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General Asylum General audio topics that don't fit into specific categories. |
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General Asylum General audio topics that don't fit into specific categories. |
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In Reply to: Before You Buy a SimAudio Product posted by Lance_O on October 21, 2014 at 07:28:38:
Sounds to me as though Simaudio is approaching this in a very professional way. Yes, $124 to ship something is... the cost to ship something.
When buying from a small outfit, I ask whether they will make the schematic available, what their service and support policies are. That gets factored into my decision. Some outfits like to keep all service in-house, and there are a number of reasons why they might want to do that. The most common reason is revs/versions of products that change often as the company keeps improving the product, even in the middle of a production run. In that environment it can become impossible to document the changes in published schematics and service manuals, even if they keep good notes at the factory. Another impetus for keeping service in-house to see how the products hold up in the field. A third cause is the built-in problem of working with s/s gear; with tens of thousands of transistors used in gear over the years, you can end up with gear needing unavailable transistors, and for which there are no usable substitutes. So if a boutique audio company stocks up on hard-to-find parts, they can be the best bet for service.
For a small company to service their gear from 18 years ago is a good thing. Whether it is worth putting a few hundred dollars into is your decision.
BTW, Abecollins is right about Manley: the best customer support I've ever seen. Their technician, Paul Fargo, is a gem.
And I have to join the others who see your complaints as pretty high recommendations for Simaudio. You want to keep the piece working - that's good. Simaudio is set up and willing to keep it working for you - also very good. (I can think of one very highly regarded and long-established tube gear manufacturer who refused to work on one of their own preamps that was fifteen years old at the time. They were right to refuse, as during their early super-growth years they didn't have good rev & version control, which means that none of their schematics or service notes were *quite* right.)
Simaudio's statement on their support page is actually pretty great: "Thanks to the precious care given into parts management, we still offer service on our discontinued models dated from the early stages of the SIMA production, including the CELESTE series." And BTW, I just saw this after writing about parts stocking and rev/version control. Great minds think alike.
Is it worth fixing? That's up to you. Would I buy from Simaudio after reading this thread? Absolutely.
WW
"Put on your high heeled sneakers. Baby, we''re goin'' out tonight.
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Follow Ups
- RE: Before You Buy a SimAudio Product - Bill Way 20:37:17 10/22/14 (0)
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