In my 40 plus years in this hobby I have been very lucky
I had a VTL 50/50 , went back to Chino 3 times... almost was my first and LAST tube Amp
Anthem Amp 1. Great amp, however if a tube failed it would almost surely take out a cathode resistor. Easy fix. Chris from Sonic Frontiers was kind enough to send me a dozen
Sony DVP9000 great player but I needed to service the drawer mech several times. Laser finally gave out
Velodyne HGS 10. Ticking noise. Common problem. Sent it to EBC in NJ and they repaired it reasonably
Not bad considering all the gear I have had over the years.
Most equipment has been fine since I got into HEA. It’s the digital network stuff that can drive me crazy, the software hardware not playing nice together.
The Cary gear I have owned (two preamps and two amps) has been very reliable. (Actually, I haven’t put enough time on the latest preamp yet to fully make that determination.)
I once owned a pair of Audio Research VTM 120s that sounded great but had a nasty habit of blowing a random grid resistor when I turned them on.
I have a Rega Jupiter transport that I no longer use, but it has lasted forever.
A digital cable went bad on me once.
My Carver CDP took a crap, but it had a lot of miles on it. My B&K digital HT pre started doing wonky things before I gave up on HT.
I got this HP desktop I am presently typing on in 2012 (Windows 7!) and it is doing some goofy things here and there, but it is still my only PC.
I have owned and upgraded a high end audio system since the early 1970s. Marantz at the beginning and getting better. Amber, AR turntable, Nakimachi, VPI, Threshold, Pass, Audio Research, Sony CD player (in the very beginning) and Sonic Frontiers, and Linn.
I only remember one failure… three times… the Sonic Frontiers CD player had the transport go out three times. They replaced it for free each time.
Bad output transformer on a Music Reference RM9. Luckily Roger had a spare even though the amp was out of production
Bad output transformer on a Canary CA-160. These were monoblocks and the cost to repair was more than their value. I sold the pair back to Canary. Was not impressed with their customer service
Blown tweeter on a Silverline Sonata. Replaced with no drama
Bass driver went out on a Von Schweikert VR4. Albert sent one out promptly and a UPS label for the bad driver. Great customer service, RIP Albert
The highest reliability electronics tend to come out of the island nation called Japan....which is what i tend to stick with. If i buy stuff that gets into the high end price bracket, i play it safe with such Japanese things.
I buy some cheaper American products like Schiit Audio and other Chifi things. If it fell apart, well...it didn’t cost that much (to begin with).
European stuff...nope, pass bro...i don’t feel like shipping transatlantic just to get your "high end" unreliable crap fixed...not to mention your miserable customer service!
Ok, maybe some German made stuff is an exception, the German engrs seemed to have learned a thing or two about design for reliability...
(Many lessons learned the hard way over the years...)
I had a Classe’ CAP150 which went back and forth to Quebec and the US 3 times for cold solder joints. I sold it, as is. The other was Yaquin hybrid integrated amp which caught fire a couple of hours after first turning it on for the very first time. Good thing I was in the house as black acrid smoke started filling my upstairs office/listening room. I managed to get all 6 windows open after I yanked the power cord and put 2 fans in the windows, one blowing out and one blowing in. Luckily, the smoke wasn’t in the room more than maybe 3 minutes to do any smoke damage. I sent pictures to Yaquin in China but they wanted the amp back before giving me a partial refund. I tossed it in the trash instead as the cost to ship was half the price of the amp. Of course, the company said I must have hooked it up wrong. This amp was bought direct from China for around $190.00 plus the shipping. It was poorly made with wires just wired haphazardly and lots of sharp metal inside that could easily snag a wire. That was my first and last time I bought from China. This was around 2004-06 time frame and the company was pretty much unknown.
In 50 years I've never had an equipment failure, other than a laser reader go on a DVD player. But, in the past few years, I've had 3 pieces of high end equipment have issues right out of the box. All three were replaced but it was a nuisance. Read into that what you will.
