Field service cancelled

[Enzo]

As an authorized service center for some of their brands, I today received a letter from LOUD Technologies:

Effective immediately, LOUD Technologies is changing from field service to replacement only for all warranty claims. Their brands are: Mackie, Tapco, EAW, EAWC, Crate, Ampeg. As a result they are eliminating their warranty repair centers. They will keep us listed as non-warranty service centers for after warranty service on their web sites.

They are also closing our accounts, so all parts will now be prepaid orders.

I wonder how that will play out when an SVT has to be shipped across country for a bad jack?

[Mark Black]

Mackie/Loud has really gone downhill in customer service recently in my opinion. We've never been a warranty station but we are dealers and I see a fair amount of Mackie stuff for repair, usually in a non-warranty situation.

I recently got in a couple of their new S408 "Tetrad" series speakers with blown HF drivers & burned networks - fairly obvious long-term over-powering and therefore non-warranty. Nobody I talked to in parts, repair, or any customer service section could provide me with any parts or even a complete replacement network. Couldn't even find a part number. Some didn't even know they MADE a speaker model S408. The HF drivers were "unit replace only" and were backordered 2 weeks. I ended up making replacements for the burned 2.5uF 250V caps out of 2.2 + 0.33uF ones since that's all I could find available at the usual suppliers. Repaired the charred PCB's as best I could, replaced the shattered 12 ohm 25W resistors and stuffed it all back together with the replacement drivers when they finally showed up.

The fact that their main facility in Woodinville, WA is only about 20 miles from our shop just made it feel even dumber somehow.

Mackie sueing Behringer and then having their own stuff made in China along with Behringer moving their USA headquarters to this area is all heavily ironic to me. They now have similar customer support as well, although you can at least (so far) get schematics for Mackie stuff...

I was dismayed when I heard Loud Technologies bought SLM.

Sales reps for the various brands we sell talk about the "race for the bottom" in the musical equipment industry. I find it all quite depressing myself (as a 50+ yr old apparent dinosaur).

[Tom Phillips]

Snip...I was dismayed when I heard Loud Technologies bought SLM....

Wow. I wasn't even aware of that. I've been an SLM service center for many years but havn't been very active lately while I finish a house remodel. I'll have to check my pile of mail for one of those letters.

Replace an SVT rather than fix it under warranty?

Tom

[ken]

Me too...

I've been an Ampeg service center for a few years now, and this has me really worried. I can't possibly justify telling a customer that I have to ship some silly practice amp across the USA for service, much less a SVT. Not to mention Mackie's usual service record.

I better not say any more, I'm almost out of BP medication...

Ken

[Enzo]

Behringer is one odd company, but as a service center, I can download any schematic. Schematics are not the problem. Oh, and as part of my center agreement with them, I signed a non-disclosure agreement, which means I cannot share any technical data. A local service shop at a dealer - technically a competitor, but I prefer professional courtesy - called behringer for a schematic to the popular KX1200. Someone there referred him to his local dealer - me - to purchase it. Well i don't charge for drawings, but that aside, I had been told in no uncertain terms that schematics were proprietary before, and now they were sending people to me for them. SO I asked for ruling. The service folks said no way, schematics are not available to non-Behringer personnel. Sheesh. In this case, my pal managed to "find" a copy around here, but I don't know what they intend for later on. And there do not seem to be many Behringer shops. I am one of two in Michigan, the other being in greater Detroit. The factory has to pre-authorize all warr. repairs with a repair number. Customer then is assigned to me by them. Apparently I am getting all the repairs outsode the Detroit area. And in Michigan that can be hundreds of miles away. In fact I have one repair in here sent to me from Wisconsin. And that is on the other side of Lake Michigan.

However I will say the addition of Behringer has added several hundred dollars a month of additional work. So I will put up with the odd policies.

When I first signed on amongst other things they sent me a note on shipping. They have a UPS account I am supposed to use to return repairs to customers. I forgot some months later and shipped a few repairs out on my dime and submitted an invoice. My shipping costs were denied, only honored the tiny handling fee. Now I know. I won;t worry about it since the flat rate on some others covered me well. Had an amp that was overheating and thermalling out. The fan was not connected. Open it up, plug in the fan, touch of hot melt, close it. Customer was here about 10 minutes. I still got the $75. They pay pretty well. Only cheap area is the rack mount powr suply for mixers. They only pay $25 for that. But how complicated is fixing a power supply?

