A politician...
Chris, you would make a great politician. You had to at least be a city council member, mayor at one time. Am I right?
I vote for Chris!!!
Ardvaark
Chris, you would make a great politician. You had to at least be a city council member, mayor at one time. Am I right?
I vote for Chris!!!
Ardvaark
Damn I thought this thread was dead, but I love it when it comes down to a shoot out...lol. Like the wild wild west.
Oh well my time to edit my last post to ad a comment has expired so I will post again to ad this comment after deciding to reread this thread just to take it all in again.
anatech,
I was wondering if u are developing a carpal tunnel problem after all the typing while in battle with this electronic neophyte???
Ardvaark,
After rereading this thread it seems that u are so quick to jump on the defensive that its obvious u have some kind of problem?
Really its so clear to me that u have no business with your hands in an amplifier it isnt even funny! Sounds like u are real lucky u didnt get injured or damage the amp. At this point after u have done so the amp is completely worthless!!! I wouldnt take it off ur hands and hook it up to my 1700 dollar pair of speakers if u paid me to do it!!!
ur attitude of "Have solder gun will solder" is pretty much what is wrong with a lot of people in the repair industry! Unfortunaty this amp will someday end up in someone elses poor hands and blow up his speakers im sure!
I don't know what ur back ground is but I have a 2 year Electronics Enginnering degree which really prepaired me for nothing, just very basic circuit design. If I learned anything it was just a respect for electronics that there are so many variables that I really know my limits, and an amplifier is one of the most dangerous components to stick your hands in when u dont know what ur doing.
The fact that u started without a schematic or service manual and reading anatechs comment like "If they were shorted, what would this test tell you? How did you disconnect the output stages? What if a rectifier were shorted and a capacitor exploded in your face? There was a real possibility that you could have lost your ability to see - forever." Shows me u have no respect for electronics and dont know ur limits and the biggest problem with that is people get on threads like this and possibly decide to try the same thing and get injured severly or suffer equipment damage.
This kind of websight is for people like me and u to get on here and ask questions and be OPEN MINDED to other comments from people who know what they are doing and trying to be helpful. Anatech sounds like he has years of experience in this repair field as I do in automotive repair, and he is doing this for free, and u want to argue??? Then be on the defensive. Being in the repair industry for almost 30y now I find that hard to deal with.
I only hope the moderators at least lock this thread and even delete it as it has no business on this site in my opinion! I won't post in this thread anymore because im not going to get into any kind of flaming debate with u it would be a waist of my time...just my 2 cents worth and thats it.
anatech,
I was wondering if u are developing a carpal tunnel problem after all the typing while in battle with this electronic neophyte???
Ardvaark,
After rereading this thread it seems that u are so quick to jump on the defensive that its obvious u have some kind of problem?
Really its so clear to me that u have no business with your hands in an amplifier it isnt even funny! Sounds like u are real lucky u didnt get injured or damage the amp. At this point after u have done so the amp is completely worthless!!! I wouldnt take it off ur hands and hook it up to my 1700 dollar pair of speakers if u paid me to do it!!!
ur attitude of "Have solder gun will solder" is pretty much what is wrong with a lot of people in the repair industry! Unfortunaty this amp will someday end up in someone elses poor hands and blow up his speakers im sure!
I don't know what ur back ground is but I have a 2 year Electronics Enginnering degree which really prepaired me for nothing, just very basic circuit design. If I learned anything it was just a respect for electronics that there are so many variables that I really know my limits, and an amplifier is one of the most dangerous components to stick your hands in when u dont know what ur doing.
The fact that u started without a schematic or service manual and reading anatechs comment like "If they were shorted, what would this test tell you? How did you disconnect the output stages? What if a rectifier were shorted and a capacitor exploded in your face? There was a real possibility that you could have lost your ability to see - forever." Shows me u have no respect for electronics and dont know ur limits and the biggest problem with that is people get on threads like this and possibly decide to try the same thing and get injured severly or suffer equipment damage.
This kind of websight is for people like me and u to get on here and ask questions and be OPEN MINDED to other comments from people who know what they are doing and trying to be helpful. Anatech sounds like he has years of experience in this repair field as I do in automotive repair, and he is doing this for free, and u want to argue??? Then be on the defensive. Being in the repair industry for almost 30y now I find that hard to deal with.
I only hope the moderators at least lock this thread and even delete it as it has no business on this site in my opinion! I won't post in this thread anymore because im not going to get into any kind of flaming debate with u it would be a waist of my time...just my 2 cents worth and thats it.
Hi Chris, i am sorry but i have to reply this post.
ebcelectronics is my ebay name and my website name.
I provide gfa-565 gfa-585 repair services many years and have repaired more then 100 of them.
We had already a conversation a couple years ago about gfa-565 repair with an show and happy end for the customer here
and i see you have some questions again, so here are my comments:
Good technician knows how to repair unit and where to look for a problem and will not spend more than few hours to find the problem and do good job plus couple days for testing etc, especially for units with common problems. We very well know all adcom product line with all common problem and known as faulty parts. All service prices were generated on OUR experience. All parts for advertised services in stock. If we have a hard unit five days is just enough to fix it or we can replace whole output section or input board.
Do not understand way I need stock units for a month if i have no time to fix them. The customers will kill me. Better to tell the customer that the service is temporary not available, please order it later in a week or something like that.
Parts. There are just few parts. Most of them have dud value. We refurbish old parts like amp channels, plasma power supplies etc.
You don't know people but you can post a bunch dirty words about them...
Anyway, Chris, thank you for advertising.
