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Anybody heard from Alex Paychev??"If at first you don't succeed, then skydiving's probably not for you".
Follow Ups:
I was lucky, my 1000 died early, when Phillips was giving a full refund. Used the funds to purchase a SA8260. Much better player in both sound and reliability. They did me a favor.
The new SA8400 stereo player is reported to be an improvement over the 8260 for the same money. If one of my SA8260's craps out, this is what I am getting.
I would give up on the 1000. They seem to be a path to heartbreak hotel. I know about 4 people who purchased one, all broke in less than 2 years. One guy said he was lucky, his had been working for a year and a half without problems. Next time I saw him he was playing with a Toshiba 3950. He was bummed.
Alex seems to be about as reliable as the PHILIPS SCAD 1000.
It seems every one with this unit has no place to go for reliable service or upgrade.
Speak for yourself my sacd 1000 that he fixed and modify is still working wonders and I nearly bought a Meitner. Thanks Alex
Works flawlessly and just plain...well, kicks ass.
Good for you, both of your SCAD 1000 fixed by Alex.
All I have recieved form Alex is unanswered Emails and phone calls.
Alex does seem to be posting again at Audiocircle now that he's finished moving. I found this new contact info that may be of some help:support@aplhifi.com
510-972-0067I feel bad for you guys. I've had such good luck with mine (before and after modding).
Maybe I'll try calling tomorrow. I'm not really in a rush and I realize he's been very busy, but I'd like to figure out whether I can actually get my player repaired...Thanks for the info,
He recently moved to a new location....Fremont I think. You can catch him on his AudioCircle.com forum:
I emailed APLHiFi on Sunday night about the possiblity of sending an SACD1000 in for repair. I was willing to pay for the repair out of my pocket (as I'm now out of warranty due to a concession by Philips/Tweeter) but received no reply as to whether he still does this work. Anyone know if Alex is still doing MACE and FURORE replacements. From what I've heard the symptoms on my machine point to one (or both) of these chips as the culprit.On a related note, if Alex is only a "mod-er" now, anyone want a dead but cosmetically perfect SACD1000 for mods? I can't afford to drop close to 2 grand after my recent amp and tt upgrade.
Cheers,
My units dead but "in theory", there is a Philips 2 year warranty to fall back upon ???? It's past the one year mark already. Am I SOL ?
nt
Alex has had my SACD 1000 for about three months. He made an offer here in AA to refer the units to a friend who is an authorized Philips repair center and then go to battle with Philips. Mine is still under warranty and I think they were the only ones he was accepting under this scenario. I HAVE heard - wish someone would pipe up here) that if you know where to go and who to holler at, you can get a refund. Mine underwent two unsuccessful repairs before being sent to Alex.AFAIK Philips seems to be denying that the Mace & Furore chips are the problem (that's what they told my repair center) so, it may be a losing battle.Nice unit - pi**es me off!
"If at first you don't succeed, then skydiving's probably not for you".
After being out for repairs since late march, I finally received the unit back from Tweeter this weekend with the message "not repaired" stamped on the box. Apparently the parts needed (at least according to United Radio) were "not available". Tweeter has decided to issue me a refund of the original purchase price, and, after I inquired, let me keep the broken unit as well. While I have yet to receive an actual check, I was hoping in the meantime to have Alex swap out the chips (if he has them) and replace the laser (which seems to fail w/ the bad DSPs) and would be willing to pay for parts and labor to have this done. I figured if he still offered this service it would have the added benefit of requiring no fighting with Philips as I would be covering all costs...Anyway I have a feeling that if Philips wont replace the chips you'll probably get a refund like the rest of us.
Good Luck,
I think you are not aware of one problem. The Furore chip used in the SACD1000 is simply not available. I think the same happens with the MACE2, but I am not sure. I understand Alex is expecting that Philips puts them back in production, as they are needed also in other machines (Krell and Musical Fidelity, I think). If Philips doesn´t make more of these chips, then all we SACD1000 owners are doomed (except for the lucky few that had their chips replaced by Alex). The late version of the chip used by Alex seems not to have any problems.Alex uses to be quite accesible at audiocircle.com.
I understand he is currently moving to a new address.I myself have one SACD1000 (with the original chips, so they are doomed to fail), stil alive and kicking. But if Philips doesn´t behave well, my machine will be impossible to repair the day it fails.
I'm willing to wait a while if in the end I'll be able to have a working SACD 1000. I have a Philips 963SA in my system right now (covering for the SACD1000 so to speak) and its not a bad machine - actually quite similar to the 1000's sound if I remember correctly (it is leaps and bounds better than the Sony DVP-S9000ES I had as an initial replacement). Right now any player in my system has to have SACD, CD, and DVD (I don't have room in my small boston apartment for separate audio and video systems) so that rules out for the time being the new SA8400 and the SA8260 that I would probably buy if I didn't need video. So I'll stick it out with what I have, probably listen to a bunch of vinyl (new P25/blackbird is really starting to sing) and see how it all pans out. I'll probably upgrade SACD players in a year or two when I can focus soley on audio, but getting a working SACD1000 back would really be a nice way to bide my time :)Cheers,
if he can't get any answers. At least if I knew it couldn't be repaired I'd move on and take it up with Philips - refund perhaps. Haven't had the use of it for some five months (or more).Philips should be ashamed - they will not even ADMIT that these chips are the problem. Mine had the "optical pickup" replaced twice. 1st time lasted 2-weeks, second time 2-HOURS.
"If at first you don't succeed, then skydiving's probably not for you".
My SACD 1000 has been to philips twice for over two months each time. The last time 10 weeks and they said there was nothing wrong with it, still skips on all cd's.
Looks like a trip to small claims court for me.
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