Yeah, SLM going to LOUD had escaped my attention as well. The letter was a surprise to me too.

SLM sales are lagging in this area. I don't see as much Crate Ampeg as I used to. Elderly sells almost none, and I think there is one smaller dealer in the area, but they deal mostly in acoustic stuff anyway.

Since most repairs are simple, sometiomes I turn them into cash repairs. I do this for Elderly now and then. I discount their house repairs since they do so much for me. SOmetimes it is cheaper for them to pay me to swap out a bad jack or something than it is to box something up and ship it out and be without it for two weeks jusy to get warranty coverage.

I'm just honest with the customers. I tell them we are not allowed to do warranty work on the model at hand. I can fix it local and quick, but would have to charge them. otherwise I will be happy to help them dealing with the company.

I have a customer's Korg Oasys huge 88 weighted key behemoth in here with a bum hard drive. Cust bought it from Sweetwater in Indiana. They wanted her to ship it back to them. Hah. The flight case alone weighs 90 pounds. It takes two to lift this thing. Fortunately I was here local for her.

I have a huge Mackie 32x8 mix in here for little issues like sticky buttons. I can't imagine sending this thing off. It's the size of my dinner table.

[Rob Mercure]

Well, that sucks out loud. Being on the road much has resulted in parts of the repair bench being a little dusty but I'm still an SLM service center - as best I know - and I'm pretty sure I've gotten no notice of change of status - either their now being obnoxiously "LOUD" or terminating field service. Maybe the dropped my a while ago since I haven't done a warrantly job in over 6 months.

While SLM had lotsa problems I always thought they did a better than average job of supporting the field techs - not up to Peavey but superior to Fender, Marshall/Korg, et. al.. I hope this isn't the price for spending a few more dollars on decent customer support.

As to Behringer and Mackie when I was at BRM and doing warranty on these messes I was pretty sure that "the end was near" <grin>. That is, as units were more and more crowded and the price of features lowered and lowered you reach some point where "price point/replacement price" doesn't justify repair labor costs over the few dollars an hour that the original assemblers were paid.

Long ago Fender stopped field servicing the little amps with the TDA2050 outputs (can't remember the various models) with "return for replacement." Some source (perhaps this is "urban legend") stated that they were actually shipped to Indonesia (the factory) repaired and then sold on asian markets as "refurbished."

Ah well, it doesn't take too many looks at my scaley old tale to reinforce my "dinosaur" status.

Rob

[Enzo]

No, the amps are often as not placed in the dumpster behind the dealer. Larger ones get shipped back. For a while ther was some ritual destruction - you were supposed to snip off the power cord or somehting.

The whole point of exchange was that it cost too much to repair them and process the claim. DOn Wiggins once told me it cost Fender about $18 just to process and pay a claim. Add that to the amount of the claim and it adds up. WHy would they pay out $45-50 to repaur something they sell dealers for $29? And they are making profit even at the $29. To add to that the cost of return shipment to them and then to ship the defectos back overseas to be assessed, repaired, and then repacked is silly. MAking new ones costs so very little, it ain't like a few semiconductors and a cheap speaker wrapped in cheap particle board has near enough value to make such an effort.

[Mark Black]

Called Loud Technologies for Ampeg parts today specifically to get some matched IRFP240 & 9240 for a SVT-3Pro. The parts guy says they don't have any and probably won't be getting any more since "transistors and stuff are usually available elsewhere cheaper". True enough - except for the "matched" part of the equation.

Just wanted to mention the apparent downsizing of the replacement parts inventory...

Mark

[Enzo]

Matched? Generally matching is not needed on transistor amps. The ballast resistors are there for exactly that reason. Are they marked?

[ken]

The power transistors on Ampegs come with colored dots on them for matching purposes, I've seen green, red, or gray. Some amps (like SVT3/4 Pros) are kinda hard on transistors, and need matched transistors.

