Audivex Speaker Repair

Daniel repaired my difficult-​to-​assess JBL Eon G2 in a state of mild panic. I had a gig 4 days out and he was able to re-​cone my G2 with authentic parts for less than it would have cost me to buy the re-​cone kit online and do it myself. He also tested my amplifier before re-​coning and repainted my speaker grill which was above the call of duty. Thanks for the great service!

I brought my JBL EON 15 powered sub through this shop, and the service I received was nothing short of spectacular. I spoke with the owner on the phone a few times prior to making the drive to berkeley from sacramento. Over the phone, he was able to give me some idea of what he thought was wrong with the speaker. he said he would call me once he got some parts in, and when the part didn’t arrive as he expected, he called to tell me not to come until it came. When I got to his shop, he told me it would take a few days to fix the speaker. But when I wrote my information down on his paper, he saw that I had come from Sacramento, and he decided to fix the speaker while I waited. I went across the street to the coffee shop and had a sandwich. The speaker was finished quickly, and he even gave me some advice on how to prevent the problem from happening again… the speaker sounds better than when i bought it now…

The amplifier in one of my JBL 515XTs went bad. With 15 days left on the warranty, Daniel was able to replace it and have it ready for pickup within 3 days. These speakers are discontinued so this saved me from having to purchase a whole new pair.

I brought a pair of JBL’s here that I had for years, the foam around the woofers had rotted out. The owner took a look and said that the speakers were decent quality and worth repairing, so I went ahead and had him do the work. Very reasonable cost, made me wonder if he is charging enough, and they sound fantastic now. He saved me a bundle in not having to replace them with new speakers. Also a very nice guy. I think he does violin repair too.

Daniel did a great job recapping my KLH 23’s. HIghly recommended. Note that you have to climb a set of stairs to get to his workshop. If you’re bringing large speakers, it’s something to be aware of although he’ll help you.

This was my first time with Audivex. It was a very good, straight forward experience.
I needed to have two JBL woofer surrounds refoamed. Called Daniel Thursday afternoon for advice and a price quote. He was patient and professional. Brought them in later that day. Told Daniel that I needed them by Saturday. They were ready a day early, perfectly done. Paid cash. Got a receipt. It was all old school business from start to finish, and guess what? It worked. The JBLs rock once again. Thanks, Daniel.

Daniel at Audivex did a great job repairing my JBL LSR 4312sp subwoofer. I would highly reccomend him for speaker repair. Trustworthy, honest repairman. Fair prices for repairs and genuinely cares about the work he does. If you are in the Berkeley area check here first!

I completely agree w/​all the fantastic reviews of Daniel & the true craftsmanship he possess. I brought my 35+ yo «Baby’s» (JBL L65 floor standers… the old school glass top classics) in for a much needed/​overdue re-​foam job. Not only did he already have the not so common parts all ready to go, he completed the job same day. In fact, both bass drivers were ready for p/​up w/​in 4 hrs of dropping them off… incredible! One would think for this type of fairly specialized work (of course w/​noted top notch quality) you’d be waiting at least a day or 2 minimum…& that’s assuming the parts are in stock… otherwise you’re surely looking at a week +. The only thing to keep in mind, as always the case I suppose these days, cash is King… wasn’t able to slap it on the credit card… cash or checks only & so I didn’t come prepared for that… but a small price to pay for such a quick turnaround. I highly recommend Daniel to anyone whose lookin for any type of speaker repair. If you value & appreciate quality audio as much as I do, it was well worth the drive from the Pleasanton/​Tri-​Valley area into Berkeley… I would have driven at least twice the distance now knowing of the outstanding service he provides. So without a doubt, bring your gear to Daniel & find out for yourself what an outstanding value his services are.
Thanks Daniel, nice to know there’s still someone out there who not only knows (t)his craft inside & out, but also does quality work w/​quick turnarounds… actually, lightening fast in many cases as I read several other similar reviews as such… this was most certainly my experience as well.

Daniel was fantastic! He fixed a woofer and a tweeter while I waited. Then he took the extra step of touching up the cabinets. His prices are fair, and his talents are exceptional. It’s a refreshing pleasure to watch a master of his craft at work!

