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In Reply to: RE: Jeez. posted by Rick W on June 16, 2014 at 11:10:10
"...how the hell can someone connected with a manufacturer send you a faulty sample?"
But it seems to happen again and again. Which would argue against the notion that products sent to reviewers are "tweaked" with loads of TLC. The planted axiom being that consumers wind up with inferior units.
Follow Ups:
Or they tweaked them and they still suck.
Seriously though - stuff gets shipped badly - not long back Air Canada employees were found to be dropping bags and packages from the airplane 25 feet or something. Amplifiers and CD players etc can be packaged great but the sheer jarring of such a drop can easily knock loose a solder joint and it only takes one to be knocked loose or even ajar. And that doesn't even get to the disgruntled overworked UPS/Fed-Ex/Purolator/DHL folks who could care less if something says "Fragile" on the box. And then if the company isn't checking the unit before the reviewer gets it is possible that the off the shelf components the VAST majority use in their components could be defective. The company buys Caps from XYZ cap maker but the cap is DOA and you find that out when you turn the thing on.
I bought a Pioneer Elite flagship receiver back in the day and it was DOA - dead transformer.
This is one reason I am debating shipping my gear from Canada to Hong Kong - I could pay the expense and have it possibly damaged or sell it all via consignment and start again. (always looking for an excuse to upgrade!!)
One thing to do where possible is to get a dealer demo delivered. A) it works and B) you don't have to waste the time on break in.
As a consumer I love buying demo units. I bought my Cambridge Audio CD6 in 1996 which had the glass top on it showing consumers the inner workings. I insisted they give me that model - it was on all year every day and being handled by all sorts of folks who probably hit the sides of it to test whether it would skip etc. Works perfectly to this day in spite of the unit having a bit of a temperamental track record.
I think it is very frustrating for manufacturers who ship out perfectly working units to wind up not working right when it arrives at a reviewer. The issue is obviously then magnified dramatically because it will be associated with poor quality control when there isn't much you can do if the thing is dropped 25 feet out of an airplane (or just 4 feet from the back of a truck).
seems to invalidate all your valued trust in such an acquired product.
roger wang.
This is forum banter -- people claimed the CD6 failed a lot - whether that is necessarily true or that 999 happy customers stay quiet and 1/1000 screams blue murder on forums is tough to parse. The average life of disc spinners is supposedly 7 years (according to CR). I would expect a high end CD player to beat the average but even Bryston only gave 5 years on their CD player.
I also have the first Antique Sound Labs MG Head DT which folks on forums claimed was unreliable - I bought mine back in 2000 - no problems.
If you really want to know become friends with the repair tech of a major audio dealer (not on the sales side) and find out. Obviously my experience of the CD6 and MG head differ from what I have read on forums over the years. My buddy had a Chevy Cavalier that lasted 10 years without fail. I had another friend who had a Toyota Tercel that blew a head gasket with less than 50,000 miles. Statistically both are outliers but try telling either one of them that.
.
In my four years of reviewing, I estimate about 10-15% of equipment arrived with some sort of damage. The most extreme case was a preamp where a corner of the chassis was slightly bent, which shifted the front panel and not allowing the ON/OFF button to engage. This preamp was double-boxed but the affected corner of the container was severely pushed-in.
Reviewers receive far more equipment than the average consumer, and the chance of a component arriving damaged goes up proportionally. Before I became a reviewer, I only had one piece that was damaged in shipping during a span of three decades.
And as a consumer most people buy from dealers where the dealer can check out the mangled boxes. Although dealers may be buying cartons shipped by boat (if from overseas) so the big crate of 20 CD players or whatever.
I have not had anything damaged in shipping yet. But I also tend to drive to the company's dealers to pick up the products myself. I think I've only had two things shipped by independent shippers. The Grant Fidelity Rita which comes in a massive crate and you could probably drop that off the Empire State building and it would probably still work and smaller class T amplifier and such that have no real moving parts to get mangled.
Knock on wood everything I have reviewed or purchased has worked (except the Pioneer Elite Receiver).
"Amplifiers and CD players etc can be packaged great but the sheer jarring of such a drop can easily knock loose a solder joint and it only takes one to be knocked loose or even ajar. "
Nope, that's just not true unless the joint was defective in the first place. Of more concern in things like CD players, turntables etc is shock to the moving mechanical parts. Since this is so common stuff is both designed and packaged to try and prevent shipping damage. In general if the unit is in it's original package which appears largely undamaged, you should be good. As a reviewer, if you find a manufacturer whose products tend to be DOA despite the latter condition being true please boldly note it so we can avoid them like the plague.
Regards, Rick
I remember the internet video of the delivery guy throwing a parcel over the customer's fence. I'm quite frankly surprised most things make it unbroken these days.
Remember the opening of the Tom Hanks movie, Cast Away, where the huge timer on the wall and the push was to must get faster, faster, and faster? A lot of pressure on delivery people rain, shine, heat, cold to get more out. If we knew about all the claims we might be shocked.
Not sure what they are teaching packaging engineers these days. Probably need to double box everything, yet some breakfast cereal inner packages I can't open any more without scissors. Go figure.
Jim Tavegia
You reminded me of the 1st Pink Triangle turntables a friend imported in the 80s. On the box was printed 'useless if dropped', a dare that is hard to resist if there ever was one.
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