I'm kinda bummed about this whole thing, I have been on other boards where people say they won't buy another Ampeg/Crate product. I have a feeling that this is going to really bite them in the ass very soon.

According to LOUD, service centers can buy parts for 'nonwarranty' amp service if they pay 'up front'. I have never had an issue with SLM customer service, but you can bet my Mouser and Digikey catalogs are going to get a beating from now on.

I'm waiting for the day when all amps are made by two or three manufacturers, and nobody bothers to get a transistor amp fixed ever again. I bet it's tomorrow.

Ken

[tim]

It sucks that SLM and Mackie are dropping their authorized service centers in lieu of direct replacement if amp (or whatever) is under warranty. It's probably why they are maintaining minimum inventory levels. It sucks but it must be cheaper for them to just replace a piece that's defective than pay some poor shlub like you and me to fix it under warranty.

Unfortunately, it's been a crap shoot buying parts lately (especially power devices) from Mouser and other parts houses what with the deluge of counterfeit parts on the market...what you see isn't always what you get. I wish these places could guarantee that the parts they are selling you are genuine parts. Unfortunately, you spend 4-5 hours getting an Ampeg SVT4pro up and running and then have the thing blow up after running it an hour or two. You can't rebill the customer so you eat a half days labor (plus parts) because of crappy parts.

[dumbassbob]

I just thought I would put in a good word for them My 23 year old 4 trackstarted to go.I send it back to Peavey,they told me it was shot,and they had No parts.A hour later they called me,and still had one in a box NOS.They sent it to me,Thats Service! Thanks Pev

[Enzo]

I never pass up a chance to praise PV support. They stand head and shoulders over the rest. You can still get parts for most stuff that is 25-30 yeats old. My favorite story is the Texas Instrument TL604 A little routing op amp like the 5201 Marshall uses. Peavey used it a lot in teh 1980s for channel switching, turning reverb off and on, and so on. They used a lot of them. TI stopped making the part a long time ago. PV stocked up on them, but eventually ran out. Since ther were so many products out there using them, PV decided that instead of telling people to throw away their amps, PV engineered a little tiny ciruit board with a couple chips on it and long pins on the bottom - like a wire wrap socket - and this board could be soldered in place of the TL604 on the circuit board of the amp. They took the trouble to create a work-around board for an obsolete chip just for the convenience of their customers.
Peavey is my favorite company to work with.

[techman1458]

[QUOTE=Enzo;5776]As an authorized service center for some of their brands, I today received a letter from LOUD Technologies:

Effective immediately, LOUD Technologies is changing from field service to replacement only for all warranty claims. Their brands are: Mackie, Tapco, EAW, EAWC, Crate, Ampeg. As a result they are eliminating their warranty repair centers. They will keep us listed as non-warranty service centers for after warranty service on their web sites.

They are also closing our accounts, so all parts will now be prepaid orders.

I wonder how that will play out when an SVT has to be shipped across country for a bad jack?[/Q

Hello Folks I recently found out Loud has no power amps for their retailers , also customers are being treated badly when they call in for warranty repairs

One of my customers said they asked her what other equip they were using in the church, Speaker ratings, cables you name it . My biggest beef with loud is the only letter i ever recieved from them was the cancellation notice for my SLM service center I reccomend other manufacturers to my customers

Thanks

[Enzo]

As they requested, I sent them a letter asking that my name be retained in their service listings and that I did indeed want to have access to service materials. I also included several questions, such as would we be receiving a copy of new warranty policy and procedures so we can inform customers. No reply yet.

[ken]

I sent my letter too just like you did. Now we wait... and hope.

Anyone get their 2007 FMIC authorization diploma and sticker yet?
I did on Monday... I mailed my questionnaire on 10/10. I was really surprised they worked so fast, because I just got the 2006 auth set in mid June.

How do you become a Behringer service center? I have one of their box mixers with a really weirdo problem.

Ken

[Enzo]

Behringer? I don't know, try asking them. I contacted them cold, although I did have a dealer name to drop. A local dealer sells the product line but has no service. I do all their electronic work, so I try to be set up for warranty for most of their brands. I wrote Behr and said dealer so and so has requested I contact you to become a service center. Dialog from there. Look up service in your area on their site, see how many there are. They assign repairs to shops. I get them from all over Michigan, and recently I even had a repair sent me from Milwaukee. If Lansing is the closest Behringer repair center to Milwaukee, they might need you.

