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]

Addendum

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]

Peavey Service

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]

Bad Business

[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.