Dear everyone

I recently sent my mildly esoteric British power amps back for repair – 15 years old and I blew one a few years ago and didn’t fix them as I was skint, but instead used my 1st gen Cyrus 2…which recently failed in a telephone/pint-glass incident.

So I was told they were “repaired (great!) and brought up to modern standards (erm…didn’t ask for that*)”

So I get the bill….£235 (half what they cost me): 50% discount on parts as I used to be trade (saving £60 on 12 named components and some “various”, cool), 3.75 hours of labour (@£35ph, fair) – seems excessive to replace above & test, no?.

Don’t think I CBA complaining about the hours or the fact that they exceeded my instructions, would you?

What make? Who did the repairs, the manufacturer?

Sounds like Quad and if so prolly worth the money but a little rum to just do it without asking. Have you paid and collected?

Not paid yet, would prefer not to name and shame, I don’t see the identity as relevant.

When they say “brought up to modern standards” they probably just mean things like upgrading the old electrolytic caps for something modern and off the shelf.

I would give them a call.

Richer Sounds wanted to charge me £35 just to look at my broken CD player.

I’d call and say you just wanted them repaired not updated in line with your original conversation and that you can’t afford £235, see what they say.

Thanks, I think I’ll give it a go, I did know about the “upgrade” before I got the bill but after it had been done – I didn’t want to raise it at that time though. The bloke I am dealing with seems a bit cranky.

Perhaps your original parts were obsolete?

I sent my CD player, bought secondhand, back to NAIM and they upgraded the laser and transport for about £500 which, on top of what I paid for it, got me a “good-as-new” player, but still MUCH less than I would have paid if it was new…

Improveable maybe, obselete, hardly…have components become obselete in that time?

Before I sent it off I had a look at the pcb…and the main caps (£35 worth) didn’t look blown.

The caps don’t have to be blown – but they do have a life before they degrade – something like 10 years apparently.

Hmmm OK…they replaced no other caps though! (perhapss there were no other electrolytics)

Those on my cyrus 2 are/were fine and it’s way older!

TBH,

Assuming it’s a reputable place you’ve taken it to, then it sounds like they’ve done the ‘right’ thing in so far as they’ve serviced the amp as well as repairing it. They’ve probably saved you from having to return it to them again six months later (perhaps accompanied by a shitogram going “I only sent it back to you a few months ago, you’re rubbish, etc”).

However, they shouldn’t be undertaking work without your consent, and I’d be annoyed if it were me. I think legally though, your only real course of action is to tell them to undo the unauthorised work and put it back as it was, or to “pay under duress” and then persue them in small claims. I think.

Ultimately it’s up to you to decide whether you think they’ve been unreasonable and act accordingly. I think if it were me, rather than “complain” I’d query it with them, “I didn’t ask you to do this and it’s a lot more expensive than I was expecting, what gives?” sort of thing, and see what they say.

Did you ask them for an estimate at any point?

The email specifically refers to “updating”…that’s the approach I will take though…I suspect they’ll say “OK we’ll take the discount back and apply that to the work that you didn’t authorise”.

I wouldn’t mind so much but the job’s taken a while (not bothered but it’s the principle) and the bloke has been slightly prickly all along – enough to annoy, but not enough to say something about (which I find more annoying) – he also emails saying stuff like “well I’m on the road so I can’t tell you what the price will be until I go to the factory” – WTF is email for?

I could have srown I asked them to contact m if it was going over £100 but I can’t find an email to that effect.

Well the justification is current safety regs, and the changes also benefit sound. I’ve been offered a reversal of the changes if I sign a disclaimer.

The regs thing sounds unlikely to me, can anyone confirm?

Not sure what to do.

also, if the work was warranteed they might have want to make sure the returned amp was in decent shape, otherwise a failure becuase it hadn’t been serviced would look bad on their reputation.

Part of my job involves sending electronic components (drives, HMI’s etc) out for repair. The repairers will always insist on replacing all “aged” components on the boards as they don’t want the boards returning to them three months later under warranty when a capacitor dies. If you’re not happy with the cost you could try arguing it, but to be honest from what we pay for our jobs it looks like your cost is very fair. There’s no reason why your amp shouldn’t last for another 15 years now, so it looks the the real problem is that you weren’t properly informed about what would be done. I guess that you might have to chalk that down to experience and enjoy listening to your music again 🙂

I sent my CD player, bought secondhand, back to NAIM and they upgraded the laser and transport for about £500 which, on top of what I paid for it, got me a “good-as-new” player, but still MUCH less than I would have paid if it was new..

So you were sold a part which wholesale costs c.£20, takes a half an hour to fit and your happy to pay £500?

I used Darran at Class A in Sheffield for repairing a CD player a few years back, I wasn’t impressed TBH, but he did fix it for a lot less than the manufacturer would have charged.

Someone ‘prickly’ annoying you Al? 🙂

Slight hijack, any recomendations on where to get my venerable Marantdz CD65II SE fixed. It keeps vomiting discs and reporting ‘disc error’.

Someone ‘prickly’ annoying you Al? 🙂

Slight hijack, any recomendations on where to get my venerable Marantdz CD65II SE fixed. It keeps vomiting discs and reporting ‘disc error’.

s’OK boblo, I can take it. I’d have thought a local could do your work?

Yes the warranty point was mentioned, as has been said it’s about work getting done without authorisiation. He did also say the 2nd (working) amp was “an accident waiting to happen”.

Aye it should sound pretty awesome once I get it rigged up in the house, I’ve got some new speakers to build, they wil have massive bass extension and dynamic headroom, and will crossover an octave below the norm, I can also get my modded TD160 on it’s wall mount.

*thinks*

Hello Sarah, good surname.