I can't send schematics, but what is wrong with the box mixer? PMX2000 by any chance?

Just mailed in Fender the other day.

[ken]

It's a Europower(?) PHM660M, there is no output from the amps, but when I feed in a 1 Khz signal I can get the meters to read levels. The monitor meter LEDs are nice and stable and show levels correctly, and the mains meter LEDs will also register too but all those LEDs will blink on and off at once randomly. The silly thing looks like a strobe light works. I think the power supply is busted, the speaker protection relays don't work. I checked for power amp output with a scope at the relay terminals, still nothing.

I used to hate PV, until I realized that they actually support most old products.
The only beef I have with them is the month wait average I have to get parts.

Ken

[Enzo]

PV parts had a period there a couple years ago where a few key people left at once and parts got way backed up. I have otherwise found them to be responsive. Phone calls always work better than emails.

Like most box mixers, this thing is preamp (mixer) on front and power amp on rear. I dismount rear assembly and front assemby, and rather than try to unplug all the glued crap, I turn the front sideways and pull it out the rear. Now without the box I can lay the whole damn thing flat on the bench.

Good VU means mixer works. Chances are real good it gets to the power amp inputs. Speaker relay not working means it has not achieved some operating parameter. I bet the PS is OK, it is a switcher, and if something as major as the PA rails were down, the whole thing would shut off.

I just boxed one of these up last night for shipping this morning. I will open a new thread in the repair section rather than hijack this thread. Look for Behringer PMH660.

[dumbassbob]

I would rather wait a month,than to be told by a company,that I spent $1300,to go away.Digitech is pretty cool also. I sent them my 23 yrs old RDS 3.6 It took a month ,But they fixed it like new.The only reason they took so longwas finding a regen pot.Dan Athens is the man.DOD

[Mars Amp Repair]

I did hear rumors to this effect, but I am not Crate/ampeg authorized....was gojng to try again, but no point now.
As far as the output xistor pirating...I have rebuilt a Crate pa head (xr-600 I think) & it has blown up 2wice, too. Initially the bias if fine, the heatsink/xistor thermal connection is fine, but after about 30min..it blows. I have checked & rechecked all xistors, diodes, resistors & all bad were replaced...all xistors were replaced anyway.
I wonder if the mismatched or pirated TIP142's & 147's is the issue here. I'm about to just give the money back & forget about it. I got the TIP's from MCM & used the generic ones...sounds like that might be the issue..any feedback on this issue? thanx, glen mars amp repair

The power transistors on Ampegs come with colored dots on them for matching purposes, I've seen green, red, or gray. Some amps (like SVT3/4 Pros) are kinda hard on transistors, and need matched transistors.

I'm kinda bummed about this whole thing, I have been on other boards where people say they won't buy another Ampeg/Crate product. I have a feeling that this is going to really bite them in the ass very soon.

According to LOUD, service centers can buy parts for 'nonwarranty' amp service if they pay 'up front'. I have never had an issue with SLM customer service, but you can bet my Mouser and Digikey catalogs are going to get a beating from now on.

I'm waiting for the day when all amps are made by two or three manufacturers, and nobody bothers to get a transistor amp fixed ever again. I bet it's tomorrow.

Ken

[Enzo]

I can't imagine anyone matching TIP142/147s. These are general purpose xstrs used by Crate and Fender among others in a lot of models. I buy them from Mouser or Allied and don't recal getting any bad ones.

I think this discussion would be better as a separate thread, rather than at the end of this one. Why not open a new thread about your amp?

I just got my FMIC sticker yesterday.

[dumbassbob]

This adspace for www. Exlax.com

[ken]

Fender was pretty quick with the auth. this time, wish my orders were just as prompt.

I talked to Behringer today about servicing their products, they want me to email them a resume and wait. AFAIK there is no service center for them anywhere within 75 miles of me.

Does anyone service PV, and do you still have to actually work for a dealer to
get authorized?

