How to protect yourself when buying something the manufacturer may not stand behind?

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by head_unit, May 19, 2019.

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  1. Litejazz53

    Litejazz53 Perfect Sound Through Crystal Clear Digital

    You are very smart to be extremely cautious about anything Sony, as their Laredo facility, I believe the ONLY facility that handles electronics, has a terrible reputation. My experience was dreadful with the Laredo Sony location. I truly would try and find headphone anywhere but Sony, unless you are fine with throwing them away when they break.

    Would either of these be a possibility?

    https://www.amazon.com/Sennheiser-P...argid=aud-829758849484:pla-384194002998&psc=1

    https://www.amazon.com/Sennheiser-H...argid=aud-829758849484:pla-299488469685&psc=1
     
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  2. Uglyversal

    Uglyversal Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sydney
    You mean "your" experience with Sony gear or are you speaking for everyone here?

    As for the Oppo, I have to wonder why you had "12" units!!! 12 units, seriously? On top of that you had 6 Sony, unknown quantity of Panasonic and Toshiba players, you certainly go through a lot of players, clearly none of them including Oppo lasted you very long before buying another. CD's became mainstream in 1984, DVD's in the mid 90's at that rate considering the amount of players of player you go through they seem to last you around 8 months so.

    When you change them so regularly I don't know how you can comment on reliability of specific brands as you clearly don't use any of them on a regular basis for a long time.
    I have worked a good part of my life in the electronic service industry including warranties on some of the places I worked for, on top of that I have a fetish collecting electronics. My comments are based on that experience.
     
    Last edited: Aug 21, 2019
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  3. Mike-48

    Mike-48 A shadow of my former self

    Location:
    Portland, Oregon
    Wow! It never ends, does it? Maintenance of various kinds takes up a lot of life.
     
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  4. Uglyversal

    Uglyversal Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sydney
    It takes my life for sure, there always seem to be something breaking or I just have to waste time fighting a variety of companies because they are quick to take money but they don't deliver what they charge for. That's my rant for today!
     
    Last edited: Aug 21, 2019
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  5. qwerty

    qwerty A resident of the SH_Forums.

    Mrs.Qwerty bought a pair $80 of Sony noise-cancelling headphones. While wearing them about 6 weeks after purchasing, one can exploded, plastic was found on the other side of the room. Fortunately she had just taken them off, or the noise would have caused (permanent?) hearing damage.

    When Sony Australia was contacted (under warranty) they asked her to return the headphones to them. They said that it was her fault because she "had left the batteries in it too long" - the batteries were new market-leading alkaline, well within their use-by date. She argued with them for months, there were many frustrating phone calls where Sony were obviously trying to get her to give up her consumer rights. I told her to tell them that I would post the story on leading national and international audio forums to ask opinions on how long the batteries can be left in Sony headphones. 30mins later Sony called Mrs.Qwerty, in this time their engineers had had another look at the headphones and determined that she should be given a replacement (as per our consumer law, btw).

    In general, I have liked Sony equipment, thinking it was well made and well designed, for consumer-level equipment. I have bought many Sony items in the past decades. After the shameful treatment of their customer, I will not buy another Sony product again. I don't understand why such a large corporation would have put so much resources to avoid replacing a relatively cheap product to burn loyal customers.

    My advice: don't buy the Sony headphones (or other Sony products). There are lots of competitor products out there, that would be of equal of better quality, with (hopefully) better after-sales service.

    Postscript. Just remembered the top-line clock radio Mrs.Qwerty bought a number of years ago. It had a design fault which caused problems setting the alarm time. Product recall? No, they dumped their stocks in the Australian retail marketplace, so suckers like us can be duped.
     
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  6. Richard Austen

    Richard Austen Forum Resident

    Location:
    Hong Kong
    I had Sony headphones for years and my PS4 has been practically bomb proof. My PS3 has never had issues. When it comes to headphones - some people abuse them or are simply harder on them than others - I can't see them being completely feeble.

    I live in a very humid climate though and those ear cup materials matter for me - my Audio Technica 50s - the faux leather cups began to shred after 1.5 years. My 19 year old Senn HD600s are still perfectly fine. So if in a humid climate I would want whatever the foam Senn is using and not that fake leather junk on the AT.

    I spoke recently to a repair technician in Hong Kong who has repaired ALL television brands for the last 21 years - and without hesitation he said if you buy a TV buy a Sony. He argues that they have the best internal engine that apparently very rarely fails.

    Though that doesn't speak to customer service as others have noted. But I have two Sony's - one 40inch TV is 14 years and the 60 inch was a demo model on all day every day for a year and I've had it for 4 years since - it's fine.

    I believe Walmart has a rock star warranty - 1 year return no questions asked. In Canada. Don't know about the US. Best Buy Canada is 14 days - 30 days on some items.

    I would definitely consider MassDrop = more headphone for less money.

    I would not judge Sony based on their disc spinners - Sony like most cheap DVD/Bluray sellers buy off the shelf disc drives - and they're usually a $3 to $8 mechanism. Often the exact same mechanism is found in several competing brands - it's luck of the draw as to whether the cheap plastic piece of crap mechanism will last 3 months or 15 years.

