Urgent Help Needed:Which New ES Model is Comparable to C555ES?

I almost went for the 333ES but instead opted for the CE775 a little over a year ago (I decided to ressurect my turntable at the time) . With what I have read here I'm glad I didn't go with the ES now. I know mine is noisy when changing discs but I don't expect perfection at that price point. I only got it to dip my toe in the hi-rez water (crossing fingers in hopes that I can get four years out of it). I think when I'm in the market for it, my next one will be Marantz as well (Universal player though).

 

I've had many changers over the years and have never had a problem with any of them. However, I had a single-disc Kenwood player die after four months. I replaced it with a Kenwood carousel changer that was still working when I replaced it nine years later. I replaced it with another changer.

 

Well, I contacted Isom Smith at Sony again today and he confirmed that the service center would probably do a buy-back of my unit for the full purchase price, but he still could not tell me when exactly that would take place. It has been over two months since Sony took possession of my unit and nearly a month since it was supposed to have been exchanged. He also refused to refund me the cost of shipping the unit to Bristol, which was something like $48. So, however you look at it, I am going to end up losing money because of Sony. I have lost the shipping fee, and I will have to spend additional cash to purchase a player of equal quality to the 555ES, all of this even though I have a 5-year warranty on a player that died after just under two years.

I informed Mr. Smith that Sony has lost me as a customer even though I had been a loyal Sony customer all my life, from my first WalkMan in the early '80's, and an ES customer for the past 10 years having purchased 4 ES components in that time.

 

If Sony cared about losing a customer, they would bend over backwards to make you happy. They should cut you a check TODAY!!!

 

That's the problem with large corporations like Sony. They make so much revenue and have so many customers that they don't care about losing one or two here and there until one day they realise that their market share has been eroded by a competitor or competitors that were more sensitive to the customers needs. The person I have been in contact with is at the president's office, and still they don't care. That kind of attitude that high up in the chain obviously trickles down into every aspect of a company's corporate culture.

To digress off-topic somewhat:

A week ago I upgraded my 10 year old DirecTV system to an HD system, taking advantage of a very lucrative deal DirecTV had going for long time customers. DirecTV sent the receiver and the dish. The receiver was either going to be a Hughes or a Samsung (you couldn't choose which one). The receiver we got was the Hughes HTL-HD. Unfortunately, it suffers from audio drop-outs. I was was saddened to find out
over at AVS that that receiver is actually a re-branded Sony box. I had my suspicions, because the guide colours and everything looked suspiciously like my old Sony receivers. Anyhow, the fact that they [Sony] have released a product so fundamentally flawed - there are many posts concerning the issue over at the AVS forums - is indicative of the downturn in quality that their products have taken.

 

I still have not heard from anyone at Sony concerning my repair/exchange/refund. If no one contacts me by 2:00 P.M. tomorrow, Wednesday, 31 March, I will contact Mr. Isom Smith and inform him that I will be filing a formal complaint with the NY State Attorney General's office, the NY State Consumer Protection Agency and the local BBB. At this point, I no longer care if they are going to resolve the issue, I still believe it warrants a formal complaint. Should they not resolve the issue within two weeks of my filing the complaints, I will begin to put into motion procedures to file a lawsuit in small claims court. Enough, as they say, is enough.

I recently had a problem with DirecTV involving an installation of HD equipment and a run of cable which I said should have been run and DirecTV and the installer said wasn't part of the installation. After 45 minutes on the phone that same night with a DirecTV CSR and conversation with two other DirecTV CSR's over the span of three days, I was able to get each of them to concede that I should have another line put in at no charge to me and each one of them made a note of it on my account and confirmed another installation date. I know it is on the account, as each CSR I have spoken to was able to tell me the exact time and date that each note for a credit back to my account was put in. That's over three days time speaking to non-supervisory DirecTV CSR's. At Sony, a call into the office of the president has left my situation no more resolved than it has been over the past two months with their CSR's. Shame on you Sony.

 

I sent my 777 to Oade Brothers yesterday and complained to Sony. Complaining to Sony is like a bee stinging a colossus, I suppose. I made a point of informing them that their dealer was taking their warranty work on in their stead. I told them I have no confidence in the Bristol house of horrors. They've lost me as a customer. They did promptly send me a new power cord.

