My terrible Customer Journey with the Line Magnetic LM-503PA Mono Vacuum Tube Amps

@fatdaddy2 

Since you seem to be quite rightly annoyed about your Tesla purchase and your bad experience, I would have thought that you’d have some empathy for a person getting shafted by a HiFi company. It would appear that LM don’t have even the most basic protections on a 10K product. Given the lethal voltages tube amps run at, this is unforgivable. In this case there was a blown tube and transformer close to going critical. Since excess heat was mentioned, I’m guessing critical is catching fire. So, the OP spends 10K on amps that can fail in a way that they could catch fire and burn his house down. Loss of property and potentially life.

In that context, I think it’s entirely reasonable for people here to conclude that LM amps are not worth buying and should be avoided.

Perhaps you have some LM amps you need to shift so you can afford to replace the Tesla? 😜

I had a bad expertise with my rolls Royce

It has a previously opened jar of grey poupon in the mini fridge

dealer wouldn't pay for my disability resulting from this affair

 never again

I also have Silbatone 300b amp which cost more than 50K$ with silver foil  transformer.

I need to change capacitors inside it after 5 years.

The serviceman gave me advice to measure the temperature on surface.

if it go above 120 F (about 50 C) , then insdie capacitors will lose life sooner than expected.

I found my Lm 508 reach 120 F after 3 hours of play.

Thomas

@dht4me 

You know that now EVERYBODY wants the complete list of tips and knowledge. 😅

@shkong78 

That's interesting. Jack Elliano of Electraprint fame gave me a list of trade secrets before he retired this year and he has a similar note about not running a tube amp for more than x hours however his recommendation is 6hrs so it is not unheard of and that comes from one of the best tube amp and transformer designers to have lived. His designs are licensed to several high end tube amp manufacturers. 

Some interesting things in his list and some real golden nuggets in there.

The thing is heat kills electrolytic capacitors and is their main enemy. the temperature derating curve vs service life is steep and most amps do not have the higher 105degree C rating caps.

@shkong78 

Interesting. I have never heard of giving tubes a break after three hours. Is this specific to your amp/tubes?

@dht4me 

+1

I have not had proiblem with LM 508 for more than 4 years.

I agree on the point of upgrading tubes.

One more point is that you had better not leave it on more than 3 hours.

It does not have enough heat sink to get the heat out.

Thus I alway turn off the amp after playing it for 3 hours and have a break of one hour or more.

Thomas

Well the plant in China that makes the LM (Foshun) sells their products through Taobao and other resources and I have their Western Electric 211 circuit Monos which have been extremely reliable. Granted I am a diy guy and I would say that the build quality is very high. The amps were also burned in and tested before shipping. I would say your problem is your local distributor and not the amp brand /origin itself. These amps are also very traditional with old school tech so any competent tech should easily be able to service them.  I have heard rumors of European distributors who are more like salesmen wanting sell things vs being dedicated to customer service.

Honestly the biggest issue is the tube quality that come from the factory. They put base grade tubes in from the factory unless you get the factory to put better tubes in your build. I bought premium Psvane Acme tubes and Emission Labs tubes right from the start and have has zero issues. 

Sad some companies are like this.
Just had a terrible experience with Cary Audio and an SLP-05 preamp, wound getting a refund.

Compare to my experience with Manley.
Before I purchased them (used still under warranty), I emailed them to verify the warranty was valid and asked a couple of questions at the same time.
I heard back from sales about the warranty, and got a personal email from EveAnna Herself.
After they arrived with tubes removed, I went to the website only to find they did not post a tube map - I had to zoom in on the image to figure out what tube went where. which was confounded by the fact that my input buffer tube was different than the one they listed.

So I emailed tech support to verify the tube was OK to use, and pointed out they might want to consider adding a tube map to the manual and website.
Got another personal email from Herself telling me that she just updated the website with text descriptions of the tube locations.

Some companies get it, some don't.

 

Decided years ago to avoid China products, but not for all of the mostly faux altruistic reasons most pontificate about.  I simply do not like their engineering, mostly, and of course what you are experiencing.  Then again, try getting a piece of Sugden repaired in North America. No picnic there either.

Hindsight being 20/20, perhaps some Valvet monos would work well or some other European gear that provided real customer support.  Best of luck sorting out the whole mess.  We've mostly all been there.  It's unavoidable if you play the game enough.

