Reliability - what’s your experience been?


I’ve been into high fi since the 1970’s. Fortunately, equipment breakdown has been few and far between.

As best as I can recall, I needed the following repairs:

1- new motor on a Thorens turntable (noisy motor)

2- Repair of an Aiwa tape deck (noisy channel)

3- Bryston amp (broken power switch)

4- Proceed amp (would not turn on)

5- CAL cd player (noisy channel)

6- Bricasti dac (no sound- just static)

7- Simaudio cd player (failed transport)

8- Pass integrated amp (intermittent noise)

not bad for almost 50 years experience. How has your experience been?

zavato

Showing 1 response by yesiam_a_pirate

The equipment I love the most- ARC is also the most problematic and finicky.  I discovered that preventative maintenance stops the fireworks. W Zane Johnson had the notion that his customers were all techies. Read the owners manual from his ownership era and it tells you how to bias your amp with a multimeter, etc. Yeh right. I have no business poking around with a metal probe in an amp with literally lethal voltage in the power caps. Plus I don't own an oscilloscope or tube tester. 

DBX equalizers seem to be pretty problematic as well. 

Japanese stuff is pretty much bulletproof but time and current ruin capacitors no matter who makes them.