Amp repair cost — is this right?


I recently sent my Musical Fidelity a308cr power amp off to be recapped. This amp is somewhere around 16-18 years old and one of the power caps failed. I contacted Musical Fidelity and sent it to a repair shop they recommended. Today I received an estimate to replace 18 caps, 8 of which are large power caps, resolder the boards, and re-bias the transistors. Basically a full overhaul. The quote I received, including return shipping (prob around $100) Is over $1,300 which possibly exceeds the value of the amp. That doesn’t include the $115 it cost me to ship it out. Having never had an overhaul done on a power amp like this, I’m wondering if anyone with experience can tell me if this sounds right. I guess I was expecting something more like $600-$800 but I don’t know why since I really don’t have a frame of reference. Perhaps it was the assumption it might be 4 hours labor (say $400) plus max $200 for caps. Is $1,300+ on track? Either way I’m going to be out the shipping cost plus a $160 fee paid for the estimate.
jnehma1
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$10K? !! 


My UBER driver has 2-3x that invested in his business for a point of perspective. I hope you have IR on that hot air reflow. $10K is also about $3K/yr. in tax write-off, another perspective to be weighed against a full time repair shop with 6 figure billing.


Digikey ships out at 6pm Pacific and it is there by noon the next day.  Odds are you don't have all those large electrolytic capacitors in stock so you were going to be ordering any way. Typical turnaround on repair is 1-2 weeks on electronics, so the 1 day turn on parts should not be an issue and customers understand parts need to be ordered.


The op stated 18 capacitors replaced, it appears some touch up of solder joints, though that could just be resoldering the capacitors.  Not good to just randomly resolder joints. That can create more problems than it solves. 


The op already paid a $160 estimate fee to locate the problem.  It is the manufacturer recommended service location, hence they have access to the manufacturer for schematics and other service information.


The approximately size of the capacitors was noted above and only some of them are large, and they are not 40-60,000uF, they are smaller and as noted the total cost is likely in the $200 range.


None of what you said negates that for someone skilled with the right tools, and the manufacturers recommended shop, so they should not be guessing, but just doing the work, that this is a 3-4 hour job, plus overhead for parts sourcing, packing, unpacking, admin overhead, etc.
FWIW - I had sent my Emotiva XPA-2 gen-1 amp about 18-months ago to Emotiva's facility in Tennessee for a channel dropout issue.  While it was there, they evaluated the amp and recommended replacing its capacitors.

Cost for that was $465, which included the parts & labor for:
  • the re-capping work,
  • bias adjust,
  • 4-hour burn-in,
  • re-test on their Audio Precision system
I opened another disc on TECH TALK, , with the discussion taking on  up this issue,,, 
1) repair?
2) upgrade?
3) sell?

I thought over this $1500 tech estimate and I've come to the conclusion (based  on my exp of local techs fees) this amount is excessive.
Tech's know they  have little competition , so audiophiles are left with little choice but to pay up.
We all need to list techs that we know who are fair and reasonable,, this way we can see how far a  drive one of these techs are from our home , or pay shipping. 
I have no tech here in the new orleans area who I can recommend. 
Sorry. 
Cost for that was $465, which included the parts & labor for:


^^^^^^^
What quality./brand cap?
I mean where they Mundorf SESGO or just <<garden variety Nichicon's>>???

I mean $465 seems fair,, but i can't say for sure unless i know the  quality of the cap. 
and quantity of caps. 

Biasing , that should have been thrown in as FREE. 
So really you paid near $500 for caps, 
Brand?
Quanity?
Then we know what deal you got.