Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Dub Pontif]

First off, I am not a big fan of huge corporations buying out what was once great companies as the results in my experience have been horrid regarding product manufacturing quality downgrades, and customer support being reduced to the lowest common denominator. First case in point, getting parts for Mackie powered speakers. ( I know, I shouldn't have bought them in the first place, but they were the best bang for the buck at the time.) 1533 SA series, blown titanium driver, told by Mackie the the parts have been on baack order for over a year. I eventually found replacement parts for other Mackie speakers from Orange County Speaker Repair .com, and they referred me to their supplier, who had a shipping container full of the diaphragm I need. Turns out they were the OEM for the part anyway, and had not been contacted by Mackie for ordering. Mackie is one of the many companies purchased by Loud Technologies, along with Ampeg.

Next case in point, I have 3 Ampeg SVT tube heads, one 1975 made in New Jersey I believe, great unit. Solid as a rock. One from 1981, St. Louis Music, I think, slight improvements, solid as a rock. One newer unit, also from SLM, however, this one is the "AM Classic" model that has improvements like a DI output, however, new buffer transistor instead of a tube gain stage betwen the preamp and the output amp. That blew, $300 to chase it down and replace the $20 part. I even told them what was wrong with it.

Then the Mackie digital hard drive recorder. produced for a minute, then dropped like a hot potato because of the DAW software taking market share. They dropped support quickly and it has a major design flaw that reders it useless. They want you to buy something else new.

Now to the thread topic: I have 6 BSS FCS 960 graphic EQs. 4 of them have been back to the factory repair facility for blown voltage regulators in teh power supply PC board. They were upgraded to a newer higher current capacity regulator. It says so right on the sticker on top that they put on there with the date. 3 of them have recently blown up. I went inside 2 of them, and the regulators got hot and smoked the PC board and presumably blew up. I called BSS, they told me they don't repair, they replace the PC board with a new one for 180 bucks. I agreed and sent 2 of them in at $108 shipping. 2 months later I get a call from a desk jockey telling me he got an email from teh tech claiming that there is to much corrosion, and some "pads are burnt" and that the units are not repairable. Remembering that I was just inside these units, there was no corrosion, and the "pads" that were burnt were I presume the spots under the regulators that were obviously smoked. I thought they would just replace the PC board as claimed before I spent the $108 shipping. They offered 2 things:

1. Scrap them both
2. Sell them to BSS for $25

After thinking about this for a milisecond, I reminded the guy I had been inside them myself and that this sounded like the tech was high on crack or trying to buy my units cheap and resell them after fixing them, so I had them returned. I also told him I would be fixing them myself and selling them on ebay and buying XTA as replacements rather than spend another $3600 for units that are guaranteed to fail, and without customer support. I asked for them to send a check for the shipping. He hung up on me. So, is this common for Harmon Group products now? Customer "No Support"?

[TJ (Tom) Cornish]

First off, I am not a big fan of huge corporations buying out what was once great companies as the results in my experience have been horrid regarding product manufacturing quality downgrades, and customer support being reduced to the lowest common denominator. First case in point, getting parts for Mackie powered speakers. ( I know, I shouldn't have bought them in the first place, but they were the best bang for the buck at the time.) 1533 SA series, blown titanium driver, told by Mackie the the parts have been on baack order for over a year. I eventually found replacement parts for other Mackie speakers from Orange County Speaker Repair .com, and they referred me to their supplier, who had a shipping container full of the diaphragm I need. Turns out they were the OEM for the part anyway, and had not been contacted by Mackie for ordering. Mackie is one of the many companies purchased by Loud Technologies, along with Ampeg.

Next case in point, I have 3 Ampeg SVT tube heads, one 1975 made in New Jersey I believe, great unit. Solid as a rock. One from 1981, St. Louis Music, I think, slight improvements, solid as a rock. One newer unit, also from SLM, however, this one is the "AM Classic" model that has improvements like a DI output, however, new buffer transistor instead of a tube gain stage betwen the preamp and the output amp. That blew, $300 to chase it down and replace the $20 part. I even told them what was wrong with it.

Then the Mackie digital hard drive recorder. produced for a minute, then dropped like a hot potato because of the DAW software taking market share. They dropped support quickly and it has a major design flaw that reders it useless. They want you to buy something else new.

Now to the thread topic: I have 6 BSS FCS 960 graphic EQs. 4 of them have been back to the factory repair facility for blown voltage regulators in teh power supply PC board. They were upgraded to a newer higher current capacity regulator. It says so right on the sticker on top that they put on there with the date. 3 of them have recently blown up. I went inside 2 of them, and the regulators got hot and smoked the PC board and presumably blew up. I called BSS, they told me they don't repair, they replace the PC board with a new one for 180 bucks. I agreed and sent 2 of them in at $108 shipping. 2 months later I get a call from a desk jockey telling me he got an email from teh tech claiming that there is to much corrosion, and some "pads are burnt" and that the units are not repairable. Remembering that I was just inside these units, there was no corrosion, and the "pads" that were burnt were I presume the spots under the regulators that were obviously smoked. I thought they would just replace the PC board as claimed before I spent the $108 shipping. They offered 2 things:

1. Scrap them both
2. Sell them to BSS for $25

After thinking about this for a milisecond, I reminded the guy I had been inside them myself and that this sounded like the tech was high on crack or trying to buy my units cheap and resell them after fixing them, so I had them returned. I also told him I would be fixing them myself and selling them on ebay and buying XTA as replacements rather than spend another $3600 for units that are guaranteed to fail, and without customer support. I asked for them to send a check for the shipping. He hung up on me. So, is this common for Harmon Group products now? Customer "No Support"?

This forum requires your username to be your full real name.  Please change it per forum rules.

[g'bye, Dick Rees]

This forum requires your username to be your full real name.  Please change it per forum rules.

Yup.  A much more common problem is the inability of noobs to manage to follow the real name policy. 

[ProSoundWeb Community]