My worst experience was a Denon DN 720P music streamer. I believe it was their first around 2012. After 5 years, they would not provide firmware updates for installed music platforms or the internet radio. On the other hand, I have a Velodyne SPL 1000 Sub from 2000. Never faltered and I won't replace it until it dies.
I've only had one problem in 45 years of this hobby. Not counting the blown tweeters in my Altec Lansing speakers (some dumbass cranked them too long during a frat party).
I bought a used conrad-johnson Premier 17LS2 preamp. It was just old enough to start having issues. I didn't want to mess with trying to get it fixed, so I returned it.
Never had any trouble with my conrad johnson PV-14L.
VPI turntable.....never a problem. (replaced drive belt twice in many years.....Alll electronics are Ayre.....one fuse was replaced after many years.....Vandersteen speakers.....a pain to set up but reliable.
I had a Sumo preamp lose a channel. Never could get it fixed and a tweeter went out on a KEF Reference speaker and not from abuse. Everything else has been maintenance like a turntable belt or replacing some tubes.
Three power switch failures. A very limited production pre-amp (no switch available), a Philips turntable ( I repaired the switch), and a Jolida amp (I replaced the switch).
...at the risk of invoking any latent bad karma of an unknown source....
Nothing, with the exception of 'puter monitors, which theres' been a couple.
Those got recycled, most else given away or sold. The fate of 'vintage' computers is that any upgrades are generally improbable or financially pointless...
*shrug* Don't hate me.
I seem to be able to fix most everything else but broken hearts.....
.....but that's because people don't let me near them with a knife.... ;)
My worst experience many years ago, Ohm B speakers, blew a tweeter, they literally "lost" my speakers! Thiel CS3.5's for 32 years, superb and no issues. ARC SP 9 awesome for 34 years. ARC Classic 60, a tube went and a resistor was taken out (had it recapped after 32 years (no complaints). VPI HW-19 MK III after 34 yrs no problem.
Amp died in powered speaker. AVR on/off switch went bad. Speakers needed to be refoamed but were so old and inexpensive I didn’t bother. That’s it over the years. Haven’t been able to find anyone that will repair the speaker amp. I won’t buy another high-end powered speaker. I like separate components so if something goes wrong or if I want to upgrade it’s just one piece of equipment.
(1) Before I upgraded to separate components in my discrete stand-alone 7.2 HT system, I had the brand new very top model CAMBRIDGE AVR. Its HDMI board died suddenly and catastrophically after 19 months from new, OK…. Fine .,,, it was an PITA inconvenience but it was replaced under warranty .
Then, it suddenly died AGAIN in like form 8 months later after very minimal use. The Canadian distributor falsely claimed that I had somehow damaged the HDMI ports . They now refused to cover the costs even though it was still covered by its full 3 year warranty .The unit was now an unreliable turd, With few options in frustration , I had it fixed under my dime and I promptly dumped it immediately afterwards in the one-owned marketplace.
(2) The stablemate CAMBRIDGE Blu-Ray player also strangely died a similar sudden and catastrophic demise a month after its 2 year warranty expired. They told me to deliver it to their specifically named local CAMBRIDGE authorized repair dealer for assessment . I did ,… and got the run around for a month before that local repair facility / dealer went bankrupt, and I lost the unit.
TAKEAWAY:
- CAMBRIDGE is a must to avoid ….full stop.
- I next went initially to ARCAM with their 5-year warranties with no issues,
- The ARCAM rig had a final full system upgrade to individual YBA separate power amps (2-3-2) and a discrete NUFORCE digital 7.1 preamp/ AV processor…. with NO issues at all .
LESSON LEARNED : Build quality matters .., full stop.
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.
I’ve only had one string of bad reliability. Arcam came out with a new line of excellent sounding universal players, and I bought two. Both of these had their laser assemblies fail three times each before I gave up after 2-3 years of ownership. These laser assemblies seem to be the Achilles heel of the audio industry! The motorized drawers of players also seem to break commonly. I am so glad to move to streaming!