I'm really curious what Doug Oade is going to tell me about the loused work they did on my unit. It's rather peculiar that it came back the first time with the digital outputs not functioning and then came back with the digital outputs working but no CD sound out of the analog outputs! The 777 is an exceptional performer but Sony's ES warranty is totally bogus!

Good luck Golden Boy! Wouldn't it be fun to out Sony on Judge Judy's show? It reaches so many people. judgejudy.com !

 

I won't be planning on my 555ES lasting any long amount of time. I wish Rotel made SACD players, because they last problem free for a long time!!!!!!!

 

Based on this thread, if I were jumping into SACD today, I would look at anything but Sony. The Marantz SA-8260 and Music Hall Maverick look good. Of course, there are non-Sony SACD players at higher price points too.

 

Okay, here we go again. For everyone's benefit who has been following this thread, let me update the status on the 'situation'. I called Isom Smith at Sony on Friday the 2nd of April to find out what was going on with my unit and the 'refund'. He told me that it was in the computer that someone would be contacting me that same day about it but that if I didn't hear from anyone I would hear from him by 5:00 PM that same day. Well, as you may have guessed, 5:00 PM came and went and I heard from no one. Fast-forward to Monday 5 April at 2:00 PM: Having not been contacted by either Mr. Isom Smith or anyone from the 'service' center, I decided to call Mr. Smith back. I got his voice mail. I left a message detailing my dissatisfaction with the fact that it has now been 6 times that I was told someone would contact me from Sony and 6 times that has failed to happen. I asked him to please call me back or to put me in touch with someone with the authority to actually do something about this now tiresome situation or I would be forced to file a complaint. No one contacted me, so, about 2 hours ago I filed a formal complaint against Sony Corporation of America with the NY State Consumer Protection Board and with the NY State office of the Attorney General - Consumer Protection Bureau. That is where this now stands. Let's see what happens. In the mean time, I will start looking into filing a lawsuit in small claims court and will do my best to spread the word about Sony's poorly constructed products and fraudulent warranty claims all across the Internet and possibly other forms of media.

 

GoldenBoy,

Ouch! This is surely a nightmare you wish was over long ago. I used to own that exact same changer. Never had any real problems with it, but the guy I sold it to apparently had some issues with it last year

You may have previously said, but did you try to get the dealer who sold you the changer involved? It may be too late at this point, but let them "fight the fight" with Sony for you. They sometimes have more pull than you'd think.

 

SamS,

I purchased the player from Oade Brothers and did not at the time think to get them involved. The unit still had three years left on the warranty and it had been two years since I purchased it from them so the idea of going to Oade didn't even enter my thoughts. Now, as you said, I fear it may be too late to go to them anyhow. I don't even know what the heck actually happened to my unit at Bristol!

 

Maybe you should of contacted Oade Brothers? I just got an e-mail from Doug Oade that my XA777ES is ready to ship back to me. He found several oversights and said there is a "shipping mode" that he said had been neglected to be employed. He said he has my unit checking out over spec's. If he ships it today, I'll likely get it friday or monday. Baby's got a brand new pair of shoes! Good luck on your thangs!

 

Good for you Rachael. I'm glad to hear everything is working out for the better.

 

I feel real bad for you Golden Boy and hope that the complaint that you filed will light a fire under Sony's heels. I have owned several Sony ES products and never had any repair issues to speak of. I do know that their Customer service is very bad as I have dealt with them a couple of times. I had the STRDA80ES A/V Receiver and prior to purchasing the unit I had seen on the Sony Website that this particular model decoded DTS . When in fact I know that it did not because I had auditioned it several times already . Anyway, I asked them why they advertised on the site that it had DTS decoding and they insisted that the web did not state this . They then wanted me to email a copy of the web page so they could see it, which I did and they continued to deny it even then. The attitude of the CS Rep was very unprofessional throughout the ordeal.
This was in 97 and that was the last time I really ever had any contact with Sony . I stil have the Receiver and never had problems with it but I purchased a NAD a couple months back and the Sony is idle now. I am thinking of selling it on Ebay sometime in the near future.

