Posted on Tue, Apr 14, 2009
Warning: gear geekiness follows.
I've been really happy with my Aphex 1100 preamp unit over the years. But the past year or so, it's been having some audio problems with some crackling on the decay tail of notes, as well as some general button flakiness. I decided to contact Aphex for repairs, sending a detailed description of the problem, and an audio file to demonstrate it.
That was a month and a half ago on March 1st. A week later, on March 8th, I hadn't heard anything, so I wrote again. The next day, an engineer replied saying the waveform was too distorted to analyze. Ok, fine, I replied with another example a couple hours later.
11 days pass. No response. I send another ping.
8 days pass. Still no response. I send another ping, this time CCing the president of the company and a couple other relevant people.
2 days pass. I finally get a response, asking a few questions about trying another method. I track down a cable for this, and reply with new audio files a few days later. The engineer promises an RMA number when he gets back to the office on Monday.
Monday passes. So does Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. I send another ping. Friday passes, then Saturday, Sunday and another Monday. Today is Tuesday and I'm sending yet another ping.
At this point, I've already purchased another preamp because I'm afraid if I ever do send the unit in, it'll take an eternity to get it back. I'll be updating this post as the saga continues.
Update, an hour later: I now have an RMA to return the unit for repairs! They claim to have sent it five days ago, and though I don't see any records of this in GMail, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. I'll send this off in the next couple days and keep updating as I find out more!
Update, April 24th: They received the unit from UPS.
Update, May 4th: Haven't heard anything from yet - no confirmation, no estimate. Emailing to see what's up.
Update, May 5th: They responded quickly that they would be repairing it, burning it in overnight, and then contacted me today. The total came out to $98 plus shipping, which is very reasonable if everything is working well.
