Uber expensive repair at United Radio

BTW, that repair rate is the same as the DFW area.

The guy who runs PS Audio said in one of his YouTubes that he generally would not repair audio components older than 10 years since the technology has advanced so much.  
You could have got a pair of Schiit Aegirs (if you’re speakers are not hard to drive) or Vidars (if they are) and been very happy.

The guy who runs PS Audio has an incentive to sell you new hardware. Of course he's going to say dump your old Marantz receiver and upgrade. Speakers still run on an analog signal, not digital. If you're talking about room correction and DAC's, yes great improvements have been made in those fronts, but just tubes are still popular in driving speakers and that technology has been around 100 years.

@dasign I feel your pain.

I sent my ML No. 39 CD processor to United Radio for lack of sound output from the analog/RCA outputs.  The digital output via toslink/coax worked fine if I used my own DAC.  I was told the issue was a faulty IC in the No. 39's DAC module.  They replaced the IC and returned the No. 39 to me confirming it was repaired, thoroughly checked by their QC department, and fully functional.  Cost for this repair was $350 + shipping to them.

Imagine my surprise when I hooked it back up in my system and the left channel still had no (well, very little) sound from the analog output.  I contacted them again and they sent me a return shipping label.  I packed it back up and returned it for further diagnosis and repair.  Four weeks later I was told all of the electrolytic capacitors needed to be replaced as some were leaking and causing the left channel issue.  The cost for this repair was $730 and it took another 4 weeks to perform the recap.

What concerns me the most about United Radio's service is the fact that the No. 39 was returned to me the first time after having been "...thoroughly checked by our QC department.  All functions and features are fully functional.", yet as soon as I played a CD, the left channel was very clearly not functioning properly.  They refused to provide any inspection/quality documents that would have confirmed/denied the unit was fully functional when it left.  After agreeing to provide said documentation post-recap, they conveniently ignored all requests to provide any additional information regarding quality assurance.

Another concern is that if the capacitors were leaking and causing the issue, why wasn't this found during the initial diagnostics?  Seems to me it would be pretty evident.  

I have serious concerns about United Radio's ability to accurately diagnose, repair, and test audio equipment.  It's even more concerning that the folks at Harman Luxury Audio Group refer to United Radio as their flagship service center.  What you can expect is nothing close to what I would consider flagship-level service.  All in all it took them 4 months, 2 trips, and $1080 to get my No. 39 working again.  I sold my ML gear after this ordeal.

/end rant