Blackstar HT soloist 60 out of bias range

[audiopete]

I noticed that the new amps that come over from Asia to here sometimes have loose hardware and I figured it was going from a warmer climate to a colder one in a shipping container on a boat.

[Mick Bailey]

I attribute the loose pots to not having a shakeproof washer behind the panel, but that goes for quite a few manufacturers - probably most nowadays.

To be fair, Blackstar are just one of many companies with a similar approach to releasing service information and they only get singled out here because of my original topic. I've just been working on a Martin guitar that went back under warranty (actually shipped form the UK to Germany) and came back as 'No fault found'. The guy took it to the next gig and it was unplayable. Then it worked fine when he got home. So I spent three hours trying to induce the elusive fault and eventually got it to play up, but no technical information on the system is available to me. So what's the guy to do? Can't get it fixed under warranty by people who do have the information, and the independent repairman can't get the information to repair it. In the end I sorted it out and he mailed me to say; "I tried the Martin through my AER amp at home, wow sounds the best it ever has…didn’t re-EQ at all. So I have high hopes that not only is it fixed, it sounds like it is supposed to.Great stuff."

I liken the situation with consumer electronics to cars over here in Europe. The manufacturers attempted to freeze out independent garages by not honouring the warranty if a customer didn't take the car to a main agent. The same if parts were fitted that hadn't been supplied by them. So the little guy was squeezed out. Car manufacturers wouldn't supply technical and service information, or provide access to diagnostic tools and software updates. But that's now changed. Under anti-competition laws the manufacturer cant alienate your warranty because you had the car serviced at Joe's or wherever - so long as the work is carried out to a specified standard by a competent person. The same with access to technical information and anything else needed to service and maintain a vehicle.

Maybe this will happen with electronics.

[g1]

The problem with the auto's is even though they can't void the warranty anymore, they have still raised the prices of diagnostic gear and service info to freeze out the smaller indy shops. You have to specialize, there is no way you can be an all-brands all-models repair shop anymore.
Probably more so due to the nature of the technology, not really any concerted effort on behalf of the manufacturers.