Tube Research Labs Dude vs. Shindo Labs preamps

For the record I will gladly ship it back to them for a full refund. Changes nothing in terms of my experience with them as a consumer or as a member of this community. And no I have not heard anything directly from the manufacturer.

Tthean - You can contact me for a less-than-glowing perspective on TRL from a quality and customer service perspective.

Now my manhood is at stake! My apologies to the thread originator. Not sure if sending the thing back to TRL for a third time is manly or just down-right foolish. I believe the best course of action for my situation is to go third party for repair.

No not to the best of my recollection but I can check emails to be sure. I do remember asking for a refund at one point though. I really did go the extra mile(s) to hang in there and resolve the problems. I went far over and above the call of duty as a consumer. That I can say with absolute certainty.

It is possible that my situation is isolated. Problem is we can never find that out for sure for reasons previously mentioned. Obviously I have already written this thing off from manufacturer support and from a resell perspective. I’m not comfortable here anymore and probably moving on to another forum so you can keep this manufacturers reputation untarnished for all the wrong reasons. Have a good night.

Agear, are you saying I was offered a refund and refused it? I went back through all my emails to Paul and during my 9 month ordeal I found two where I asked for a loaner (before it was shipped back the first time) and a refund the second time it came back DOA. Neither of my requests were fulfilled. Send the proof of your accusations to the original thread creator. After all it’s for his or her benefit right?

Why are you asking me about troubleshooting? You were copied on at least one email response to Paul and we talked countless times over the phone. You even acknowledged others were having the same problem! You even floated the idea of a third party to take a look at it!

Personally I can’t believe TRL allows you to represent them. You make them look a lot worse than they really are.

If this question is directed to me I don't know Glory and he knows nothing about me or my experinces with TRL. You will need to ask him about his involvement and motivations here.

Goldeneraguy, the problems with my Dude were identified long before I move to EP speaker platform. I still have most of those same components in the mix today. That system iteration consisted of the following:

Bel Canto CD-2
Audio Horizons Tube DAC 3.0
TRL Dude
Bel Canto Ref1000 monoblocks
Audio Horizons and Harmonic technology IC's
Acoustic Zen Speaker cables

I'm not frustrated with my situation but rather not being allowed to share an experience with others on this site. Having to fend off members like Agear and Glory openly only makes TRL look bad IMHO and there are some really good things to say about the sound of this product.

Never interfered with their right to share experiences about any product or service on this site. I lots of really nice members contacting me behinds the scenes sharing information and experiences. Shame it has to happen in this manner.

So you have access to TRL order systems and sales numbers? And you are just and end user. Right. I wish TRL the best and hope for the sake of other potential buyers that my unit quality and service experience is not the norm.

It's getting shipped on Friday to a third party for assessment. Just got off the phone with them. Keep you posted on the results.

Best sounding preamp I have ever heard - even with last nagging issue to resolve. Quality and customer service on the exact opposite end of the spectrum.

Yes let me put the quality part of it in monetary context for you:

- A chassis that is f’d up (back plate they used was too large, a top cover that I can’t be tighten down due to a cap that's too tall to fit inside. Take a guess as to what that will do to resell value in my case!
- A ground problem (calling it that for now)
- Additional cost to replace the output stage tubes (the one that came with it were cheap, warn-out junk)
- Additional cost to ship and have a third party assess the problem
- Additional cost to fix (unknown at this point)

That's what "inherent value" means in my case. And they had absolutely no problem selling me the unit in this condition and making it worse in some cases along the way. There in lies by real beef with them.

Look at my original post on this thread. That was my objective here. Mission accomplished. If you would read the post you can answer your own question on my plan to solve my remaining problem with the Dude. TRL took two cracks at attempting fixing it. Guess its not that easy after all.

I'm going to get a measurements all the original tubes provided by TRL that I pulled just for a sanity check. The original output tubes were a disappointment rather than problems and TRL did provide me with a second pair early on in the debugging process.

Grannyring: Usually I value your perspective but in this case I can't dissagree with you more. These guys here beat the hell out of me, I move forward with efforts to resolve my last problem (you know be part of the solution and all) and you complain about that's adding fuel to the fire?

Gallant_diva, I'll address the statements from you/Paul when I get home this weekend. If I can find them, I'll pull the two shipping receipts with Paul's Fedex number so we can put that one to bed. "Happy Christmas"? I'm sure I did not say that but I'll try to get to the bottom of that lie as well.

So are you the next TRL attack dog coming after me? Let me say this again. I have chosen not to work with TRL going forward. I made that decision a long time ago for the reasons already stated. I want nothing and expect nothing from them. So take your spin and talking points somewhere else please.