Good luck in your ordeal with Sony and I have been really reading your posts with interest regarding how bad Sony is treating you over this.
Please let us know how everything turns out with it.

 

I know that this thread asks "which model is equivilent to the N555ES, but is that model the same as the DVP-NC555ES which is listed in the brand new Spring 2004 Crutchfield catalog? Or are they different models, or did you just leave the N out of your question? Because if they are the same model, how come Crutchfield is listing it in thier new catalog?

 

Sony released the SCD-C555ES SACD/CD carousel changer in April 2001. It does not play DVDs. It was discontinued in 2002. Sony released the DVP-NC555ES DVD/SACD/CD carousel changer last year.

 

Thank you for your words of support and encouragement, Kurt. I will keep everyone here at SH informed on how this whole fiasco turns out.

P.S.
I still have not been contacted by anyone over at Sony.

 

Thank you for your very kind reply, and excuse my ignorance!!!

 

Hard to believe Sony is just letting you become inflamed over this ! Its really to bad I really love there players ! I hope in the end this works out for you.


Craig

 

I know what you mean. I love the sound of Sony's ES players. The C555ES was a beautiful sounding machine. I have been a pretty loyal ES customer for 10 years, but it seems that the build quality of Sony's products has taken a dive over the past decade. Unfortunately, not only is that unacceptable for a product on any level, but particularly unacceptable for a so called 'high end' product line. After my experience with this C555ES which lasted me 1/4 the amount of time as the player it replaced, a C801ES, and the Grand Wega RP LCD television, I no longer want to know anything about Sony products. I'll look elsewhere. In the meantime, I would like my @*!@& money back from Sony for the crappy 555ES that they have failed to repair.

 

Update:

I got a call yesterday (Friday 9 April) from a woman by the name of 'Marie' at Sony. She asked me to please FAX her a copy of my original receipt so that they could set the price for the 'buy-back' of my unit. When I asked if it would be a full refund, she said as long as the product is still in warranty (there are 3 years left on mine) that it would be a full refund of the purchase price. So, things are beginning to look up, but I'm not about to get excited yet.

Well, it's a really big 'coincidence' that 3 days after I file a complaint with the NY State Office of the Attorney General's Consumer Protection Bureau and with the NY State Consumer Protection Board, that I suddenly and quite unexpectedly get a call from Sony to give my my money back. All this time that I have been dealing with Sony over this matter, I've been told by several people that they couldn't do anything for me, they couldn't put me in touch with anybody and that it was up to the service center to decide what they wanted to do. This 'Marie' lady, however, was not from the service center. How do I know this? I know this because when I told her that I already sent a copy of my receipt back with the unit she informed me that, when they do an exchange the receipt goes 'somewhere else' and that she didn't have 'access to it'.

Uh huh.

 

Golden Boy, I got my XA777 back yesterday and gave it a run through last eve. I was just amazed! I wonder if Mr. Oade did some mod's on my output stages. I'm gonna ask him. His e-mail a couple of days ago said that my unit was performing above spec's. All I'm sure of is that the bleeder does sound better than ever. I know they were doing mod's to the C555ES a few years back. It's been a strange trip for me but it's worked out in the end.

I hope you enjoy your new Marantz player with your Sony bucks, ha! Best wishes!

 

Rachael,

Thanks, and I'm glad to hear that it all worked out for you. How cool is Oade if they did a mod on your XA777ES for you? Sony? What a miserable customer service record they have. Anyone with an ES player is probably better off going the route that you took to get their machines repaired. So much for the 5-year warranty, huh? If mine hadn't fallen into the Bristol black hole, I might have sent it off to Oade myself. Oh, well.

Happy listening!

 

Golden Boy, I sent Doug Oade a thank you e-note and asked him if he mod'ed anything. He said he did not but that he did go through all the player's adjustments. There's no doubt in my mind that this thang is better now than when it was new. I shutter to think how good 777's might/must/could sound with some of the mod packages offered. Mine sounds so good that I don't really feel any compelling need to have the bleeder mod'ed, unless, in some future setting, I had to send it to a modder to have it repaired. I'm just rather amazed how much difference a well-adjusted player makes! Good luck on your plight!