Has your equipment been reliable?

Sure, there's more moving parts.

 

Current gear is doing just fine......

Rotel rp-855 TT - 23 years old...had to replace motor 2 years back. Not bad for a so called budget deck.
Marantz 6000 osele CDP - 13 years old, but I play mostly vinyl so probably would have been long gone if it was my main source.
Gram amp 2 phono stage - 8 years old.
Kenwood 3020se amp. - circa mid 90's, bought used a year ago.
Castle Richmond 3i speakers - bought ex dem 8 years ago.

Can't complain about any of that little lot!

 

I bought a second receiver almost 10 years ago because the one in use then was 10 years old. The new one is still in the box.

I've had other crap that died a few weeks or months after the 2 year warranties expired.

 

Thorens TD 160 TT - 35 years old, completely reliable. (Daily use)

Mission Cyrus II amp - 25 years old - blown fuses twice (? due to CD player fault) - otherwise completely reliable. (daily use)

Philips CD 104 CD player 1984-1997, then died & possibly blew fuses in amp.

All in all, pretty good.

 

By the most part, the majority of my gear has never needed any repair or replacement when operated as recommended.

 

My current gear has been very reliable. Many years ago I quite buying gear from small companies and only purchased from well respected firms that have been in the business for years.

 

I've had a couple item malfunctions over the years. Most recent is my Cairn 4808A amp died. A few emails to the maker in France and he offered to repair if I shipped the control board to him. The board is in transit now so we'll see what happens.
Another item I had trouble with was a PS Audio Trio C100 that lost one channel. I contacted PS Audio and they had me send it in for repair. Even though I pointed out I bought it used, they did repairs for free as it was still under warranty.

 

Had to have my Oppo HD 970 repaired out of warranty, it would not play multichannel SACD. They offer out of warranty repairs for a flat fee of $38 including return shipping. Great service and the player is perfect again.

Only other components I've had difficulty with were vintage and I no longer have them. The unfortunate lesson I learned about vintage is that they sound killer when they work, but when they start to get buggy, there's only so much you can do unless you're an electronics buff. I would frequently take them apart and treat them with DeOxIt, which would solve the problems, but they would often come back. I just didn't have the knowledge or the time or desire to keep trying to fix them. My Pioneer and Onkyo receivers power on and work, and that's what I want. The Pioneer is about 5 years old now, I think, never has had a problem.

 

Aside from replacement of drive belts etc, which are arguably 'consumables' anyway, my kit has been extremely reliable - touch wood!

 

I use mostly vintage gear, so I have little problems all the time. If there was reasonably priced new gear that would sound the way I wanted it to, I would greatly prefer that, but I cannot justify owning a $40,000 system right now.

 

Only thing ever failed under warranty was an Adcom GFA 555 power amp, they replaced it for free with a GFA 555 II.

My Dynaco STA 416 power amp after 30 years blew a few transistors, replaced em and back in service. Frankly most everything else I've bought in the last 40 years is still working well. OK, I've had to replace foam surrounds quite a few times on several speakers over the years too.

My Empire 698 turntable is still working perfect, I bought it new in 1975.

 

Like most electronics most of my gear has been reliable. The main issues:

AVI active speakers - one of the toslink ports has stopped working, currently being repaired
Sound Dyamics concert monitor speakers - 15" woofers needed re-foaming after 15 years (about right) and one blown tweeter replaced under warranty - though my fault using the speakers for outdoor parties played at insane levels.
Linn LP12 TT - various issues over the years, nearly every part has been replaced or upgraded but can't complain as I had it since 1979.
Pioneer A88X I had at one stage (brilliant amp), which required some resoldering of joints
No problem with any CD player, tuner or cassette deck

And for something different, I have a mid 1950s AM Kriesler radio in the study which once belonged to my parents. It was in daily use as a kid and still used every now and then. Never a single problem with it, AFAIK it still has the original valves.

 

My guess is the bulk of decent built audio components have held up better than most all other non audio electronics over the decades.

That has been my experience anyhow.

Meanwhile right now I'm listening to my "lo-fi" older garage system:


1976 untouched used classic Realistic STA-90 45 WPC receiver I got several years ago
1976 set of Realistic Nova 8B 3 way speakers I got several years ago, original surrounds are perfect
1991 Sansui CDX-711 CD player I got on closeout new in 1993, new drawer belt 10 years ago by me
1997 Teac V2030S cassette deck that I got NOS 5 years ago still in it's sealed original box

Everything is working and sounding GREAT!

And I paid very little from what original list was.

STA 90 - $120 used original MSRP $ 359
Nova 8B - $130 used original MSRP $ 280 (pair)
CDX 711 - $225 NOS original MSRP $ 1,100
V2030S - $225 NOS original MSRP $ 650

$700 for the whole rig.

 

On the whole yes, though the bearings on my 26 year old pickup arm were recently found to be shot. It's not a cheap repair,, but I'm philosophical, meaning stoical about this.

 

I bought an Arcam Alpha 9 amp and Epos ES12 speakers on the same day in 1997. The amp has rarely been turned off and is still working perfectly, as are the 'speakers. My CDP and TT both broke down around four months ago. Still without music.................