.Owner Daniel was great… he fixed my mackie srm450 while I waited… he has the latest parts and hard to get on hand at all times !! .the best price around wanna keep it simple and get it done then this is your man…

I just took a different set of speakers in for repair (the usual age-​related demise of the foam on the 12″) and as before, I got excellent service, fast-​turn around and VERY reasonable price. This guy is a professional, knows his job and while not a standard store front, this business meets needs that are not off-​the-​shelf, with such a wide variety of products. While I was picking up my speakers, there were two other clients in there, both professional musicians needing speaker repairs and Daniel even helped carry — down a flight of stairs — one of these guys’ huge JBL speaker. I don’t know that many store-​owners who would do that.

I never write Unilocal reviews but I felt like I should for Audivex. The store front is not what you would expect but Daniel was great. I came to him on a Thursday afternoon. I had a party on Saturday and needed my speakers fixed before then. Despite the quick turnaround, he said he would do his best to help me out.
He did better than I could have hoped. He fixed my JBL and one of my Mackie speakers on the same day. He did a great job and was not trying to just make a quick buck. Rather than replacing a part and charging a markup on the parts, he repaired my existing parts and sent me on my way. I know very little about speakers and would likely have paid more. Having a trustworthy repair person was a great change from the norm.
It seems like reviews for Audivex are either 1 star or 5. I guess I got lucky and got a 5 star performance. I still have one speaker with him that needs to be repaired and it sounds like that is where people have run into trouble in the past. However, I have absolutely no reason to doubt that it will be done quickly and well.
If I ever need speakers repaired again, Audivex is the first place I’ll be going. I’d highly recommend the spot. I thought the other reviews were funny for using words like artisan but I now understand what they mean. Ignore the haters, this place is awesome.

My experience was unusual, but pleasurable, Knowing Mr. Olsen, and having met his mentor, the McIntosh dealer in San Francisco for 30 years, he pales in comparison in terms of eccentricity .
I had an Altec Lansing reconed at the Altec plant. Upon return it malfunctioned, Daniel came to my home, removed the speaker, reconditioned the entire thing and reinstalled the crossover, horn, and speaker in less than 1 week for a pittance. Since then he has repaired various new and vintage speakers for me. He is an Intellectual, versed in classical music, literature, and foreign languages, what did you expect, this is after all, Berkeley??? He is strictly a one man operation, so I always inquire first as to his workload. Knowing he does not like to disappoint people, my suspicion is that people have an unrealistic expectation as to how quickly an operation such as this can turn things around. He attempts to placate them, and when things are not delivered as initially promised, they vent on sites such as this. Go to a Professional AudioForum and read about theft, incompetence, etc. that happens everyday. This guy is a gem!

Well, first and foremost, if you’re going by the rating and reviews here, go and read the FILTERED reviews! Bizarre, I just took ANOTHER pair of Dahlquist DQ-​10 woofers to Dan yesterday — dropped them off at noon and came back after hitting up Lasher’s Electronics for some parts I needed and having a couple slices of pizza, and picked them up ready for me at 2:00. He knew I wanted them in a hurry, and that saved me another trip to Berkeley (on AC Transit… yuck!!!) to pick them up some other day, and the quality of the work, once again, was above average, and so I decide to come here to Unilocal and leave him a good review and don’t even SEE my review from before, where I put in a good word for him — it’s been FILTERED!!! THAT’S the «bizarre» part…
Lot of good this Unilocal crap does if it removes LEGITIMATE positive reviews of a business — and it kind of pisses me off, it’s like Unilocal (some faceless cyber-​entity like all the rest of them!!!) decides, by some mumbo-​jumbo techno method that MY posting is a phony, or whatever, and you know, that’s BULLSHIT!!! It’s calling ME dishonest — so screw Unilocal!!!
And, it seems that the only reviews «filtered» were positive reviews, so while I understand some people’s problems with the place (hey, you sometimes get what you expect, or what you ask for… right?) I have never had a problem, other than the couple times when I got there RIGHT AT NOON to expect him there with my speakers waiting for me, and I had to end up waiting a half hour for him… big deal! And, I’m short-​tempered and impatient, and I’ve never had a problem dealing with Dan — so come on, Unilocal,let the people see (and figure it into the overall rating) ALL of someone’s reviews — once again, I just have to say — that’s bullshit! Kinda like getting your craigslist posting blocked or flagged for NO REASON whatsoever — but who do you talk to to remedy it?!? Nobody — just another big fat «do not reply to this email» fiasco.
The internet — the best thing, and the very WORST thing to happen to civilization in the past 50 years!!!

