Let me set the scene. One of the reasons I gave up representing STAX equipment, at the time I was the global #1 for the brand was not, as is sometimes reported, the unreliability of the Omega-2 earspeakers and certain batches of the 717, but that on a number of occasions, the defective items had to be returned to Japan for remedial work, sometimes under warranty.
Quite naturally, my customers who under warranty found they might be without their very expensive equipment for some weeks because of the inability to rectify the fault in the UK, were aggrieved. And so was i. The problems were all eventually sorted, but by that time I was sick of the whole thing. And that was that.
Anyway, two new situations recently has caused me to reflect further on this.
Mark Levinson:
First, I received a call from a person who sought my advice re what seemed at first sight an extraordinary bargain on a piece of very expensive Mark Levinson AV equipment. The caller had responded to an advert placed by one of the only 4 remaining UK Levinson retailers. The advert read as follows:
"Mark Levinson Model 40 HD/ AV processor/pre-amplifier As new, factory sealed boxes. Cost new in excess £30,000 on offer for only (Pounds Sterling) 14995"
The caller spoke to the retailer, initially thinking (so he tells me) that this meant that ML was vanishing from the UK. The retailer assured him that wasn’t the case. The reason for the massive saving, and the sealed boxes, was that under warranty this equipment had failed and it was (apparently) beyond the capability of the UK service agent to fix it. So, at no doubt buttock-clenching cost, was returned to the USA, and then back to the UK.
At this point the caller asked what would happen if it went wrong again after the (what he felt) was the very short 6 month warranty. Apparently it could still not be serviced in the UK. The caller asked my opinion.
I was astonished that what was formerly one of the world’s leading audiophile brands could not be serviced by the importer. My advice was that despite the massive saving, he should walk away. The opportunity, as I perceived it, for massive bills outside of warranty, plus the fact that having come back from the makers it still only had (apparently) a 6 month warranty, was I felt a tacit lack of confidence on the part of the seller and/or the importer and/or the maker.
NAGRA
Shortly after that, a tale of woe regarding the owner and his unreliable yet top-of-the line Nagra pre/power combination came to my attention. You can read it here: http://www.pinkfishmedia.net/forum/s...ad.php?t=48752
What really shocked me was the statement by one of the contributors to the thread as follows: “Lee Hi, well RT sends everything back to Switzerland ,no mater how trivial, what about letting a UK service engineer have a lok”
So here’s another importer, of massively expensive kit, not in a position to offer, it seems, quick UK based service on state-of-the-art equipment.
And so I ruminated as follows.
A Lexus car does not have to go back to Japan for fixing. Nor does a Canon camera. Nor does a washing machine, and so on. There may be exceptions with other state-of-the-art consumables such as £50k+ wrist watches – but I can’t think of many.
So my questions are these.
1. Should ‘civilians’ enquire as to what the importer / distributor’s policy is regarding repair work i.e. can all service work be carried out in the UK and if not, why not?
2. Should magazines (who always and vociferously claim to have the end-user’s interests at the very heart of what they do) be persuaded to include a brief statement re the state of UK servicing on any item they review?
As always. I seek comments and where appropriate will be happy to respond to those comments.
Thank you
HP.
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