High End Repair in Phoenix

James Koch james@highendrepair.com

Audio Doctor http://www.audiodoctor.biz/ 602-741-0730

Jeff's Professional Audio Repair, Also Car Stereo work 602-274-0794 jparepair@yahoo.com

If the first guy is the James you're speaking of, I'd move on to the other two. I hope you can recover your piece. I have no idea what's going on there.

I have no personal experience with any of these operations (cut and pasted from the AZ AV Club newsletter) as I do my own builds, modifications and repairs.

Best of luck moving forward.

I always used to go to Audio Wizard on McDowell in S. Scottsdale for repairs.  Hopefully you can get your gear back and move on.

Not a good sign when you can't get a response, but I wouldn't hold the appearance of the location against  "James". Can't see someone getting rich doing repair work on a variety of makes and models.

I'm up in Vancouver and the options here are slim as well for non-warranty repairs.

Hope things work out for you.

Old school bench techs are hard to come by as most have passed away or are too old (arthritis and stuff like that) to continue. I'm one of the younger of that generation.

My first job after tech school in 1975 was TV and radio repair when almost everything coming in the shop was still vacuum tube. Didn't make much money, moved to AZ, got my engineering degree and ended up in integrated circuit design and test; a much better way to make a living.

I no longer do bench work except for myself and local musician friends. Not too long ago, I repaired a guitar amp for one of Alice Cooper's original guitarists, Michael Bruce. Really nice guy.

In past years, I've seen examples from pretty much every bench tech in the PHX area. In general, pretty shoddy work. The worst was (and I can't believe he put a sticker on the back of the piece with his name and phone number) a guy that during a repair removed all the Black Gate caps for his personal stash and replaced them with cheap equivalents.

Hopefully, one of the operations I recommended above will do a good job for you.

James is the only guy I would trust my system with.  His business moved from their Phx Location and I am not sure where the new location is

I am James at High End Repair.  I really have to apologize for the lack of communication and length of this repair.  I had been in and out of the shop due to some family and health issues.  The original poster had been contacted and will be picking up his repair next week.

Update, I finally received a call from James Koch at High End Repair. He said that he had some non-business problems to deal with and now is trying to get caught up on his work. He hopes to have my project ready in a week.

Thanks to everyone for your input.

Current location of High End Repair:

601 E Indian School Rd #200, Phoenix, AZ 85012

In Tucson, HiFi Workshop. John Mintzer runs that shop. I deal with his partner, Kris Rhoades, in Winter Springs, Fl. Worth the 2 hour drive, ime, based on the work Kris has performed for me. Enjoy ! MrD.

There is an alternative for hi-fi repairs in the Phoenix area. His info is all over C****list. To save you time, his phone number is (602) 953-1623. He is located at 3241 Shea #8 (just off 51 fwy), North Phoenix. I have used his services, and can recommend him.

I have used James Koch a number of times. He’s always done excellent work. I have Shindo gear, and he’s probably the best Shindo repair tech in the country.

I agree with the posts about the high quality of James' work at High End Repair in Phoenix.  He fixed my Clearaudio turntable yesterday.  I live up in Prescott and it's a long and tireing drive (at my age) to Phoenix.  I contacted him over the phone, and he was willing to schedule me out a week and have me drop off my turntable at the start of his day.  I broke the internal solder of the RCA plugs twisting the tonearm cable out of one of my preamps.  He got the cable fixed.  Also he noticed that the central bearing was lose, and he fixed that too.  He was done in a few hours and I was able to get back home the same day.  I am really happy with the work he did and he was nice to work with too.  I'd recommend him to anybody.

Thank you for that valuable feedback. Glad he was able to resolve your issue in such a professional and timely manner. Good turntable guys are hard to find.

I'll continue to recommend him.

mwh777, I'm wondering if you were able to get your unit back by any chance.

I shipped a Line Magnetic LM-508ia amp to James in July of 2022.  Over two years, 55 emails, and several phone calls later, and I have yet to have any indication of when it may come back. 

I've even gone so far as to ask for it back in whatever condition it may be in, but the deadline on that has come and gone as well.  I'm a 5 hour drive away, and would really like to avoid the road trip to pick this thing up in person if it can be avoided.

I have used James at High End Repair 5 times in the past 8 years as I am nearby. He has always done excellent work! My Thorens TD160 has never sounded better after Jim tuned it up.

He has mentioned some challenging health issues with his family and his move to new location, so I hope that is finally going well.

BUT, James you have had my Mitsubishi Tuner for over 2 years, please contact me about this. I really want it back.

Just got my Mitsubishi DA-F20 Tuner back from Jim at High-End! And too my nice surprise, he gave it a complete overhaul, new caps, crystal, and Aligned to perfection. Locks into channel and sounds beautiful with a large sound field. Thanks Jim!