Amazing how many people are willing to abandon consideration of a brand based on a single customer's bad experience.  Oh, by the way, I had a bad experience with my Tesla....

Tubes can fail. Power tubes can fry transformer when this happens. We do not know if music was playing while it happens, but generally that sort of failure will cause loud noise in speaker, which is hard to miss even if you are not in the same room. Transformer does not burn out instantly - it takes at least few minutes for it to reach critical temperature when power tube is shorted (which is likely happened here). Some amplifiers have advanced protection from fault, but these will be higher tier brands like McIntosh or Audio Research. Generally I would not leave running tube power amplifier unattended.

When dealing with China based makers, I would not expect great customer service. In most cases it makes more sense to purchase product directly from China and forgo warranty support other than DOA. If device fails, use local independent repair shop to fix it. Or simply purchase a new one. In case of LM, price difference between ordering from China and EU distributor could allow getting a spare amplifier.

I am sorry to hear this and would never consider a product that self-destructs with a bad tube.   I would be concerned about an amp that overheated the way yours did.  The heat could cause expansion and damage to components, reducing the life of the product.    The manufacturer should send you a new matched pair of amplifiers and an apology, with a protection circuit for the tube issue.

@steven365 Oh wow, thank you so much.

Thanks for all your replays. This means a lot to me.

Update January 6th: After another email to Line Magnetic in China, some of my questions got answered. (I added them to part 3 of my customer report) However, the majority of questions remain unanswered. They wrote they will ship my spare transformer from China to Europe today. There are still way too many open questions regarding the warranty and repair costs. 

TRANSLATE with x

English

Arabic	Hebrew	Polish
Bulgarian	Hindi	Portuguese
Catalan	Hmong Daw	Romanian
Chinese Simplified	Hungarian	Russian
Chinese Traditional	Indonesian	Slovak
Czech	Italian	Slovenian
Danish	Japanese	Spanish
Dutch	Klingon	Swedish
English	Korean	Thai
Estonian	Latvian	Turkish
Finnish	Lithuanian	Ukrainian
French	Malay	Urdu
German	Maltese	Vietnamese
Greek	Norwegian	Welsh
Haitian Creole	Persian

var LanguageMenu; var LanguageMenu_keys=["ar","bg","ca","zh-CHS","zh-CHT","cs","da","nl","en","et","fi","fr","de","el","ht","he","hi","mww","hu","id","it","ja","tlh","ko","lv","lt","ms","mt","no","fa","pl","pt","ro","ru","sk","sl","es","sv","th","tr","uk","ur","vi","cy"]; var LanguageMenu_values=["Arabic","Bulgarian","Catalan","Chinese Simplified","Chinese Traditional","Czech","Danish","Dutch","English","Estonian","Finnish","French","German","Greek","Haitian Creole","Hebrew","Hindi","Hmong Daw","Hungarian","Indonesian","Italian","Japanese","Klingon","Korean","Latvian","Lithuanian","Malay","Maltese","Norwegian","Persian","Polish","Portuguese","Romanian","Russian","Slovak","Slovenian","Spanish","Swedish","Thai","Turkish","Ukrainian","Urdu","Vietnamese","Welsh"]; var LanguageMenu_callback=function(){ }; var LanguageMenu_popupid='__LanguageMenu_popup';

 

TRANSLATE with

COPY THE URL BELOW

Back

EMBED THE SNIPPET BELOW IN YOUR SITE

Enable collaborative features and customize widget: Bing Webmaster Portal

Back

var intervalId = setInterval(function () { if (MtPopUpList) { LanguageMenu = new MtPopUpList(); var langMenu = document.getElementById(LanguageMenu_popupid); var origLangDiv = document.createElement("div"); origLangDiv.id = "OriginalLanguageDiv"; origLangDiv.innerHTML = "<span id='OriginalTextSpan'>ORIGINAL: </span><span id='OriginalLanguageSpan'></span>"; langMenu.appendChild(origLangDiv); LanguageMenu.Init('LanguageMenu', LanguageMenu_keys, LanguageMenu_values, LanguageMenu_callback, LanguageMenu_popupid); window["LanguageMenu"] = LanguageMenu; clearInterval(intervalId); } }, 1);

I have had a LM 518IA for 5 or so years, zero issue. And as far as finding a reputable dealer in the US , Tone Imports is the distributor and I was directed by Jonathan Halpern of Tone to  Taylor  of GoldprintAudio in North Carolina . Both Jonathan and Taylor were easy to deal and communicate with. Service Center in Arizona

Based on favorable reviews from knowledgeable people, I really wanted to buy LM. But finding a reputable dealer and navigating through retail websites left me feeling concerned about getting into LM stuff. 