    I bought a $50 Aspire (later Acer) DVD player that I bought in around 2002 that still works to this day. I've had a few Pioneer, Sony, Marantz units all fail within 3 years. My mom's Sony DVD player has been working great for a decade.

    Most people demand cheap - which is why the expensive uber build quality players are no longer sold. There isn't enough money or any money in it for companies to bother. Pioneer Elite was built well - in the 80s and 90s but now the Elite label is meh - same with Sony - they used to have ES - battleship for mainstream - now???
     
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  7. qwerty

    qwerty A resident of the SH_Forums.

    I had a large Sony Trinatron CRT TV. It had the best quality image compared to other manufacturers, good sound quality. Reliable, except for the capacitor that exploded - I don't blame Sony for that, as there was a badly-manufactured batch of capacitors around for a year or two that many manufactures used. Sony used to be a good company.
     
  8. Bill Mac

    Bill Mac Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    Just look at online reviews of Sony products and one will see the poor reliability and substandard service from Sony service centers. You'll also see many posts here on SH with similar thoughts to mine as to Sony products. My favorites are from those that sent their Sony gear in for service in the original packaging. Then they received their gear back in generic ill fitting boxes and packaging with damage in transit or when they were serviced.

    Let's see the Oppo players I've owned were 970HD, 983H, 83 (2) 83SE, 93, 95 (2) 103, 105, 105D, 203 and 205 (2). My count was off by two as the number is actually 14. So yes seriously ;). I currently have an 83, 93, 103, 105, 203 and 205. Only two (203 and 105) are currently in use. I obviously like Oppo players and found a number of them used at great prices so I couldn't resist. I have a large collection of SACDs and DVD-As and want to have backup players to have the ability to play those discs well into the future.

    I definitely change players often and at times have had up to four different systems (currently three) that see or saw a lot of use. I currently have two systems and the other two that were for family use are down to one. I can speak first hand about the lack of longevity of Sony players. Unfortunately I was slow to realize that Sony players were not the best players to be buying. Several of the Sonys were ES models that at the time were quite expensive. I still have 2-3 of them lying around that need to go to the dump. I have one Panasonic Blu-ray player (still in fine working order) and two Toshiba HD-DVD players. Still have the one Toshiba HD-DVD player and that's still in fine working order as well. I also owned two Pioneer DVD/Universal players the 59 and 79. Those were also totally trouble free players as well.

    As far as commenting on the reliability of the players I've owned that's quite easy especially regarding the Sony players. The Sony players just flat out stopped working with transport issues or stopped reading discs. That's quite easy to comment on wouldn't you say? As far as the Oppo, Panasonic and Toshiba players they're still playing all discs that they are capable of playing. Some of the Oppo players that were bought used were used quite frequently with trouble free use. The 93 that I bought needed to have the optical drive changed out by Oppo. The seller sold the 93 as such for $70 and shipped it direct to Oppo. It was a flat fee of $99 to change out the optical drive with return shipping included in a weeks time. That included a complete check of the entire player. Try getting Sony to service a player that was produced five years ago for a flat fee of $99 with a one week turn around. Not going happen!

    You seem to doubt my situation in regard to my experience with CD, DVD, SACD and Universal players. My experience is for real and accurate. Whether you believe that or not is of no real concern to me :).
     
    Last edited: Aug 21, 2019
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  9. Manimal

    Manimal Forum Resident

    Location:
    Southern US
    Interesting , headbands are looked at by Sony like belts are looked at by say GM. A wear item, like bushings. Hmm
     
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  10. Bill Mac

    Bill Mac Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    Apparently you missed posts #6, #26 and #30. The comments in those posts are similar to my thoughts of Sony products. So it isn't just "my" experience.
     
  11. Reader

    Reader Senior Member

    Location:
    e.s.t. tenn.
    I'm not trying to be a smart mouth so don't take this the wrong way, but do you listen to music while you mow the yard? Isn't that dangerous?

    A mower is a dangerous machine and there's no telling what is around you that you might not see or hear. Be careful.
     
  12. Bill Mac

    Bill Mac Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    I listen to music with my Bose headphones when doing yard work including mowing and leaf blowing. I prefer it to the noise of the mower and leaf blower. I'm in a quiet rural area so other than the possibility of a disgruntled bear or moose coming after me it's very safe.
     
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  13. Michael Chavez

    Michael Chavez Forum Resident

    Location:
    US
    SONY headphones sound great
    I bought a pair of their mid-line closed cans - got tired of replacing ear pads (the fake leather finish flakes off and sticks to your head)
    a real pain and expensive
    going into something that you already know has a pattern failure issue is foolish
    so what if you have "protection" - it's still a pain when things break
    remember - time is money
    buy something else or stay with what you've got
    sounds to me like you just want to buy something new - new toy time
     
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  14. Mike-48

    Mike-48 A shadow of my former self

    Location:
    Portland, Oregon
    Like @Richard Austen , my experience with Sony products has been great. We finally gave our flat-panel Sony TV away to a friend, because after 15 or 17 years, it still worked fine, but we wanted a larger screen.

