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Denafrips offer to replace my faulty Pontus 15th, for a replacement fee?

My Pontus 15th has developed an issue with the right channel output so I reached out to Denafrips to hopefully get it sent to be looked at/fixed (still under warranty)

However, they don’t have anyone here in the UK to look at it; instead they’ve offered to replace my current Pontus with a brand new replacement for a replacement fee of 400 USD but free shipping.

I would have to pay for shipping my Pontus, back to China which I don’t have a problem with.

I can’t decide in my mind whether this is a good offer or not, considering my Pontus is just over a year old and within warranty.

On the one hand, I can see this is as a decent compromise by Denafrips and a show of good will, as they will send me a new unit without verification of the fault, but on the other hand, is the replacement fee a little unreasonable considering the circumstances/the issue with my unit, and valid warranty?

I’m unsure if I’m honest; if I’d recently bought the unit and were sending it back because I didn’t like it, I’d understand a fee, but returning due to a fault, I’m having difficulty coming to terms with the fee.

Is this a generous offer and I’m being unreasonable, or is the fee unreasonable?

 

painter24
sns
4,218 posts
 

First off, what is percentage of faulty Denafrips equipment? In perusing the web I see faulty/defective products from manufacturers based all around the world. Furthermore, see bad servicing, support of these products. So I'm supposed to write off purchasing these products based on some finite set of dissatisfied customers. 

bartmannm
11 posts
 

I have been having an issue with noise bleeding into my system from the optical inputs on my ARES II. I'm not seeking TS advise. Don't want to go down that rabbit hole lol. 

I tried to get support from Denafrips. here are the actual 2 email messages I received from their support department.

Dear William, If the issue only occurs when the machine is paused, you can unplug the ARES audio source to check if the problem persists. Have a nice day!"

WOW WHAT INSIGHT!

Followed by this!

Dear Bill, 

Do you have any other audio source? You can try switching to a different one for connection. Based on your description, it should be that your audio source is interfering with the DAC. Wish you a pleasant life!

Yours sincerely,

Denafrips Audio LTD (Guangzhou China)"

Thank you captain obvious! I will have a nice life. The team at the other end of the cable has been much more helpful. The Denafrips is the only component that has this issue.

I am going to have a nice life. With another company's DAC.
fiesta75
1,535 posts
 

Well bart, unfortunately that communication with D doesn't surprise me. Thanks for letting us all know!

rocray's avatar
rocray
1,540 posts
 

Not so long ago,denefrips was a popular,highly talked about and recommended DAC. I guess they don’t care about such trivial things any longer. 

jjss49's avatar
jjss49
6,920 posts
 

a few years back i was pretty enamored with denafrips, especially their ares and pontus at the time, they seemed to bring a welcome ’anti digital’ sound to the dac scene, which was awash with sea of over-analytical threadbare clones it seemed

alvin at vinshine represented them well, bridged the language barrier to the us and european markets, got them many good reviews (which the products deserved) and a good customer following 

then, one could see signs of restlessness in the home base, and worse yet, mounting evidence of short-term greed in face of a modicum of market success -- constant model and firmware updates, version 2 this, version 3 that, 12th anniversary this, 15th anniversary that.. plus new, additional boxes (ddc’s) you just had to have... in order to get the best sound out of their kit -- as a poor customer, well, you bought a pontus 2 or a venus, and six months later it is superceded with a better and greater version, you be left hangin’...

then, the big move, they cut off alvin/vinshine at the knees, told him to go take a hike buddy, they had their market following, so screw the middleman, the loyal rep who helped them build the business, denafrips was now going direct!!!

i still respect their dacs (though the value equation has gotten worse, their sound is still quite good) but i really dislike how they do business -- so i got rid of the pieces i had, and stayed away

this example of how denafrips ’factory direct customer service’ is handled is just more evidence that these guys are just some straight up a--holes

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