CE Distribution - policy change coming for defective tubes

[Tone Meister]

I have some great news.

After feeding back through proper channels, I have been contacted directly by two different VPs at CE Distribution, Mike Klassy, VP of Operations and Orin Portnoy, VP of Sales and Marketing. I can tell you that you can expect a major policy change coming for CE Dist with regard to dealing with pre-screening and matching tubes before shipment and dealing with returns of defective tubes. I had them read this thread and other threads on various other forums and they have expressed a deep concern and have pledged to make this right. I suggested they create a username and address these issues directly with those who've had problems with tubes from CE Dist and not gotten the customer service they deserve.

To Bruce at Mission Amps: you can expect a phone call today from Mike Klassy to resolve the bad tubes you've received.

[g1]

Thanks for all the effort you put into this issue. You've done a great service to the entire tube amp community, much appreciated!

[Chuck H]

I'm giving kudos on a second thread now for Tone's efforts. I only hope it's not too late for CE to regain customer confidence. I'm sure that many have already switched vendors and don't plan on taking unnecessary risks. Because the real question is how this rash of problems happened in the first place!?! The tubes were fine and then all of a sudden NONE of them were!?! That pretty much had to be a decision by CE to buy differently designated batches of tubes OR the manufacturer was shipping a disproportionate number of bad tubes and CE wasn't catching it because of lax policy. Either way it looks bad.

[Tone Meister]

JJ 6L6GC - | The Gear Page

[DRH1958]

I wonder if they are the same company as Antique Electronics and Amplified Parts. If you open all three sites and toggle between them, they are exactly the same. Click on "Vacuum Tubes" for all three sites and compare the tubes. They even come up in almost the same order, same prices and have the same layout of the site. Is there any problem with AE and AP also? All three appear to be the same company and all have the same address, 6221 S. Maple Av. Tempe, AZ
Thanks ToneMeister for getting this going. Maybe further effort is needed in light of them all having the same address. Same company?

[nsubulysses]

CE is the parent company of AES and Amplified Parts. THe former is wholesale prices for businesses and the latter are retail priced for the common folk.

Tube prices should be a significant difference between CE and the other two. Seems like caps and some other things are almost the same price.

[Tone Meister]

^^^ True, all the same entity, just a different pricing structure as mentioned.

I linked to the thread on another forum in order to make the information available to all those affected by defective JJ 6L6GC power tubes in the past. Since I posted this thread here in September 2013, I have not had a single bad tube from them. CE Dist kept its promise to me as far as I can concerned, and I wanted to share that with some forum members on the other site.

[Enzo]

I have always got good service and good tubes from CEDist, the couple times over the years I got a bum tube, it was handled to my satisfaction.

[Tone Meister]

I have always got good service and good tubes from CEDist, the couple times over the years I got a bum tube, it was handled to my satisfaction.

Same here, Enzo. But there was a bum batch of JJ 6L6GC between Dec 2012 and spring of 2013 and there were so many returns they started balking when I'd request a RMA number. I just went up the ladder and explained the situation and demonstrated that the issue was not just with me but was widespread. From what I can tell, they really went the extra mile to screen out potential bad tubes because I haven't had a bad one since, nearly two years later.

[Enzo]

Tone, actually I was agreeing with you. When there were customer service issues, they came through for me too.

[Tone Meister]

Tone, actually I was agreeing with you. When there were customer service issues, they came through for me too.

I know you were Enzo, sometimes I just don't know when to leave well enough alone.