soon, I'm really hoping that Emperion does well.

And yes, I will continue to play Agiles only.

[exo]

Wow, maybe this isn't the best thread to make a debut in(I've lurked for several monthss, this is a cool place), but oh well....

not overly sure about the cutaway access problem people are complaining about....unless my eyes deceive me, the "original", proto Norax in that video above joins at the 19th fret, just like the "new" ones in the pics do. Neither of those, I might add, join up where the mockup photos show......


I'd be more than happy (dependent on how it plays, of course) receiving a guitar that looks like the one in the vid, ESPECIALLY for the prices paid.

That red soloist style guitar a few posts up.....looks like the pup itself might be a tad off, but a quick check with the "rectangle" tool in mspaint shows that the cavity itself is square with the fretboard end, at least. Again, I'd be more than happy with that guitar, if it's ANYTHING like the 94 pro series soloist in neck feel.

The "flame" V....yeah, I have more than a little difficulty seeing the flame on that....but there's enough glare down the center, I have trouble making out much of anything, detail wise Isn't that thing supposed to be a burst, as well? between the heavier paint at the edge of the burst, the glare in the center, and the fact that it's OBVIOUSLY a hasty shot, I'm not so sure I'd rush to judgement on the top just from that pic....I mean, obviously, it's not gonna be a PRS 10 top, or something from Hartung....


I DO know I'd be pretty pissed if I'd been waiting 4 months or more for a guitar though.....sure seems like that anger is coloring some of the criticisms, though.

[Murmel]

Honestly, I don't think a top of the line flame maple top should be THAT bothered by the sunlight. I can't see any flame what so ever on that guitar. And I wouldn't call that a burst, more like black edges...

And why are the lightning flashes on the finish so damn strange.. Shouldn't they be like, straight? <--- Regarding the Norax pic as It doesn't have a curved top the Scorpion.

[Esp Griffyn]

Originally Posted by cyril v

I'm guessing thats just an angled TOM bridge, making it appear as though the pup is angled.

Nope, the pickup is definitely crooked.

[Lern2swim]

Originally Posted by Esp Griffyn

Nope, the pickup is definitely crooked.

It could just be the way the protective plastic is situated on top of it. Although, I understand people assuming the worst with how some of these are looking.