Ken

[Mars Amp Repair]

Ken, I received Peavey warranty status with no dealer connection at all. At the time there were quite a few existing warranty servicers in Denver ,too. They're easy to deal with & have great support. Roger Crimm is the guy to deal with there...Rcrimm@peavey.com good luck.

[Enzo]

I am a PV center, and am independent. Initially I was asked by a dealer to apply, but they have plenty independent shops too. PV is a great company to work with. Roger is a great guy, and he is the host for the amplifier forum on the PV web site. I am a frequent poster there myself. Ther is also a repair forum there, but the factory no longer parks a guy there. You can always access tech help at the factory though.

Carla Santos is my everyday contact at Behringer, but I think Chris GOmez is the service center overlord. WOuldn't hurt my feelings to have more Behr servicers around to compare notes with. Get ready for surface mount soldering by the way.

[ken]

Can I tell you a secret?

I worked once for a year in an OEM as a SMT board stuffer - I drove a SMT pick and place robot and final inspected finished boards, so none of this bothers me. I am outfitting a spare bench with a hot air reflow machine, a solder sucker, and other SMT stuff. I may as well join the 'SMT revolution' now like everyone else.

As for PV, I should try and get them too, lots of people like them round here but no repair center, so they all bring their stuff here anyway. I WISH PV would put out their schematics in CDR format like everyone else... my paper schematic pile from them is a foot high and I hate filing.

I called Mr. Gomez today, I'm supposed to email him a resume so they can 'decide what they want to do'.

Mars Amp, thank you for the PV contact, now I can talk to them too.

Ken

[Enzo]

My PV binders do take up close to three feet of shelf, but they have a dealer web site, so you can download any thing you want. SOmetimes I download something I already have on paper so I can refer to it while on the forum here. And of course to pass along to the guys.

All the Marshall drawings are online at the Korg dealer site, for that matter.

[Enzo]

And PV will email schematics to anyone asking anyway.

[ken]

I know, I thought my Rider radio manuals were bad, but I had no idea one amp maker could make so many different models of amp to get all those schematics.

Does anyone know where I can find an old 1960's Sams manual on guitar amplifiers? I don't know who wrote it, all I can remember is there was lots of really weirdo tube and early transistor amp schematics in it, and the paperback cover was blue. Somebody stole it from the local library I used to get it from years ago. I know this description is kinda skimpy, the librarian didn't even remember it either.

Ken

[Tom Phillips]

Ken,
Are you talking about the Electric Guitar Amplifier Handbook by Jack Darr? The first edition was Sam's Photofact Publication GAD-1, 1965. It was later expanded as the 4th edition and that version has recently been re-printed. Here is a link to a recent eBay auction
http://cgi.ebay.com/Electric-Guitar-...QQcmdZViewItem
Tom

[Enzo]

You think PV makes a lot of models? Wait until you add in their line of Architectural Audio and their Media Matrix stuff.

[ken]

Yes, I know. I have a house builder friend of mine who has the PV catalogs, he came over awhile back and wanted to know what I thought of the products.
I guess PV is trying to be 'all sounds to everyone'.

Some people are actually starting to collect the aluminum knob PV amps from the '70s, are you seeing this where you are? I have a customer who looks for this stuff.

Thank you Tom P., I was looking for a long time for that Sams book, I'm going to order one. I have a customer with a Baldwin transistor amp(!) he wants me to fix, and the schem was in the book I remembered. GT's Tube Amp Book copied some of the pages from this book into theirs... I wonder if Mr. Darr knows?

Ken

[Enzo]

By the way, I just got a call from Behr. They want to establish service network for their keyboards - fancy home units which would require doing service calls. If you have keyboard experience and this sounds interesting, let him know. it would add to your appeal. They will pay a higher rate and higher minimym and plan to send out board swap kits for field repair, so it ought to be easy money. I expressed potential interest, and GOmez says we will chat later - he's on vacation this coming week.

[ken]

I used to do keys... not much interest around here because everyone is so cheap. If you charge more than $20 or so for keys repair customers howl.
Must be all those damn Casios that sell every Xmas for $89... and die by March.

If it gets another look for me from Behr then I may be up for it.

Ken