In reply to:

They're not replacement panels as such - if you want an AR coated panel you'll have to buy one.

I'll reiterate that this is just completely wrong. Mk.I users all had AR panels, and since putting a non-AR panel in an automobile seems inconceivable, it was safe to assume for us that the Mk.II would ALSO have AR panels. This IS a design flaw, not a "feature", and should be treated as such.

In reply to:

AR isn't mentioned anywhere in the product description.

No, but one might also note (I haven't done the research yet), that when you listed off the many times "what's changed from Mk.I to Mk.II" that you never mentioned that the AR coating was being removed, in which case, the AR coating was implied by its lack of mention in that context.

Furthermore, even if the AR wasn't mentioned, the tuner was, so was voice recognition, and we've been notoriously patient about letting Empeg slide on these two topics. For you to sit there and point to the marketing materials as the Holy Scripture of what you have to provide and then forget that you're NOT currently providing what the marketing materials say you will provide. (For example, if you're going to play that game, then I want my FM Tuner _TODAY_, not next week, not next month, TODAY, because the marketing materials say, and I quote:

The player has a modular tuner interface, for which an FM module is initially available. The FM module includes RDS (Radio Data System) for station naming, auto re-tuning and traffic announcements - RDS stations are commonplace in Europe and steadily increasing in the USA.

You are directly claiming that it IS available, not that it will be available at some future date.

Empeg has a long history of "doing the right thing" in terms of customer service, but to tell us that you don't owe us AR panels because you didn't promise them to us, despite the fact that it would have been an obvious assumption (based both on experience with the Mk.I, and with knowledge that real-world needs dictated AR panels), just seems to go completely against everything I have ever thought about your committment to service.

I have to be honest when I say that this situation would give me cause to SERIOUSLY rethink my preaching of the unit to co-workers and friends, because Empeg is completely dropping the ball on a serious customer service issue. Yes, I understand the AR panels cost more, but - really - that is NOT our problem. That's Empeg's problem for not designing the unit right the first time.

Empeg's behaviour in this would be like Firestone demanding that people pay money to exchange the tires on their Ford Explorers. It's just ludicrous.

D