Classe Reliability : Your Opinions?

Very disparaging views of Classe gear. In Audioreview, reviewers have complained extensively about their CDP, being very troublesome. Other complains were about some of their amps, post DR design. It seems that the new CA 101 and on, are fine. But sporadically there are people who do complain about the 200, 300 amps. The DR designs do not seem to break down often and have excellent used market value....as you can see in Audiogon. I do not own any Classe to stand by my views, this is just a reaction to what I have noticed while reading threads.

I had a DR9 for over 10 years, never a problem. Even if nothing goes 'wrong' a lifetime warranty would cover things that will wear out over a long period of time like some capacitors so I can see why a manufacture wouldn't do the lifetime thing. I think the 'old' Classe put itself on the map with the unlimited warranty as a way to tell people just how well made those things were.

I have a Claase cav 150 that I am very pleased with, the led light burnt out and it was sent to Classe and received it back in less than 2 weeks.

I own a Classe 70 that has had no problems.

I've owned a DR5 preamp for fifteen years and it has never required repair and still works flawlessly, even the red indicator light is still operable which is amazing considering it is powered up all the time, something over 130,000 hours! My DR8 power amps have both had many failures of the power switches, they arc and weld their contacts together, at least always failing in the "stuck on" position. Classe no longer supplies the switches despite their "lifetime" warranty but I have sourced replacements from an outside company. For the most part I leave them switched on and power them up through a switched outlet, end of problem. The CA300 I owned for awhile was trouble free.