Critical thinking... Or lack there of

[Ronsonic]

Oldie but still a goodie:

Labor Rates
$80 per hour standard
$100 per hour if you watch
$120 per hour if you help
$160 per hour if you worked on it first

I've had people call and ask if it's a problem that they tried to fix it first and my standard answer is "of course not. But, I do charge by the hour." This is generally agreed to be fair enough and fully in accord with karmic justice and we're all happy.

[Ronsonic]

Back on topic: Over on the audio forums, I'm constantly amazed at the threads where folks want to upgrade the components in their gear. Usually titled "which poly cap sounds the best" or something similar. Obviously the more a component costs, the better it must sound right?

And spending more money on "audio grade" components that aren't even in the signal path, like DC power supply filter caps or op-amp decoupling caps, MUST "make the soundstage more detailed, it's like lifting a veil off the speakers!!"

Hey, I LIKE working on things that aren't actually broke.

[nashvillebill]

Hey, I LIKE working on things that aren't actually broke.

Me too, I guess my rant was aimed at the folks who just randomly replace parts though they don't have a clue what any of the parts actually do. But hey, some guy that claims to have golden ears says this expensive doodad improves the sound--even though he can't back it up with any measurable data. Besides, data and double-blind-testing is somehow always inherently flawed (according to the golden ears folks).

[J M Fahey]

And spending more money on "audio grade" components that aren't even in the signal path, like DC power supply filter caps or op-amp decoupling caps, MUST "make the soundstage more detailed, it's like lifting a veil off the speakers!!"

Hey !!! What's wrong with that?
Just a few days ago I had to battle a guy who wanted his Dual Rectifier to have a "more Vintage, yet open sound ", so he intended to replace his "5U4" with "274B".
My claim that those were regular 5U4 although with gold plated pins, rising their unit price to U$195 each (plus "special shipping" of U$33) didn't cut much ice with him.
He coldly referred me to the authoritative source:
http://www.sophiaelectric.com/pages/se/274b.htm
where, among other pearls, it's stated:
"Your Sophia Electric™ mesh plate 274B is the best rectifier tube I have ever heard "
"I let my Canadian distributor hear it in his Sira and he refused to let me have it back."
"Sophia Electric™ 274B tube is a premium rectifier tube for a 5U4/5R4/5AR4* direct replacement ... it has a deeper, wider sound stage and even smoothier sound than Mullard 5AR4."
"In 1930s, WE 274B was the rectifier choice ... "
Not to be left behind, these are some listener's opinions:
"I'm running the Mullard GZ34 and it's a damned fine sounding rectifier tube, way better than the run of the mill rectifiers out there. Loads of warmth and great dynamics to boot."
"274B come in this spiffy, royal blue cardboard box with gold lettering. It looks very elegant so they must be good right?"
"The Sophia's show no hints of embellishing the music in any way. When I pop the Sovteks back in everything goes a little weird. The performers leap forward in the soundstage to the point it becomes overbearing"
And on and on and on ....
Ah !! What happened to my client ??
I told him that *NO* modern tube is "Vintage", no matter what they claim, and I directed him to any very old little town ex-TV repairman.
He promptly found a pair of 60's or 70's vintage Toshiba 5U4 in mildew smelling, yellowing cardboard boxes.
End of the story?: he's happy !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
*Now* he has the sound he dreamt about !!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh well.

[tmod]

I don't know if this is a critical thinking story or a cranky tech story...

Guy has some old Epi 4x10 combo amp. Sounds bad, crummy tone, and needs mainitenance. Oh, and he brought in just the amp chassis so he wouldn;t have to pay any additional labor for us to pull the chassis out of the cab. I guess he thought that would save $10 or something.

SO we clean and lube the controls and take care of whatever little issues, and maybe some tubes, whatever. Amp works fine now. Customer comes for it.

HAlf an hour later, he's on the phone, his amp still sounds crummy. I worked on it myself, I know it works. Bring it back then. Plug it in, works fine. Here, listen, the amp works fine. Goes home, call in, still sounds crummy, why can;t we fix it right, and I don;t want to pay any more than I already paid just because you can;t fix it. Tell him to bring the WHOLE amp in, cab and all. But I know the problem is in the amp, I checked all the speakers. PLEEEEEASE bring in the whole thing.

There, Pete, y'see how the lower speakers are wired out of phase with the upper ones? Here, (pull pull push push - wiring corrected) now listen.

"Oh....."

Good thing you saved all that disassembly labor, you needed it for gas money.

That's so funny!

I see this everyday at work (power tools service center).

Big carpenter company send a cordless drill for service complaining that it doesn't work. Please replace the brushes. Only the machine is sent in, without batteries or charger, to save on shipping.

