Reliability

I'm interested in tapping into the collective wisdom here, and enquiring if there is any particular manufacturer with a less than glowing record for reliability. Obviously CDP's are the weakest link here, but amplifier design can go a long way towards bullet proofing accidental speaker shorts. The only rumblings I've come across is Classe Audio, and Tag McLaren of course recalled all their DVD players for a long list of bodges - sorry engineering solutions. Companies like Densen and Bryston offer impressive warranties, which is good news. Any other names - good and bad?

 

Sony had a lot of problems with their 510 model MD decks, and personally I've had bad experiences with every Sony optical product I've owned, barring the latest MD deck I have (touch wood).

Naim's CDSII transports seemed to be dodgy.

Other than that, it's all par for the course AFAIK.

 

a heads up here - there was a thread over on pfm where discussion about certain bits of kits reliability got out of hand and legal threats were thrown about. please make sure that anything you say is from 1st hand knowledge and is not a 'friend of a friends sisters boyfriend once told me...' type of thing.
personally i've not had any of the bits of kit i've owned go pop and they are on 24/7 and used for about 10 hours a day. servis washer dryers on the other hand......
cheers


julian

 

As Julian says it is best to keep entirely to personal knowledge. Over the past 25 years of audio owning I have had the following go wrong:

Quad 303: One of the PSU caps leaked, the amp was about 7 years old at the time. Quad were very helpful indeed and mailed out a replacement and told me how to fit it.

Roksan Xerxes: Slight top plate sag evident within a year of purchase. They refused to replace the part saying it was not a problem. I was not especially happy with this response.

Audio Technica ATF5 cart: Loud static like pops at random times. Replaced under guarantee after some hassle with dealer.

Linn Kan II: One bass driver DOA. Replaced without hassle and dealer lent me the dem pair whilst I waited.

Naim 135: Broke when confronted with an Isobarik (an elderly amp, probably about 10 years old at time of failure). I got the whole pre / power combo factory serviced (their service dept is excellent). I don't know what exactly went wrong with the amp, but the cost seemed no more than a full Naim service.

Whilst I didn't personally own them, one of my friends went through a MF Synthesis, Preamp, Dr Thomas, P170 and MVT. Every single item bar the Dr Thomas had a dry joint that meant one channel cut out randomly or crackled. As most were bought ex-dem fixing them was done privately, it was just poor soldering in every instance. He also had a Quantum pre/power that somehow managed to blow up taking a pair of lovely HB2s with it!

The important thing IMHO is not reliability in the absolute sense, it is how credible the support for the product is if a problem arises. Companies like Quad, Sugden, Naim, Linn etc will happily service item they have spares for, and this means the vast majority of their products.

Tony.

 

Not true, IME.

 

Old dpa gear. Not reliable at all, unfortunately.

 

I forgot that one, same friend who had the crackly MF gear had a early DPA pre / power. After blowing up the 50 watt stereo amp he then blew up the 100 watt monos. The passive preamp never blew up! Nice kit, just not stable at all into inefficient AE1s.

Tony.

 

Old Aura amps. My Aura PA200 power amp has had to have both L & R power modules replaced by the superb Japanese importer (no fuss, inexpensive, fast turnaround - I guess they've had some practice).
The Aura will be replaced, probably with an Accuphase power amp. Accuphase are very reliable and have possibly the best service department of any consumer electronics manufacturer in Japan (although Luxman seem to be very good, as well).

 

I have never ever had a piece of Hifi fail on me.

I have owned items made by Technics, Pioneer, Sansui, Trio, Rotel, Musical Fidelity, Arcam, Castle, Ruark, Sennheiser, Sugden, Harbeth, Cyrus, Sony, Marantz, Audiophysic, Lavardin, Quad and others I can't remember anymore.

The nearest I ever came was the Lavardin IT, the one I got had a slight hum through the speakers from new, the dealer replaced it with another one and I never heard a hum again.

I did manage to blow the drivers on a pair of Audiophysic tempos - I switched off the pre-amp before the power amp and it went into oscillation.