    In interpreting the number of complaints, remember that Sony sells in large volume, which means more issues by number, even if the proportion is small. Also, remember that firms like Sony don't attract a coterie of fanboys like some boutique firms do. Those two factors combine to make owners with product problems more likely to post than satisfied customers. And finally, remember that many people don't take good care of physical objects, which makes a difference in the survival of something complex, like folding headphones. And when people break something through their own negligence, it's not unheard of for them to blame someone else.

    Is any of that a guarantee that you won't have a problem with this model? No one can give that guarantee. But neither does anyone know how typical the "pattern of failure" really is for these phones -- though I'd venture to say that complaints on the Internet provide some kind of upper limit.
     
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  15. head_unit

    head_unit Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Los Angeles CA USA
    Maybe! I've long respected Sennheiser. One review says "Both have tremendous user-side noise cancelling, though I prefer the Sony's three-mode passthrough to the Sennheiser's attempt at automating it. The sennheiser won't allow pass-through audio while on a call, but the Sonys will. " Ah, what does that mean folks?
     
  16. head_unit

    head_unit Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Los Angeles CA USA
    Also, are there ANY noise-canceling phones that use regular batteries besides Bose? Or am I stuck with some kind of USB charging for all others? (That IS one really nice feature of the Bose, if the battery runs out you just swap it for the spare in the case; others if the juice runs out I don't think you can listen while charging. It also means Bose can just sit in a drawer for a long time without discharging.)
     
  17. head_unit

    head_unit Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Los Angeles CA USA
    Oh, that's a bit of a factor, I mean the Bose do WORK after all, and kill a LOT of jet noise. However I am honestly frustrated by unemotional sound, the pressurizing-my-head unpleasant sensation, and by very low maximum volume (they have a built-in amp for pete's sake!!!)
     
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  18. head_unit

    head_unit Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Los Angeles CA USA
    Or BMW-was thinking of a certified used BMW but reading the fine print of the warranty it excluded all the expensive stuff that would break. Like the RADIO which jeez would cost ya several thousand. Bought a Mercedes instead.
     
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  19. Mike-48

    Mike-48 A shadow of my former self

    Location:
    Portland, Oregon
    I can't answer your question, but I can say that the Sonys stay charged for a long time, and the usage time (I mean while playing over BT and noise canceling) is rated at 17 hours on one charge. I use mine about 6 hrs a week at the gym, and I charge them about every 2-3 weeks, so that seems right.

    You can press a button, and the Sony announce the charge level (as high/medium/low). I prefer starting with a known charge to wondering when an AAA cell will die. Just something to think about.
     
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  20. head_unit

    head_unit Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Los Angeles CA USA
    The Bose case has a spot for a spare AAA, so it doesn't matter when it dies, that's the beauty of it. I just have some negativity about anything USB charged: any USB-charged devices I have (little portable players, phones, iPods) all are dead after some while unplugged. I don't have a spot to leave headphones plugged in, so I'm picturing they would always be dead whenever I want to use them. I guess I'd have to somehow find a spot...
     
  21. McLover

    McLover Senior Member

    Noise cancelling equals Meh or worse sound quality. Choose Noise Cancelling or choose sound quality, one can't have the best of both without compromise. For all that's said about Bose, good and not so good, never heard one complaint about Bose customer service, which is among the better. They generally take care of their customers. Sony's horrid on customer service, and USA repairs.
     
  22. allied333

    allied333 Audiophile

    Location:
    nowhere
    Does not CCs & PayPal guarantee a refund within 30 days upon item being returned?
     
  23. Uglyversal

    Uglyversal Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sydney
    I don't doubt your experience at all but I can see it without emotion, and objectively, in context with what you have described.

    That context is that you have an awful lot of players, they could not possibly get the necessary use to make a useful claim on reliability as effectively, in private use they are only getting an insignificant amount of use compared to what they would get in the house of someone who has just one or two players.

    As for the service centre it depends on where you took them but unless it was directly to Sony other places that deal with warranties often do so for a couple of brands and if they are bad for one they'll be bad for all the others. Having worked myself in that field, I have seen plenty wrong with customers and with technicians. One thing I do have to say is that most customers are perfectly fine but the ones that aren't are enough to put you off working with the public. Some of the tricks when they've clearly damaged something themselves defy belief.

    Another thing, there is no shortage of complains on the internet, Sony have no exclusivity in that regard but there is also no shortage of praise for Sony which you are completely ignoring.

    If you had such a bad experience with their players why did you buy 6??? For most people one bad experience can be enough, two bad experiences for sure will mean never again. You are badmouthing them and yet you kept buying Sony?
     
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  24. Bill Mac

    Bill Mac Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    No offense but you just seem like you're looking more for an argument then an explanation. So I'm not going to waste my time anymore trying to justify the use of the players I've owned over the years. You seem to have all the answers so no need for me to respond any further.
     
  25. Uglyversal

    Uglyversal Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sydney
    I actually thought it was you but feel free to ignore me. However, you are posting in a public forum and when you make a statement you exposing it to public scrutiny.
     
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