What a nightmare story, hogarthd. I really hope you get your unit fixed. This all goes to prove the points of the risks we take as consumers of high end products that the manufacturer will still be around when the need for a repair arises and also that it is hard to find a good, competent service technician. I am the owner of many McIntosh units, and in 38 years of ownership have found one, just one, good service technician in southern California. I have sent two tuners to the factory for service and they did a great job. Also, I sent another tuner to Audio Classics, who also did a great job. But locally, with the one exception it has been hard to find good help.
Bowers Wilkins/Classe - Anyone had service from them as horrible as me?
I have a Classe CA-2300 power amp....or rather I HAD ONE, until I sent it to Classe/B&W for repair FOUR MONTHS AGO.
It's a 100 pound amp, so at first, I wanted to have it fixed by a local, well regarded electrical engineer (I'm in the Bay Area). I took it to his shop and he said the power supply was dead. He spent days trying to get a schematic from Classe and they wouldn't give him even the smallest bit of information. They told me I had to send it in to them. I was hesitant to send a 100lb, $6500 amp across the continent, but I did it anyway.
That was 4 months ago.
I've spoken with them on the phone maybe 5 times, now, and every time they assure me that they are just about to get working on my amp. B&W now owns Classe, so B&W is in charge of it. I had an issue tracking code and I used to be able to enter it on their website to check the repair status. For 3 months, it said "in queue, awaiting diagnosis", now, however, when I put in my code, it says "Item cannot be found".
At this point, I'm basically saying that B&W have stolen a $6500 amplifier from me after spending a bunch of time purposely blocking a local technician from fixing it. I'm furious.
Has anyone else here had a successful or unsuccessful experiences with B&W/Classe service recently? This is insane. What do I do?
thanks!
Hogarth de la Plante
Oakland, CA
It's a 100 pound amp, so at first, I wanted to have it fixed by a local, well regarded electrical engineer (I'm in the Bay Area). I took it to his shop and he said the power supply was dead. He spent days trying to get a schematic from Classe and they wouldn't give him even the smallest bit of information. They told me I had to send it in to them. I was hesitant to send a 100lb, $6500 amp across the continent, but I did it anyway.
That was 4 months ago.
I've spoken with them on the phone maybe 5 times, now, and every time they assure me that they are just about to get working on my amp. B&W now owns Classe, so B&W is in charge of it. I had an issue tracking code and I used to be able to enter it on their website to check the repair status. For 3 months, it said "in queue, awaiting diagnosis", now, however, when I put in my code, it says "Item cannot be found".
At this point, I'm basically saying that B&W have stolen a $6500 amplifier from me after spending a bunch of time purposely blocking a local technician from fixing it. I'm furious.
Has anyone else here had a successful or unsuccessful experiences with B&W/Classe service recently? This is insane. What do I do?
thanks!
Hogarth de la Plante
Oakland, CA