On the positive side: A case study counterpoint argument to “bad” reliability : REGA ISIS / REGA ISIS VALVE cdp/dac
Those worried about the viability of the CD format and getting your player serviced in the future, fear not. Inside the owner’s manual, there is a signature from the technician that assembled your ISIS, another tech that QC’d the electrical and mechanical systems and the tech that tested and archived not one, but two spare laser units.
Component-parts-matching for the Isis is extremely selective so that Rega actually chooses three hand-matched sets of laser/lens assemblies for each unit; one set gets installed in the player you buy, while the other two are marked and held in reserve at the factory for use as spares should your player ever require them.
I think it’s safe to say that the ISIS will last longer than most of its owners and I appreciate this attention to detail, with CD transport mechanisms getting scarcer all the time
My personal experience:
I’ve had my REGA ISIS VALVE cdp/DAC now for a decade plus now, The only thing that I needed to repair or replace were the upgraded MULLARD NOS tubes that I had foolishly selected as a recent “upgrade” step, but somehow these NOS ka- Ching priced aftermarket replacements were an illusion that quickly flunked out. after a year+ use. Not my finest moment .
So I went back to the OEM units provided with no problems at all .
TAKEAWAY AGAIN:
1) Build quality matters.…big-time.. You get what you pay for.
When you remove this beefy 55-pound (25kg) CD player from the box, you know it’s high-end, reliable , and built to last with a lifetime bullet-proof spare parts plan in place,
My old Marrantz 2285, volume control and back lights. Michelle table, 2 DC drive motors in the past 25 years at $600 a pop, so not so bad in my opinion...
The only problem I've ever had was when I bought my used SIM audio w8 amplifier it developed noise in one channel, SIM audio took care of it very quickly very good service.
My worst equipment failure experiences have been with Classe gear.
Both a Classe basic amp the CA-100 and a Classe tuner the Tuner-1 failed at differeint times. These were designed before the B&W acquisition of Classe, and the post-acquisition company would not provide service support -- no service locations, no replacement parts, no circuit schematics.
My impression was that not only did Classe products have dubious reliability, but also the company did not care about customers and could not be relied upon beyond the initial sale.
Of course, I vowed never to buy another Classe product.
Brands I would avoid today because of less than stellar ownership experiences include Adcom, Carver amplifiers, though I loved the carver sound and power, their reliability was worse than adcom. Adcom was not that great in spite of the hype about their build quality, especially the preamps. To be fair to the Carver equipment it was all bought second hand and I had several pieces that performed flawlessly for years and a notable few that didnt. Perhaps due to previous owner abuse or old age. My hafler and dynaco gear from back in the day was flawless and long lived. Happily would go there again if they were available.
I am somewhat sold on the class H amplifier design and am therefore enjoying a couple of new emotiva products. I like the way their amplifiers sound; that is, neutral and clean with no sonic signature of their own. And I appreciate they are more efficient than class ab
I have had a lot of Yamaha gear that was largely reliable and served well for a lot of years. I don’t have recent experience with their current products so cannot say if their stuff is still built well today.
Crown amps are really reliable and my experience with them was good as subwoofer amps. A bit noisy in full range mode but as a sub amp, they performed brilliantly and with no complaint EVER. Yes I would buy them again for that specific purpose.
I had an old Marantz receiver (20 wpc) back in the day and it was pretty reliable but it got to where the channel balance was way off and and didn’t really sound good anymore...I couldn’t justify the expense of repairing it and got rid of it. I might dip my toe in the Marantz pool again but they have gotten to be stupid expensive. I had an Onkyo 50 wpc amp that lasted a good 30 years before it began to have problems. I have an old Kenwood dolby pro-logic receiver I am still happily using in my bedroom system that works as well today as the day I got it. Truly a keeper. No issues at all. not sure what will replace it when it dies. If Kenwood was still making quality gear in the US I’d consider buying more of it. I’d love to have my old SL-D1 Technics turntable back in good condition but our recent fire killed it. That was a really good table for its day and is still better than many fairly expensive tables available today.
My dearly departed AR turntable from years ago was a good piece for its day and in good condition I would happily own one again.
