I had never ending problems with a Micromega CD player in the day. I should have seen that one coming. While the French may rightfully claim superiority in a number of disciplines and arts, engineering doesn't typically make the list. |
The worst I know of: A friend had 5...count them...5 Audio Research Reference 600 amps blow up. You know... flames and sparks, oh my! They nearly killed him twice. True story. |
I had a Rotel RB991 amp that kept blowing fuses. Finally the whole left channel went. Then I had a Rotel CD player RCD971 that started skipping just after the warranty expired. |
Mikej and all
That is why I never leave any component on 24/7.
Chuck |
"While the French may rightfully claim superiority in a number of disciplines and arts, engineering doesn't typically make the list."
I don't know about this. French engineering is going to play a significant role in the future of the US nuclear power industry, and also in the aviation business. I've never particularly enjoyed working with French engineers, they can be rather abrasive towards UK and US engineers, but I've never had reason to doubt their competence. |
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Kora is some of the best stuff out there and its made by the french, its very serious gear though, not cheap. |
I dropped Audiomeca from my line due to the inordinate frequency of reliability problems. |
OK, OK, engaged fingers before engaging brain. Didn't mean to bash the French... Hell, I'm a beeeg fan of their wine & cheese industries. I seem to recall their satellite launch vehicles have a pretty stellar rating too.
In my defense, that micromega sucked horribly as far as reliability went, and its the only French component I've ever owned. (At the time, it wasn't cheap either.) Also was having bad memories of a 2CV that left me stuck in the country and a beautiful French sink that was engineered so that when you turned on the taps at anything more than a trickle, the water rebounded off the front side of the basin and drenched your shirt. Probably not enough to generalize from. ;) |
Truth is that is a CD player and fact is unless you buy a tank from some manufactures like Wadia or someone in that range they are going to have basically a cheap knock off's internally for the most part, I do remember micromega was horrible, but I am sure that every country has there Micromega machines being produced, I AM in no way defending the french by any means, but French and German engineering in Audio is honestly some of the best I have seen or experianced in Audio components Including Sound is normally extreme to where you ask yourself what was the crap I was listening too?.. But Good old U.S. has some very sweet pieces as well, candian stuff aint half bad, japan has some great reliability but I have not found anything in the highend sound that I like from them in general. But for some reason French and German Voicing character in audio seems to be some of the best to me. Englands not to bad either, but normally you can get too much british sound depending on the mix, sometimes equating to "Dark". |
Audio Alchemy gear functioned sporadically. On a good day it all worked, transport, DTI Pro32, DAC, and sounded pretty good. On a bad day it took a lot of fiddling around to get everything to lock. |
not audio related but the sony play station 2 has got to have the worst record out of anything ever made.
mike. |
Sim Audio MOON I-5, what a lemon.
I had a REAL horror story when my I-5 took a static discharge from me touching the volume control. Volume went from 10 to 50 in less time than it takes to blow up expensive Avalon speakers. What a lemon this amp was. I was given NO help whatsoever from Sim Audio and they have been blacklisted from my audiophile list forever. If at least the thing would have sounded good - it didn't - they sure have the thick faceplates and high prices for what little actual refinement they provide...I finally replaced the thing at my cost, and got rid of it shortly after. Avoid if you can ! |
I echo Audiofeil's comments about Audiomeca. I had the DAC from hell and could never conceive of buying another one of their products.
Ken Golden |
Hmm, sounds like "Sin" audio. that sucks |
Thanks Mikej for the flammable Audio Research story. Perhaps if Hollywood makes a sequel to 'Backdraft', or some other fireman drama, this could be worked into the script - could be a great opportunity for product placement for ARC.
I've had less exciting problems with ARC products, but problems just the same - a resistor failed in a CD1 (simple fix); the on/off switch failed on an SP9MkIII(simple fix); and a valve socket played up recurrently on a D125 (more involved fix, took a while to be diagnosed = 8 new ceramic/gold pin sockets, rather than replacing the faulty bakelite one). Further back, a Luxman SS amp, which was expensive at the time, required factory modification to stop recurrent failures - it still works, 23 years on, albeit with a few extra hums and buzzes. |
I don't know why this thread went off on the french. My audio Aero Capitole is wonderful. |
Bezimienny, the one knock on Jadis has been its reliability issues. Still, in my experience, my JOR and DA30 both proved to be flawless. Keeping my fingers crossed that the new DA60 I am about to get keeps this trend going for me.
If you find the hum is not able to be fixed by you (make sure it is not loose), I would contact Pierre Gabriel. He is a super nice guy, and very knowledgeable regarding Jadis. There's no reason the JOR should not be reliable for you once the tranny issue is taken care of, it's a very simplistic design. |
Hi Trejla. Good luck with the DA60. Actually, I doubt whether you'll need any luck. In Sydney here, the store owner of Audio Connection is also the distributor and makes sure that after sales service is good - one of the staff, whom I've known for years, has a Defy7 running SF Amatis and has had no problems; another current Jadis owner previously imported Audio Research, among other brands, for his store (no longer in this business - too successful elsewhere)- I can only assume that they are all satisfied with the reliability.
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The DA60 was suggested to me as a better match for the 'current hungry' Wilsons, but there was no unit in the country to audition (BTW what speakers will you be using?). The voltage in Sydney is nominally 240, but varies from that up to 265! Jadis 220-240v units were consistently having trouble, so in recent years they make special units just for Australia - and not very many of them, so you have to place an order which takes 4 months to fulfill - the store owner does order extra, but these often don't arrive! Oh well..c'est la vie.
Cheers, Rob. |
Hi Rob, glad you enjoyed it. ;-)
BTW, the amps in question were only turned on prior to listening (30-60 minutes). Sorry to hear about your other problems. Luckily they were all minor! |
Hi Mikej. I'm not really complaining...looking at the complexity inside the ARC products it's a wonder they don't break down more frequently - in the overall scheme of things mine have been reliable enough and I would buy them again. And to make things even better the little Jadis JOR has stopped humming. I thought there might be even more wacky stories out there, so I suppose it's reassuring that only a few have been voiced. Cheers,Rob. |
Hi Rob, I agree. Generally our gear is pretty reliable. As for my friend with the ARC gear he has been happy with the Ref 2 preamp and Ref 300 amps that he's been using since the explosions.
Cheers,
Mike |
