Can you better this customer service from a HiFi dealer/manufacturer

So at the weekend one of my beloved Renaisance RA01 valve mono blocks made a telltail hissing noise and then produced no sound. :( All the valves remained powered on and there was very faint music from the speaker. So I quickly powered off, I suspected that a capacitor or resistor had failed on the first or second stage before the two 300B's.

So on Monday I called Sean at HighEndAudio in Fareham who manufacturer and sell these lovely amps and various other pieces of hifi equipment. After a chat he said pop up with it and we will see what we can do. So up to Fareham I went from Devon, with said amp and a spare set of valves for testing. After a brief inspection and some checking Sean said my guess was in fact correct one of the capacitors had failed to the first stage. So off to the parts store he went and came back with a new one (£12) and after 20 minutes or so the old was remove and the new one fitted. Valves were fitted and on initial power up and voltages were checked with a meter. It was connected up to a pre-amp and TT and powered up again and presto service had been resumed. Sean then put in my PSVANNE valves and then tweak the bias to limit hum and job was done. A total of about 1.5 hours, a nice cup of coffee and a chat about various things. The bill was minimal and off I went with a big smile on my face. Musical service is now restore at home.

:):):)

Have you had a similar or better experience?

Not sure if it fits but the power supply for my headphone amp for damaged and I went to Richer Sounds to see if they sold a similar one. They did and the salesman gave me it for free :) I know a power cable probably only retails for less than a tenner but it was still good of him

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I have had a similar excellent service with three of my preamps (https://theartofsound.net/forum/show...=Mark+Levinson ) - but unfortunately it took much longer than your experience.

But no matter, all those who go out of their way to help repair and service equipment deserve the highest recommendation and praise.

Glad to read of the rapid return of your repaired amplifier. Happy listening. :)

Also the advantage of using technology from a simpler age. Cap goes, take the lid off, replace the cap.

How would that work out with your modern new-fangled class D surface mount 'No user-serviceable parts inside' stuff?

Damn if I can remember the name of the retailer (was 20 years ago) - based in south Manchester and worked from home - he went on to work for Audio Note I believe....

Bought a Gyro deck from this chap and 18 months later knocked the PSU and broke the acrylic casing and the speed change button.
Rang him up and told him what I had done - asked me to bring it round.

Went round and he looked it at it and said he can sort it out so made me a drink and sat me down in his demo room - powered up his demo rig (cannot remember totally what it was but remember the big valve amp on the floor - Audio Note Ongaku or something like that and I listened to some tunes)

After 15 mins or so came back with the PSU fixed and had a chat about the kit then I left - no money was swapped for his time etc.

Those were the days :)

R's

Andy

Great, perfect service, if only more were like that.

Real sent me replacement/ upgraded ribbons for free, $70 a piece from madisound.