Why don't you try United Radio in New York?
Transport replacement costs - Proceed
I finally got to a point where I called Harman for a RMA number. My Proceed PDT3 (I think) may need to have its transport replaced. Last year I was unwilling to send it in because (at the time) Harman was charging a flat $1000 "entry fee" for servicing this older line of equipment. They now have a "not to exceed" fee (which covers both parts and labor). In the case of the PDT3 the NTE fee is $995. I am a little unwilling to be socked with an almost $1000 fee for such an old (but still awesome) transport. When I asked the guy what he thought a transport replacement would cost, he was unsure. Does anyone have any recent experience in helping me understand whether this kind of work would be bumping up on to the higher end of that NTE fee?
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Justlisten, wow, where are you located? I guess I have to point out that Harman said this is the NTE, and the cost to replace just the transport could be quite a bit less. I just don't feel happy about not even getting a ballpark from them. I mean, they should know by now exactly what it takes to do this sort of work on a PDT-3. |
I sympathize with you, the manufacturer will mark up the repair cost significantly. I had the transport replaced recently in my DVD player and it cost me about a grand for the repair and shipping. A bit much for a discontinued player whic now will sell for about a grand on the used market. I do have a one year manufacturer's warranty but I will be out on the shipping if the unit has any problems. If I had to do it all over again at that price I would consider a new player. |
"Let me know how it works out with United Radio" United RADIO. Duh. They're in East Syracuse, if my Yahoo'ing got me there correctly. They don't show either Madrigal or Proceed as brands they do repair on, but I'll give them a call. Justlisten, SF is too far for me, even if I was just there in August. Great city, wishing I was there now - and not just for an audio repair! |
Why not try Analogique in NYC (Analogique Systems Laboratories, 17 W 17, 212-989-4240). I have called them in the past when I was considering buying some used transports and they always said they could fix them, though I never had to use them. They have a superb reputation and specialize in turntables, which are similar to spinning cd transports. Not cheap though, but have to be cheaper than the outrageous Harman price. |
Thanks for the suggestion, Dne. I've been scratching my head on this one. I am seriously considering putting all my music (either uncompressed or with lossless compression) on to my PC and using something like a Squeezebox in place of my transport. I have the knowledge, equipment, disk space, and networking all in hand to be able to do something like this. I am just looking for some more comparisons between this new server alternative and traditional high end transports. Maybe it's the way to go. |
As did Bluebull, I sold my 37 & 390S due to the quirky nature of the transports and the exorbitant repair costs. I ripped my entire library to FLAC files on a PC feeding a Squeezebox2 and external DAC. I'm extremely pleased with the sound. The level of convenience of NOT having to insert discs and having access to the entire library at the push a button is fantastic. |
Hi my name is Serge from Canada and i looking for a new drive for my Mephisto IIx. Thanks. My email is [email protected] |