I next went with Don Sachs for my amp but it was delivered damaged due to poor packing and his response was less than satisfactory. 

All this scared me into buying a Primaluna. I was not happy with the sound of the dialogue series and I was allowed to return it after 30 days to try the Evo series which I liked a lot.

Upscale Audio is great to deal with and Primaluna is also on top of their customer service game. It's a 'one-two punch' of customer comes first and ultra reliable equipment. 

Not the sexiest brand but, man I am a truly satisfied customer. I wish everything was handled like this. Customer Service can make or break a brand.

I am so sorry you have to through this horrible ordeal. When you pay ten grand for a pair of amps, you should expect to be treated well by the dealer, distributor and manufacturer.  All three have failed you.  I read a lot about goods manufactured in China with poor distribution and service and while the products are very tempting, I always shrug them off.  I had been eyeing the LM CD player which I was thinking of using in my office system as the McIntosh player I am currently using is getting long in the tooth.  Not anymore though.  If little else, I thank you for steering me away from possible headaches.  I hope you have a happy ending but from experience, it looks like you are going to have a fight ahead of you.  If all else fails, hire an attorney.  Best of luck!

Contrast that with my most recent experience with Pass Labs

in Auburn, CA. Kent English, mgr.

I sent my INT25 to Auburn CA 12/01/22. It was repaired under warranty and

returned to me freight paid-in a new box- 3 weeks later. 

I am not buying any more MIC goods. Plan to unload my only MIC

- A REL sub for a Paradigm at the next possible opportunity. 

Life is too short for the unnecessary stress.

@steven365  Very decent of you.

Audio is supposed to be an enjoyable hobby. So sorry that you are having problems with this company.  Up until now I have heard positive things about LM products.

However,  that has had to do with their excellent sound quality; not customer service.  Thank you for posting about your experience.  It will no doubt be helpful to other audio enthusiasts on this forum who might be considering the purchase of a Line Magnetic product.  Hopefully the company will see your information and use it as a reference for improving their customer service.

Best of luck in resolving this situation.  

Sorry to hear about you unpleasant experience with LM and their Austrian distributor. I’ve written an email in Chinese to LM’s headquarter in relation to this. Hopefully it will draw their attention and they can help resolve the dispute and speed up the repair. Best of luck.

Not only the Line Magnetic, I won't suggest friends to buy any products MIC. 

Only when: 

#1 you don't want or don't need any customers support.

#2 used products. Or you have some skill to fix problems by yourself.

That is indeed a shame. I had the LM 518 and loved it. Problem free. Still, you seem to have hit a tragedy of errors across the board. It's a shame LM hq is unresponsive,  especially considering what you paid. Hopefully they'll learn about your report. 

Sorry to hear this.

I had been using LM 508 for 4 years without any problem.

I may be just luckyl.

Thomas

Thank you for sharing your story.

You spent a lot of money in good faith in the pursuit of listening to great music and instead, you've gotten a frustrating, full-time job dealing with an unscrupulous distributor and manufacturer. 

I wish you success in achieving an acceptable solution.

Sorry.to hear that. I have a pair of line magnetic  124a monoblocks  and have never had a problem  so I don't know anything  about  there customer service  in Canada  I just enjoy listening  to them

So sorry to hear that. Hope in the end you get some resolution. Thanks for the heads up. Crazy to think such expensive items can cause more headaches than items selling for a fraction of that.

This is crazy, but the same can be said of distributors here in North America. Not having parts or the ability to repair what they sell, often sub-contracting repairs.

for this much money to have this bad service is amazing 

And you know the saying: "fool me once...."

Sorry for your experience with LM, I'll not ever be considering them based on your experience. Hope it does work out for you soon.

That bites. I won't buy a LM amp. Sweet website by the way. 

@noromance Thanks for letting me know. Just fixed it.

parts 2 and 3 pages throwing 404 error.