Op, below is a link to a shop that does repairs on BelCanto may be worth a call to him to gauge what he'd charge for a power supply repair in that amp.
Bel Canto REF600 m amp reapir costs- exorbitant ?
I have a pair of REF600m, I took them out of my system for a month and when I hooked them back up one is dead. No green light, no music. Oddly there are no fuses or breakers in the amp ! Google shows that there are known problems with the power supplies going bad on these. I sent them both in to get looked at- they emailed me today that yup, one needs a new power supply- for $695- and they suggest doing the other one too as it'll probably go next. $1500 to repair two amps with known issues - and the amps are only worth $2800 if I were to sell them. Looking inside the amp there aint much hardware, $700 a power supply sure seems steep- and I'm really stuck. Don't fix them and they're useless, fix them and have a fortune sunk into a pair that aren't worth much. It's like I'd have to spend $1500 to make them saleable for $2500 just to dump them. I would have expected either a free replacement for a known problem or a low cost flat rate repair. I was expecting perhaps $350 each amp. Am I unreasonable? Ignoring the fact that I don't think they should have failed at all, ever. Signed: Unhappy and not buying anymore Bel Canto.
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Thank you for all the helpful comments and suggestions. I guess I'll begrudgingly have the one repaired and then sell them and scratch Bel Canto off of my list of products I'd buy or recommend. I think as the OEM they certainly have the ability to either do it for free or for a modest amount especially as its a known problem. Choosing to charge top dollar is shortsighted and greedy imo. You'd think that they'd be thoughtful about how word of mouth / hobbyist referrals works but apparently they're not concerned. I do think that class d amps should last longer than 8 years and I also think these should have been fused (which they are not). The other option is I throw them out and buy a used Rogue Sphinx V3 for $900 and move on- I owned one before and it was great. There's a part of me that on principle doesn't want to send Bel Canto a dime. I've emailed them back nicely asking to reconsider the pricing and cited a recent example of Audio Research doing the right thing with my LS28Se that they couldn't figure out what the issue was and eventually offered a brand new mother board and power supply for just a few hundred dollars - which I thought was very fair and I did it. They were wanting to do the right thing for me and the brand, which is why I continue to own their gear and love it and recommend it. BTW- so far no one at Bel Canto has responded to my email back about considering trimming their price down. |
@ozzy62 I have no idea if he is, just Googled to see if the OP might have other repair options and reference to his website came up |
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