 

Well it all seems about par for the course, there are bound to be one off faults with any electronic product. I spent 22 years in Private mobile radio manufacturing, so I'm used to it. I'm just glad there's no Don't touch with a bargepole units.

 

...but true for many vocal people on the Naim forum - mind you, it's Philips' transports in them there CDSIIs so it's not actually really Nam's fault.

Let's see re my Sony fiascos:
LBT-D305CD midi hifi (£419, 1991); CDP (luckily a seperate - CDPM12) was on the test bench for 6 of the first 12 months of ownership; new laser fitted (poorly) made problem worse, got that realigned, and still had a problem with PDO disks (and a couple of other makers') skipping for no reason.

MDS-JB920 Minidisc - disk got stuck inside as mech wouldn't eject - turns out the laser had a LOAD of crud on it - which was odd since the deck was only 2 months old

DVD-S525 - Lipsync failures left right and centre, but UNLIKE my mate's 325 machine, I never got a C13 error (dirty laser - try fuxxed laser morelike!)

KVM-F2U telly - motherboard replaced 3 days after purchase, due to a faulty early remote controller IC - telly would switch off at random, and the volume would stop working! That said, telly was a year old (ex dem) when I got it, and I've had it 7 years so the CRT has a LOT of hours on it - nice peak whites and touch wood - no problems since

Rega Planet farts when spinning up/skipping tracks until it's been warm for a few minutes, but now the transport's dying as well, after time in store. Time for a service Oh - the transport in that is Sony too.

Rega Mira - faulty control logic code on the volume/source selection microcomputer (I think) - module swapped out and no problems since (touch wood!) - guarantee job

Dual 1229 turntable - some wow (occasionally) and no auto return mode working. Couldn't moan - I paid a fiver for it! It needed a new idler wheel really, but the bass was so solid on that thing. Gave it to a mate who's druggy ex-asshole decided to throw at her during an argument - hence now an EX-1229. The ex is hopefully in prison or dead by now.

Don't ask me about my NICAM VHS fiasco - got through 5 VHS machines (mainly different brands, but 2 were POS Sony ones - spot a pattern here???)

Heads UP for Akai though - have a 1983 timer unit in good nick, and a 1972 CR81D 8track cartridge recorder that works flawlessly - he he. Also, early Technics CDPs - my 1985 SL-P2 is still running well!

 

Linn Genki : After about 3 months, the transport refused to load certain discs and the sound was very compressed. I took it in to the dealer, who agreed there was a problem and he shipped it off to the importer (I was living in Luxembourg at the time). 4 weeks later it came back from the importer but after the shop gave it a spin they noticed that the problem was still there. They sent it back and after another 8 weeks of the importer blabbing that "we can't find anything wrong", "sounds fine to us", "it probably fixed itself in transit [to us] and something must have happened on the way back to you" , I decided to contact Linn direct and they had a new unit shipped out to me straight away. I received a nasty letter from the importer but told him to shove it where it don't shine :bub:.

Linn and my dealer where very helpful but the importer was, quite frankly, a wanker.

 

Had a tweater on a pair MS904 speakers go down, dealer attempted a repair and broke the other speaker in the process WTF! I eventually told them to keep the 904's and bought the 908's.
Volume control on the wife's MF B1 amp is now dodgy but its an old amp what you expect?
The problem I'm having is finding repair outlets in Exeter that'll service Hi-Fi stuff, its a real nightmare.

 

I have literally hundreds of pieces of equipment over the years, still have a lot of it.

I can only remember one item needing attention, a JVC receiver in the mid 70's. It kept shutting down on one channel. I got rid of it, then when I learned more about the technical side of equipment I realised I should never have been driving a pair of AR10 Pi's that produced a load of less than 2 Ohm's with a Japanese mass market receiver.

I am surprised to seen MF on the lists, I have owned the original The Pre Amp, A 3B Pre Amp, a P 270, an A1, a pair of M50's, a P170 an X-LP S, and I use an A21 Dac, never had the slightest problem.

Maybe just lucky.


