Bad Experience with Conrad Johnson


For many years I have admired Conrad Johnson products and waited for the right opportunity to try them out.  Fortunately, I was able to get a great deal on a mint condition ET3se preamp and MF-2275 power amp. 

Overall, I enjoyed the sound of this combo but then I started to have issues with the preamp and then the company itself.

After I spent much time with the ET3se preamp I became to feel that it was a flawed product.

When I first listened to the preamp, the background noise was very loud in both channels, even at low volume.  The preamp came with stock tubes which were EH6922 at the time.

I then tried two new pairs of 6922 tubes (JJ Tesla and Mullard) and I could still hear the background hiss in both channels.  On the Tesla tubes, I could also hear a pop in the speakers every time I adjusted the volume up and down with the remote.

Another problem I had was during the power up/warm up process.  When powering up the preamp I could hear music (not source dependent) even when the unit shows zero volume. Then if I turn the volume up then back down to zero; no music was heard.

So I called Conrad Johnson for help.  The new owner of the company, Jeff Fischel, answered the phone and proceeded to help me.  From the very beginning of the call I started to feel very uncomfortable.  He was talking to me as if I was a child, in a very condescending tone, telling me what I was doing wrong and how I should operate their products.

When I described the issues I was having, he said they no longer use 6922 tubes and only recommend NOS 7DJ8 tubes from Philips and Matsushita, which are more rugged for his preamp.  I then asked him why normal 6922 tubes do not perform well in the preamp.  He said it was because they run the heater voltage to the tubes much higher than the 6922 spec, the NOS 7DJ8 perform much better.

Jeff was right.  When I tried the Philips 7DJ8, the background hiss went away in both channels.  But the question I ask myself is what happens when all the NOS 7DJ8 tubes are gone, you have to just deal with background noise?  What kind of product design is that?  Through other research I found that this preamp just eats up tubes, even the 7DJ8.  Eventually they will also develop noise over time. 

So in summation, I think the ET3se preamp is a flawed product.  It is a high-maintenance piece that is quirky and you just have to come to terms with its issues.  I am so glad I did not pay full retail for this preamp.

Now on to the other bad experience I had with Conrad Johnson, the company.  Once I had all of these issues with the preamp, I decided to sell both the ET3se and MF2275 power amp.  I did not have the original boxes so I called Conrad Johnson to see if I could purchase replacement shipping boxes for both of them.

I had the ill-fated pleasure of speaking with their shipping clerk, Jasmine.  You will not believe what Conrad Johnson wanted to charge me for shipping empty replacement boxes:

ET3 - $55 for box, $70 for shipping ($125 total)

MF2275 - $95 for box, $70 for shipping ($165 total)

That's right folks, Conrad Johnson wanted to charge me $70 for shipping an empty box.

I was willing to pay for the boxes and offered to send them shipping labels and have UPS pick them up for me.  They did not want to work with me.

Here was the final response from Jasmine at Conrad Johnson:

"Box, packing and shipping is not negotiable. I think it's best you purchase them at FedEx as it seems to suite you best."

It is clear to me that Conrad Johnson is not the same company since Bill Conrad and Lew Johnson left.

Needless to say, I will never buy (new or used) a Conrad Johnson product again.

wkass

I once ordered boxes for a customer to ship his McIntosh preamp and amp and they were around $300.00 each. This is not peculiar to CJ products.

Hifiguy42. +1

Ditto for Bryston. I bought a box for an amp a few years back. As I remember it cost me about $110-$120, including shipping. I was informed that sending in equipment in a non-Bryston box was a little perilous because, if the outer box showed any damage Bryston might not accept delivery, and my equipment would be returned, unopened. I did ship an amp to them in a non-Bryston box, but I had to agree to purchase a new Bryston box for the return trip. No so bad considering the amp was about 18 years old and they fixed it up, under warranty.
On the other hand, I once sent a piece of equipment in to Bryston in an original box that looked pretty worn. Bryston did the warranty work and sent it back in a brand new box - free of charge.

A long way to say, keep your boxes

on a slightly more serious note...

-- when needed, i have bought original shipping boxes before with manufacturer foam inserts for specific gear (c-j, arc, pass, ps audio, vac)... with shipping they have always been in the range of $80-150 depending on size and complexity of the foam protective system used

-- for c-j gear, they engineer first and foremost for best possible sound, and so they decided to run the et series (single 6dj8) linestage tube section at 6.3v heater (this is exactly high limit of the tube heater spec, not over it) for ideal sonic performance - it was a such pleasure for me to change over to the et series (et5 for me for several years, and now the et7-ii) using its single tube, whereas i came from the premier 16ls2 (6x tubes) and art (10x tubes) - this made tube rolling so much easier, cheaper and fun

-- over time, it became known to c-j and et series users that regular 6dj8’s would sometimes get noisy in 6-8 months with intensive use, still a very small price to pay in money and inconvenience ... running only a single tube, so compared to an art, you got 5-7 years of tube life using the same 10 6dj8’s, so aggregate tube cost is the same ... but c-j acknowledged the issue and suggested use of 6h23p or 7dj8/pcc88 equivalents, which, btw, are relatively plentiful and cheaper than top grade old stock 6dj8/6922’s -- and these tubes with the stronger heater element last years remaining dead quiet so long as you bought a good one to start with

all this said, for a high end tube gear user to belly ache like this about a single tube wearing out and paying for some oem shipping boxes is, well, ’funny’ (being nice here...) -- indeed first world problems and sense of entitlement we have here!!!

I'm sorry for your negative experience.

As a point of reference, the shipping charges for the cartons are not out of line these days and the cost of the boxes themselves are reasonable for high end audio.