Definitely not your average storefront, and dealing with Daniel is
not like dealing with your average retailer. But I found the
experience to be great. I don’t know much about speakers, and when I
called Audivex with a problem with one of my Boston Acoustics HD-​5s, I
expected to be told to throw them away (they are certainly not high
end speakers). But Daniel diagnosed the problem over the phone and
suggested I bring them into his shop.
Turns out they needed to be re-​foamed, which he did for not much more
than it would cost to buy a repair kit online. He turned them around
in less than a week, and everything sounded as I expected. It was a
great experience, and I left thinking I’m glad a place like Audivex is
around for the next time I have speaker issues.
Reading the other reviews online I can see why folks might be scared
to use Audivex, but my experience was very positive.

Despite reviews on Unilocal warning of bad service, zero communication, no regular business hours and ultimately loss of equipment … my romantic image of the Last True Artisan prevailed and I took a pair of medium-​end speakers to Daniel for repair.
That began a six month string of promised completion dates, accompanied by zero phone calls and a surly attitude as if my mildly expressed opinion that 6 months was a bit long was fringe and demanding. In the end, I bundled them out of the door in the rain in pieces, having paid him $ 100 for a partial repair. So this is another story that ends with a ping of satisfaction from venting here and in my letter to the Better Business Bureau, but not much on the listening-​to-​your stereo side.
Is he really the Last True Artisan? How would I know? My speakers are in pieces. I am a classically trained musician and I still don’t think I would have the chops and knowledge to compare Daniel to others in his craft. Everyone has their own system for rating a business, but if I were one of these people who gave him five stars despite knowing he could barely finish a project … well, I would want to come into the review with a lot of insider knowledge so that I could say something that compensates for the service.
I would recommend Audivex if you believe that tempermental behavior and lateness are the hallmarks of a great craftsmanship or if you have a less conflict-​averse personality so that you can rescue your pile of screws, cones and crossover circuit boards in 3 months rather than the 6 months it took me.

Lets assume the need for patience and the expectation that people do not get into the electronic tech business b/​c of their excellence in customer service. If you understand this as I have come to, you will find that Daniel is good at what he DOES. That is repair speakers. He has done several pairs for my family and has ultimately come through. This is a very specialized field and it is not easy to find local folks who can do this work. Accept the idiosyncrasies and allow for a happy result.

I brought my Alesis monitor speaker to him about a year and a half ago. He said it was fixed once but the speaker was not fully fixed so unfortunately I had to bring the speaker back to him (since he charged $ 220 to get it fixed)
He was very angry about bringing the speaker back and argued with me for about a hour before he finally realized that he did not fix the speaker correctly. That was a year ago now and he has not returned any of my phone calls since then.
At this point it is basically theft of $ 220 and my speaker.
I got the Better Business Bureau involved and he did not respond to them either.
I would only bring equipment to this person if you are ready to lose it.

My experience is similar to the two earlier posts: you will probably be satisfied with the results, but don’t expect to be kept informed or leave feeling you have had a pleasant encounter.
Too bad as the interpersonal is always what makes a business interchange a positive or a negative.

I brought in a set of B&W speakers and also a Hsu Research subwoofer into Audivex to be repaired. I have never encountered customer support as bad as what I received at Audivex. The repairs took a lot longer than expected, which is OK, I guess. What isn’t OK is that Audivex never called me to let me know what was happening. Ever. Not once. I had to call them continuously over a period of months to get updated. Every time I spoke to them I said that the delay was okay but to please call me if the speakers were ready or if the delay was going to be extended. Never once got a call from them.
In fact, I woke up this morning and remembered that over 2 years later, I still haven’t gotten the subwoofer back. So, I feel safe in saying that this is the worst customer service I have ever received.