Repair Reliability?

Oh yeah. The opposite happens as well. You send in the broken unit and it comes back perfect. The shop notes read "no trouble found". Who are they trying to kid?

I once sent back to the manufacturer (well respected, who shall remain nameless) malfunctioning monoblock amplifiers (sent back both even though only one was malfunctiong). When I didn't hear from them for aprox. 3 weeks I inquired as to the status of the repairs. I spoke to a tech who said the owner would call me back later that day. The owner called me up a few hours later explaining that one of his techs had electrocuted himself while working on my amp, falling on the floor, with amp in hand seriously hurting himself, and damaging the amp casing. A couple more weeks went by, another inquiry, promises that amps would be shipped immediately, also, an offer of 50% off retail any item in manufacturer's line as ammends for my inconvienience. Amps finally arrived a few days later, initially they looked fine and operated flawlessly, however, within days the repaired amp malfunctioned, and some discoloration from where they had refinished polished stainless steel appeared. After all this, I declined to send amps back, I ended up repairing the amps myself via many telphone conversations with owner of company directing me in repairs. Took perhaps 3 months of this telphone support to get amps operating correctly. I was so ticked at this company, I just couldn't bring myself to purchase any of their products, even with the discount. And now for the most bizaare event in this debacle. During one of those telephone servicing calls with the owner, I inquired about the electrocuted tech's health (as it was claimed he had been hospitalized), the owner said nothing of the sort had ever happened! I was so flabbergasted, I couldn't even bring myself to inquire any further, the faster I could get away the better!

I've had a number of other issues with other equipment as well, another amp repair that malfunctioned, but mostly slow service. As a result, I've taken it upon myself to learn as much as I can about troubleshooting and repair, do most of my own repairs at this point.

To be fair, I've also had a few good experiences! Good idea to check repair history on these guys. My good experiences have all been with small independents referred by the manufacturer.

SNS, what is the logic for not disclosing the identity of the company you are talking about? Truth is a complete defense against libel. I see that others do this too, but there is no useful information in such a post, without that.

Lloydc, I simply don't want to besmearch the name of this company. A single bad episode may not reflect the true reliability or repair record of this company.

Perhaps an anonymous survey of audio equipment reliabililty should be undertaken, something like the JD Power or Consumers Report surveys.