Oh and I still have an FX Power Amp as a spare for a second system

 

Ive owned a fair amount of kit-all budget admittedly but suprisingly only 1 thing has ever gone wrong! That was my old Cambridge Audio A5i, nice lil amp but it packed up after 9months use. Sent it to repairs, took 3months to getit back! Sold it on to a mate for £50 and it packed up on him 2months down the line

The only other incidnet which wernt really a reliability issue was when i blew a bass driver on my lil m71's-my own fault tho, thought it would be a laugh hooking em up to 180watts of power and playing at 12 0 clock

Ultra

 

My Ariston amp was crap the balance pot was faulty but RS would never believe me. Everything else I have owned has been fine. My Marantz CD6000 OSE LE CD player hums a tiny bit but thats all I can fualt.

I once bought an Accoustics Solutions DVD player from RS, it refused to play anything, it went back. I also bought a fusion CD player for my sister that hummed louder than substation that also went back.

My Beyerdymanic (can't remeber them model the £40 WHF favourite) fell apart after a year. My Senhiesier HD495's also fell apart and the cable went. I have had my Philips HP890 headphones for more than a year now and they still look brand new. They are extemely well built they have had 3-4 hours of daily use for the last 400 days and the only thing that has needed replacing is the cable which was £5 from Maplin.

They are extremely underated head phones.

 

I have a marantz cd player (CD4000) that has a couple of faults but is still working - the display is going (parts are no longer properly backlit), and it seems to be getting pickier and pickier about which CDs it will read. Needs replacing really

 

Will, u have the perfect excuse to upgrade, dont hold back....

Heres a few machines in advance that you should consider and that will blow the cd4000 out of the water9duno wot the super DAC sounds like but these are top cd players for not alot of cash)

Marantz cd7300-about £240 richers in black would look great with your amp too.

Rotel RCD-03 £379 but sounded extremely good with the pm7000 when i dem'd for £300 speakers a couple of years ago(B&w602 s3 actually!) This system had superb synergy.

Marantz cd6000Ki sig: still havent found anything under £1200 that sounds signifcantly better. When used with similarly superior I/C it can shame some much more expensive machines suddenly Roz's S.A.T fix wernt "far superior" but still better tho ...abit...

Arcam cd82 can be had for about £400 if you look around-1 of the best arcam cd players ive heard, much better than cd62,72,73,7se. Havent heard above tyhe 82 so the 93 and 192 must be even better! Clean controlled sound, conveys vocals with lots of emotion.

Ultra

 

Yeah definite excuse for an upgrade really I am pondering whether my student loan shall be used to contribute come october, but then again this will be my first term so its liable to be expensive, textbooks, tv license etc .

I would like to keep the superdac too, it hasn't been modded yet but its apparently pretty darned good for the cash (certainly seemed so when I heard isaacs), so I'm after something really decent as a transport rather than something which is necessarily storming as a stand alone player.

Cheers for the suggestions , the CD7300 you mentioned was to be my first choice (mp3 playback is a bonus, good build for a budget player, and it matches nicely too ) but it has pitch control, which works by messing with the clock, which means more jitter which for a transport isn't really a good thing . All of the 'lesser' Marantz models like the CD5400 have pitch control too if I remember correctly.

A CD6000 OSE would be nice enough as a transport (philips mech, respectable build, toroidal PSU, no pitch control), and price wise its ideal as I don't really want to break £250. I expect I'll end up with a newish 6000 OSE and start saving for some trichord mods, clock 2 or maybe DOB, unless there are some better routes to follow (Teac VRDS of some sort? Some universal disk spinner?).

Of course the 6000 KI sig catches my eye too , but I expect as a transport its not vastly different in performance, and these still command a hefty premium over the OSE which (for a transport)would probably be better spent on a clock 2.

I'll make a new thread when I'm a bit closer to buying anyway, rather than take this thread further off topic , unfortunately whatever I buy will have to be rather more budget than most here even consider spending, but I'm sure I can get something fairly decent for ~£200.

 

I bought a brand new CD 6000 OSE LE for £150 from Superfi. Inside there is nothing but Elna capacitors and a huge analogue output section. Tht transistors have gold plated heatsinks on them too. For the money it really is a very very nice CD player. I itend to keep it till it breaks there is no point in upgrading because giving the limits of everything else I own I won't notice any difference.