Apos Audio COVID-19/Coronavirus & Wildfire Update - August 28, 2020

August 28, 2020

Introduction

We certainly live in interesting and unprecedented times. Apos had some fun and exciting events to work on in August, like a new company brand redesign to roll out and more partnerships to announce, but we also had unforeseen events hitting closer to home: devastating wildfires. The wildfires raging throughout the state affected several members of our staff, forcing the evacuations of our families, friends, and colleagues. Some of their homes did not make it. Some of those homes are still standing, but they are not out of harm’s way and the situation remains volatile, so we ask for your thoughts, prayers, and understanding.

The fires were sparked by an historic dry lightning event throughout California — nearly 12,000 strikes in one week — and it hit in a dry summer month during a year where many parts of the state recorded only about half of their average rainfall last winter. Given the nearly 600 wildfires that were sparked, the typical support that could augment the local firefighting teams was unavailable, since resources were busy literally putting out fires in their own backyards. Resources are being brought in from out of state and as far as Canada and Australia to combat the fires. This chokehold on initial firefighting support caused fires to burn larger than they normally would, meaning that the total sum of acreage burning in California is larger than the state of Delaware. Two of California's largest recorded fires on record are still burning here in the San Francisco Bay Area.

First responders are working 24 hour shifts in some locations. They are actively working to contain the fires, protect property, secure evacuated homes from theft, and conduct search and rescue missions. They have our most profound thanks. These men and women are heroes. To our customers who are also affected by these fires, know our hearts go out to you and we sincerely wish you and your loved ones the very best.

For our staff that have returned from responding to the fires, they say it feels good to be back and are grateful for the opportunity to still work on work worth doing during times of duress and disaster. Apos is still working hard to serve your customer support needs, bring in new products for you to buy, and to create the number one audiophile community and online store. We are a small but mighty team — and we have reinvested in our staff significantly this year, building up our headcount to better serve all of you and achieve our goals. We are committed to achieving excellence in customer service and providing you with the absolute best shopping experience you can have for audio equipment. We continue our mission of building an online community by audio enthusiasts for audio enthusiasts, and to welcome and inform new members who have yet to venture into the audiophile world. We thank you for your business and continued support. With that, we are proud to update you on some of the big projects we have achieved this August.

New Products

Apos proudly announced more partnerships and products for you to buy this month. We continue to work towards our goal of being the number one audiophile ecommerce community and these announcements are more steps in the right direction!

Apos now is an authorized reseller for Astell&Kern, the Korean manufacturer of premium audio devices like their famous digital audio players (DAP).

We also are now the proud partner of YULONG Audio, the Chinese enthusiast company specializing in DAC/Amps.

Apos announced the new TOPPING BC3 Wireless Bluetooth Decoder/DAC/Amp, an extremely compact all-in-one unit providing wireless use while maintaining lossless compression, so files like FLAC can still be played.

The Matrix Mini-i 3 and the Matrix Mini-Pro 3 DAC/Amp’s are also on sale. These powerful devices provide all the inputs and outputs you would need, and the Pro 3 is enabled with dual-band WiFi capability and can play Master Quality Authenticated (MQA) audio files.

We offer the xDuoo XP-2 Pro Bluetooth DAC/Amp, a new version of its predecessor with improved specs of nearly 20% larger battery, more output power, and higher sampling rates.

Musetec Audio (LKS Audio) MH-DA005 ES9038 Pro x2 DAC is available now, providing a stylish yet powerful solution to your stationary DAC needs, as it houses not one but two SABRE DAC chips.

Apos also offers the SMSL DP5 High-Fi Network-Enabled DAC/Amp, another attractive DAC/Amp option for home or the office.

New Apos Branding

This month we announced that Apos now has an updated company wordmark, color palette, and now sports a logo! Our design team strove tirelessly for months on this redesign and we’re very proud of the end result. We will be unveiling the redesign in stages over the next few months and when we make an update, we will keep you informed about the changes and why we are doing it. We really like to keep you all informed of our decision-making; transparency is important to us. We encourage you to read the above article explaining the “why” to our “what” when it comes to the redesign process and changes we’re making!

Website Updates

Apos is now working with the marketing platform Yotpo to help us curate all of our product reviews from our customers. The purpose of this is to help spotlight the products that you as a community are collectively deciding are great, so we can leverage your reviews to help everyone make informed purchase decisions. We are extremely grateful for our customers taking time to share their feedback, and if you have not yet, please consider doing so.

To make this easy for you we’ve added an FAQ section to every product page. Please feel free to ask any product questions you might have directly in that section. Our Product Team is committed to providing you answers within hours, so you can count on getting your question answered as soon as possible and certainly the same day.

Order Fulfillment

We continue to ship out orders on time and with free priority shipping. We are already preparing for this year’s holiday season, building up our inventory to ensure that we are able to provide everyone with products they want and that those orders will ship on time in spite of the expected holiday volume surge.

Order Return Processing

Several of our colleagues on the Returns Team are those impacted by the on-going fires in California, and as a result returns are a bit behind. Unfortunately the on-going USPS service disruption is adding to the delays, so we ask for your understanding and patience as we work on getting things adjusted to accommodate you as best we can. We are working extra hard on this and we recognize it as a pain point for you. We still firmly stand by our policy of free returns, but know the processing time will be longer than usual if you do send products back to us.

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We have handled a lot of unprecedented circumstances and uncertainty this year. While we are certainly ready for some more precedented times, the fact we have been able to grow our business and remain committed to our mission should let you know how much we care and how hard we are working. We wouldn’t be able to do all of this without your support. We thank you all for being such good customers and community members.

Apos will continue to provide updates as we further adapt to the changing circumstances around us due to the pandemic and fires. We all continue to work hard to bring you new products that you are requesting and make sure that your experience with Apos Audio is second-to-none. We are very grateful to all our customers for the support and well wishes they have provided us. Please keep them coming...it goes a long way for us! While you’re at it, consider sending an encouraging note to your local fire department if you are in California, as the positivity helps those brave men and women do their jobs. Regardless of why you are reaching out, know it is always nice for us to hear from you, and if you have any suggestions on how we can improve, please feel free to do so.