Open the machine, pull out the brushes, they look fine. Assemble the machine, plug in a battery, everything works fine. Check for correct current draw, test it with a huge drill bit on a piece of lumber, everything ok.

Return it to customer with invoice.

Two days later an angry phone call: "It doesn't work, I'm not paying!!!"

Explain that the drill works fine, but that the battery OR charger may be defect.

Three days later we the drill back with one battery, no charger. Battery dead, but takes charge, and works when we return it, with another invoice.

A week later we get another angry phone call, the machine isn't working again. The customer finally agree to send in the charger.

Three days later the charger arrives, and it's naturally defect. The best thing is that on new chargers there's usually LED indicating the charge and health of the battery and charger. Sure enough, when we plug in the charger there's a big flashing red LED indicating the charger is blown.

We sell the customer a new charger, and including bench time and shipping the whole adventure has cost more than a new machine. We even loose money because of all the time spent on the phone...

Three months later:
The same customer send in another cordless drill, "almost new". No charger or batteries, still saving pennies on shipping. "Dead, please replace brushes".

These guys are suppose to be professionals...

[tmod]

Oh, and there are the guys with pressure washers who in spring discover that their precious machine has sprung a leak during the winter. They come in and demand a free repair under the manufacturer's warranty. When we tell them that it's not the manufacturer's fault that they leave their machine out in the freezing cold with water in them, they complain about the brass in the machines being poor quality when it cannot even withstand freezing water...

Or the little Einsteins who bring in their completely burned out tool (to the point where the plastic housing has melted) and ask us to fix it. "Probably just the brushes".

The best story this summer was a carpenter who sent in a cordless drill, complete with charger and two batteries. One of the batteries was exploded, and by that I mean complete meltdown. The copper contacts had melted, so the heat must have been extreme. He claimed it was a warranty issue, and that "he found it like this in the charger". The charger worked fine, and while the contacts on the battery were melted, the socket of the charger was in pristine condition. So, we were supposed to believe that there had been a fire inside the charger warm enough to melt copper, but without making even a dent in the plastic housing of the charger! Turned out the battery poles had been shorted, and he'd just thought he should try getting away with us paying for his stupidity...

[Chuck H]

There's a lot of it around. It's been my experience dealing with people on any $$$ matter that certain types will ask for outrageous concessions, assistance or freebies. Fact is you don't get anything if you don't ask. So these folks ask for anything they can think of, even if it's unreasonable. And they're no doubt better off for this practice. It really goes against my grain but it's just the way many people are. Taking whatever they can because they can instead of doing what they should because they should. The good and moral among us are basically carrying these jerks around on our backs in the grand scope of things.

Chuck

[tmod]

There's a lot of it around. It's been my experience dealing with people on any $$$ matter that certain types will ask for outrageous concessions, assistance or freebies. Fact is you don't get anything if you don't ask. So these folks ask for anything they can think of, even if it's unreasonable. And they're no doubt better off for this practice. It really goes against my grain but it's just the way many people are. Taking whatever they can because they can instead of doing what they should because they should. The good and moral among us are basically carrying these jerks around on our backs in the grand scope of things.

Chuck

I don't mind people asking for discounts or freebies (well, most people, most of the time), but when people lie in order to have other people paying for their sloppiness it gets me going. We've also seen people with receipts claiming they bought a tool yesterday, only for it to be completely worn out and have a production date six years ago. That's outright fraud, and that's what's pushing up the prices for everyone else!

[Enzo]

Ah yes. I always enter the serial number on the work orders. I have had people bring over somethig for repair, then come back with an indentical model the next day claiming I never fixed it right. I point out that the serial number had magically changed overnight on their unit.

[soundmasterg]

Just to keep it within History, and not dabble into Politics, which is not forbidden per se, but best avoided to keep this Forum polite, let me humbly tell that History disagrees with the above statement.
To write only fact and not opinion, and referring only to "the original" Hitler and not later wannabes:
Timeline:
September 3, 1939 - Britain, France, Australia and New Zealand declare war on Germany.
September 5, 1939 - United States proclaims its neutrality; German troops cross the Vistula River in Poland.
September 10, 1939 - Canada declares war on Germany; Battle of the Atlantic begins.
May 10, 1940 - Nazis invade France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.
December 8, 1941 - United States and Britain declare war on Japan.
December 11, 1941 - Hitler declares war on the United States.
Er ... I see a gap of two years and three months where the brave British fought alone ...
Anyway, don't take me seriously, I'm just a History nut

I was talking about since WW2, and more about the continental Europeans than you Brits per se when I suggested people sitting around and letting modern Hitler wannabees overrun them. You hear about countries complaining about their soldiers helping out in Afghanistan and others countries pulling their soldiers out completely, leaving the US, Britain, and some few others to do all the dirty work. People forget history so quickly and easily until they're forced to relive it.....