The adcom preamp I had GTP-600 was good for quite a few years but the switches and pots died way too early for me to feel like I would go there again. Their basic amps were good solid pieces I owned several of them that were not problematic other than their relatively high price.
I have some 10-20 year old Yamaha gear that is still in pretty good shape and will use that equipment till it dies.
I have owned two vizio tvs, one was good and one was a PITA. so probably no more Vizios for me. I had a Panasonic Plasma set I loved but lost that in the fire. I’d buy another Panasonic TV if it had the features I wanted. Currently have a Samsung tv that I hate and a toshiba tv that I hate....never again for either of those brands. I currently have two LG products, one is a straight computer monitor and I like it. Works well. The other is a TV/monitor and I do NOT like their privacy agreement which you must accept to use their product...So no more LG for me...regardless of how good the actual product is. I have owned Sony products that performed well for a long time and would own more Sony, but will be very choosy about what I buy. Their ES line is generally pretty good I think, having owned several ES components, cd player, cassette deck, and a sony distributed audio system for the whole house. The lower end stuff is junk IMHO. Other than true computer hardware and ham radio gear that covers most of what I have owned except for speakers. Most of what I had speaker wise I auditioned and bought cause I liked the sound. But now days that is harder to do. Especially higher end speakers like Legacy Audio and those in that price category are impossible to audition locally. Everything I want to listen to is a major road trip away from me. So I either settle for junk from best buy or make a road trip. Its gonna be a long strange trip :)
Think the more important point...if you had an issue or problem how was the brand customer service, the rep, the local vender/dealer, is the brand still around...during the warranty period and after? My experience with VPI = excellent! They back their gear and worked with me.
In 40 plus years I only had one item fail. It was a used Plinius SA250 power amp. The dealer who sold it called Plinius. Even though the amp was long out of warranty, Plinius had it serviced and repaired locally. I eventually sold the amp for twice what I paid for it. It was a behemoth 125 pound beast. But never once had a product fail again. Counting my blessings!
My first quality component,.a Creek integrated, promptly went down entirely due to a faulty headphone output. Repair handled smoothly under warranty with a domestic shop. Very pleased with that service and the unit has been rock solid ever since.
I wouldn't hesitate to buy another Creek amp or other UK gear, but likely from a US based authorized dealer for piece of mind.
I've got a bunch of stuff here that needs repairing, most of it tube.
My worst experience was lending a local audio club member a pair of beautiful Cary Audio V12R monoblocks and having them returned to me with one side not working. It needed a new power TX - $900 plus shipping. Apparently, even though the tubes were well used, he decided to set the amps up in his basement system and leave them running overnight to 'warm them up'. Some spurious popping noises were heard but the amps were not turned off.
Always pains me to think back to being on the receiving end of someone's foolishness.
owned at least 7 Cary amps/preamps, never had an issue (still have the PH 302 mk II phono pre which is outstanding - sent products back for upgrades, not repairs, and have always received excellent service
had a Sonographe TT in the 80’s which failed, other than that no issues aside from tubes wearing out
My worst experience was lending a local audio club member a pair of beautiful Cary Audio V12R
@rooze, That was a lot of EL34s there! Was that then rated as putting out twice the wpc of the conventional V12?
owned at least 7 Cary amps/preamps, never had an issue (still have the PH 302 mk II phono pre which is outstanding - sent products back for upgrades, not repairs, and have always received excellent service
@markmendenhall , in the days of Dennis Had, I used to rave about CAD's tech support and customer service. In the post Dennis days I feel that has gone down hill. However, I still cannot complain about reliability. I did have a coupling cap go out on my V12 (stereo version) which was 20 years old at the time, and I can accept that failure (especially as it was probably my fault), but the help I got from tech support was worthless (they quoted me their shop rate and told me to request an RMA and ship it to them) but a kind gentleman on another audio forum helped me troubleshoot it via emails. I pretty much swore off buying another Cary product because of that, but then I saw a SLP 05 going for a decent price in their preowned section; I had always wanted one, so I upgraded my venerable but modded SLP 90 (which was another Cary product that never gave me any problems). Anyway, the SLP 05 sounds fantastic and so far no problems.
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