ljgj, sorry to hear your problems. i've not had this problem w/my electrocompaniet equipment. i've used heinz preiss, he's in florida, wery familiar w/electro stuff, & has good turn-around time. not that i've had major problems w/the stuff - i have four of their amps & a preamp. heinz has done upgrades for me; the only repair needed was on a used amp i bought, which blew a main capacitor shortly after i got it. i figure it prolly sat around for a while prior to my purchase, as i understand this is not uncommon to happen w/amps that sit. the same thing happened to an adcom amp i put away for a while & then brought out to use as a subwoofer amp... anyway, heinz can be found here:
http://www.angelfire.com/biz/grundig/
good luck, doug s.