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In Reply to: RE: Magnepan service hello.... posted by josh358 on March 17, 2017 at 12:08:40
"I saw that first hand at the factory, when the person who rebuilds old Maggies broke her leg and everything backed up. They were doing everything they could but the other guys in the factory just didn't have the specialized knowledge to repair speakers that may have been made before they were born -- it's a highly skilled operation, in which they will literally build an obsolete driver from scratch if they have to. And they'd gone out of their way to get things moving again, including hiring her an assistant when she came back in with a cast on."
Isn't that a perfect reason she should impart her knowledge to an assistant, colleague or co-worker before it's lost? OTOH perhaps refurbishing old models doesn't produce much revenue for Magnepan and they'll just stop doing it. I wonder what the profit figure is for restoring a Tympani IV/IV-A. Since the original owners of these 'vintage' speakers are most probably hearing impaired and/or dead, or very soon will be, it can be abandoned altogether with no large financial loss to Magnepan.
Follow Ups:
According to Mark Winey, they run their service department at cost, so it seems that they aren't making a profit on those rebuilds at all.
Really, I told Wendell when I got some parts for my IVA's that they should charge more because what they charged me was ridiculous! I don't see how it could even pay for their actual costs. I'm glad that they don't puff up the cost of service and parts the way so many companies do, but it seems to me they should make a fair profit on it, doubly so since rebuilt speakers can cut into their current sales.
On the other hand, the fact that they do support products going so far back has to be a plus for their reputation -- remember the fuss when Martin Logan announced that they were going to stop servicing older speakers and got so much flack that they had to back down? I know that one of the questions I ask when I buy audio equipment is whether the company will be around to service it, or be willing to. There are great people like Graz who can fix or upgrade products that are no longer supported, but it can be quite costly.
That said, while Magnepan will rebuild the oldest Maggies Wendell points out that it doesn't always make economic sense for the customer to have it done. Certainly on something like the IVA's it would, particularly given the absurd prices they were selling for until recently . . . for the kind of music I listen to, I'd take my IVA's over most of the high end speakers I've heard recently because for all their flaws they actually sound like real music. I've been experimenting with some MQA albums Tidal is streaming now and boy, do they sound good.
I feel so grateful there are still companies and people like Magnepan and Wendell, as well as Music Reference and it's owner/designer Roger Modjeski, and Eminent Technology and it's owner designer Bruce Thigpen. Look what has happened to Audio Research Corp. since Bill Johnson died.
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