Schiit amps, freya preamp

Why speculate on a public forum that a business is failing? One quick email gets you the truth. I inquired about a Freya+ last week and promptly received this follow up:

We have started to receive the parts needed for the Freya+ and have resumed production and shipping backorders. Due to the number of backorders, it my be a week or two before a new order will be ready to ship.  

I'm sorry but it is difficult to speculate how long shipping will take. Via FedEx Home delivery, or USPS, it is usually less than a week, but both USPS and FedEx have been experiencing shipping delays.

Sorry but no. 
Know George is a shill and I wouldn’t be surprised if he was actually an employee shilling in various forums.

As for me, I had a Freya and a Vidar and nothing but problems. They sounded good for sure, but massive issues. I found a thread on head-fi where I discovered I was far from alone with many issues. This lead to other threads on other forums. Some of the problems were design issues and some manufacturing issues. I sent mine back and the 2 people I dealt with at Schiit were absolutely nice and everything got returned. I was bummed!
Now, for Mr. Republican accusing me of trolling, I have 4 Schiit products in use now and at least 2 of them are endgame pieces and will stay indefinitely. Nice pieces and work great but also punch above their price point. 

I had someone trade in a Schiit Freya+ and I had never spent any time with it. I have swapped it into my system as I ponder what preamp to choose next (I am trying to decide between Art Audio, KR and AVM).  It is not a bad unit. It sounds very good when you consider it can be had for $350 used.  It can be a bit noisy in active modes and might have the most annoying volume control in the history of the world. But it definitely doesn’t sound bad.

That being said, for those folks who say you can get this and it is as good as any preamp, I disagree. It is not a bad unit and it is better than its price point, but it is a weak link in a nice system. I would take a used Ayre K5xeMP over this any day or a new Rogue RP1 if you are looking for tubes.  I know they are much more expensive.  I have an old Carver C-20v lying around and it is nicer in a lot of ways and that could be had for the same of less.  Certainly has a non-clicking volume control.  The point is, this is not an insanely cheap substitute for excellence that many claim it to be IMO.  But it is a good unit for the money.

My experience retubing Schiit products has been a nightmare. Perhaps the new units are better in this regard. I think reliability is questionable as well.

When someone says their experience with a product has been a "nightmare", some details would be helpful.