Greg

[greekie]

I've actually supported my self for the last 3 years, by making Mesa amps bias adjustable, and selling the probes with them to my customers. Here in Denmark they pay what translates into $60 for the work on the amp, and $100 for a box with a LCD-display and two bias probes. After I presented the danish internet forums with the scoped out curves of the Mesa-amps with "normal tubes", and calculated how much they could save in the long run, many folks jumped in.

I'm not getting rich or anything, but it supports me enough to be able to study full time for my degree (Master of Science in Economics, Business Administration and Information Science). And for laughing down to the bank, all I'm laughing about is how I am ruining Randall "I was the first to patent XXX even though everybody did it before me" Smiths plans for world domination by fixed-fixed bias amplifiers.

[tmod]

Ah yes. I always enter the serial number on the work orders. I have had people bring over somethig for repair, then come back with an indentical model the next day claiming I never fixed it right. I point out that the serial number had magically changed overnight on their unit.

We always write down the serial #in our computer system (well, unless someone forgets of course). We have several thousands of repairs every year of course, but when it's computerized it's easy to search through. Last week we had a drill in with a dead motor. It was sent in bya store, claiming it was an in-store demonstration models that didn't work out of the package. It didn't look right, so a guy ran a check on the serial number. Turned out that the exact same machine had been serviced for a burnt motor a few months back. Then it belonged toone of that store's customers (big carpentry company, so we know where they shop). Last time they got a new motor as a Goodwill, with the message that the machine was overloaded and they needed to be more careful.

My bet is that they screwed up, went back to the store and said: "we buy for big $$$ every year, fix this for free or loose a customer". The store say ok, lie and send the machine to us hoping we won't notice. The kicker is that we have to document every warranty repair to the manufacturer, so if THEY happens to run a serial number check, WE will get the police knocking on our door investigating the fraud...

[R.G.]

... It's been my experience dealing with people on any $$$ matter that certain types will ask for outrageous concessions, assistance or freebies. Fact is you don't get anything if you don't ask. So these folks ask for anything they can think of, even if it's unreasonable. And they're no doubt better off for this practice. It really goes against my grain but it's just the way many people are. Taking whatever they can because they can instead of doing what they should because they should. The good and moral among us are basically carrying these jerks around on our backs in the grand scope of things.

Include among those "people" all insurance companies. These businesses long ago learned that for every claim over $X.00, if you simply deny the claim as a first response, or offer a settlement for a small fraction of the actual amount, a certain section of the claimants will settle and just go away. The insurance companies hire claims specialists who specialize in talking the claimant down on a settlement.

I ran into this when I had my last auto accident, twelve years ago. The insurance company decided that my auto was totalled, but the offered settlement was suspiciously low. I ran the used-car prices for my area and found they were offering half of the market value of the car. When called on this, they first said the price calculation I used was wrong, that they did their own "used values" and knew they were right, then ponied up 95% of my calculation, this over a period of a couple of days. I changed insurance companies after that, but I have later found that this is a common practice in the industry.

Make a low offer, ask for something outrageous. Sometimes you get lucky. This may be a huge benefit in your business model. This is why pawn shop prices are usually near retail prices for a lot of the stuff. They can't deal in volume, like food stores. So they have to squeeze the best price out of their completely one-of-a-kind inventory.

[Chuck H]

This thread has drifted, and that's cool, but to keep this "amp related" at least AND try to correspond with some sequence I offer this... When I first started doing tube amp mods I quickly found that Traynor amps were of excellent quality and very affordable. I've owned and modded many now. I live in the PNW now but I started in the San Francisco bay area. When I would visit the PNW (friends and relatives) I would stalk the pawn shops and buy Traynor amps cheap. Now, with information technologies, Traynor prices have gone up. I live here now and even with emminently more opportunity to hunt I can't find a deal. Traynor prices were actually artificially inflated for a while when the general public became aware of the quality. They became overnight "classics". Things have settled into proportion since then. But sadly the deals are gone.

And pawn shops still ask too much for them these days even though their market value has settled at a lower asking price.

Chuck

[Ronsonic]

I don't know if this is a critical thinking story or a cranky tech story...

Guy has some old Epi 4x10 combo amp. Sounds bad, crummy tone, and needs mainitenance. Oh, and he brought in just the amp chassis so he wouldn;t have to pay any additional labor for us to pull the chassis out of the cab. I guess he thought that would save $10 or something.

I'll take in the bare chassis, but all but insist they bring in the rest of the unit for assembly and testing. Often enough they agree. Had one a Sunn Beta Lead, just the chassis, not even the reverb unit that mounts in it. Doncha know, the paralleled CMOS inverter that perversely enough drives the reverb pan oscillates if run unloaded. Dumps a ton of really hideous noise on the power supply.