Paul.
ebcelectronics is my ebay name and my website name.
I provide gfa-565 gfa-585 repair services many years and have repaired more then 100 of them.
We had already a conversation a couple years ago about gfa-565 repair with an show and happy end for the customer here
and i see you have some questions again, so here are my comments:
Yes, we can. $190 flat rate repair service for GFA-565 plus shipping. 5 days turn around time, today even faster, because of everything (economics, business, summer time) is slow and we have not so many units for repair.
Wow, a month just to look at the unit, i am curious how many additional weeks they need to diagnose it, order parts and repair, and what do they answer to the customers for their questions all that time?... definitely you will get customers complain after that.
Good technician knows how to repair unit and where to look for a problem and will not spend more than few hours to find the problem and do good job plus couple days for testing etc, especially for units with common problems. We very well know all adcom product line with all common problem and known as faulty parts. All service prices were generated on OUR experience. All parts for advertised services in stock. If we have a hard unit five days is just enough to fix it or we can replace whole output section or input board.
Do not understand way I need stock units for a month if i have no time to fix them. The customers will kill me. Better to tell the customer that the service is temporary not available, please order it later in a week or something like that.
As i said before it is very dependable on experience.
I am attack nobody, i provide an alternative for people. If a shop can not fix the amp for two month - something is wrong there. It is all about gfa-565s, you know it is not one two three. Do you know how many cases i had? Bunch
We have flat rate prices. It means that the customer knows how much the repair costs BEFORE he sends the unit for repair and "worth repair" or "not worth repair" is his decision. If NOT he does not send the unit for repair. So there can not be any customers units for sale on our site. We buy broken units on ebay then repair them and sell or use for parts.
Parts. There are just few parts. Most of them have dud value. We refurbish old parts like amp channels, plasma power supplies etc.
Kids? I've got my degree in electronic 25 years ago.
You don't know people but you can post a bunch dirty words about them...
Anyway, Chris, thank you for advertising.
Paul.
I hear a huge sucking sound, and I fear it is this thread circling the drain.
Paul, if you do the work you say you do, you're in line for sainthood, or at least a major 'attaboy'. But offers of fast turnaround and low prices should always be viewed with skepticism. Anatech and I both do repairs of consumer gear, and we could spend hours sharing horror stories of the stuff we've seen done to nice gear. So your defensive stance is understandable, but belligerency is not.
Tread lightly my friend.
Paul, if you do the work you say you do, you're in line for sainthood, or at least a major 'attaboy'. But offers of fast turnaround and low prices should always be viewed with skepticism. Anatech and I both do repairs of consumer gear, and we could spend hours sharing horror stories of the stuff we've seen done to nice gear. So your defensive stance is understandable, but belligerency is not.
Tread lightly my friend.
Hi Paul,
Thank you for replying. Like I said, I do have concerns when a shop advertises a one week turnaround at a fixed rate. As Glenn mentioned, we've both been around the block more than once, and we also know what reasonable turn around times are.
Firstly, back in the late 70s, it normally took a factory warranty shop 3 months on average to turn warranty repairs around. 2 months was quick. That is a fact, and they had the entire parts stock at hand in their building. They also had only one brand to deal with and good test equipment. Never mind the jigs and any special chemicals. Yup, they had it all and still didn't turn stuff around anywhere near a two week time frame.
Back a ways in time, distributors came up with the bright idea that all warranty repairs must be turned around within two weeks. This was due to pressure from dealers, some of whom were using basement "techs" that had little proper electronics education and a poor work ethic. I went to the mat many times, at least once with every warranty contract. My message was really very simple. Did they want good, complete repairs done, or really fast ones that kept rotating in and out of service. Under the normal service agreement, this was not possible. I did stock a huge inventory in order to attempt to comply. It still was simply not going to work.
Let's review the scene at the time. They were starting to only release manuals to us (and charged I might add) once we had a repair in. Shipping typically ran two days to a week and a half. They didn't stock new product manuals for about 6 months. Parts shipments were charged and often had several back-orders. Seems like they though Just In Time delivery was intelligent. All in all, it wasn't unusual for parts orders to take a month to be complete. Now, add to this that they stopped running service seminars and warranty rates had not increased for 8 years already. Lastly, dealers were not sending repairs in through the warranty network, they went to the hackers they kept. The dealers wanted to at least double our labor charges and parts. Well, that's more than the service shop makes on the job by a wide margin, a few orders of magnitude.
The service agreement for warranty went something like this. The distributor was to supply a complete set of service manuals for the entire line that a shop was authorized to service. The shops were to agree to a painfully low service rate, only because the out of warranty service was to be sent to the service shop network. Dealers were to have nothing to do with service unless they had an authorized shop in their name, then only to service what they sold - nothing else. The service shops were to attend service seminars held once a year per device type. The shops were also inspected occasionally. Parts were to be supplied through the parts network to ensure the proper parts were being used.
With no increase in payment, increased parts inventory load and no after warranty service made it extremely difficult to survive, it was no longer worth the trouble to do this as a business. So, I sold out and didn't look back.
I forget the conversations we had a ways back, sorry about that but my memory simply is not that good anymore. So I'll just run through some things that I know to be true from experience.
So, what did the stuff I just wrote have to do with your business? Well, parts I guess you can keep on hand if you are only doing a couple specific models. Otherwise the cost of inventory tends to eat the profit away. It's been my observation that any good shop, or good technician on their own is usually backed up. There is a lead time before the tech can look at the unit, and this is very normal. That time probably averages out to 2 ~ 3 weeks for well regarded shops. When turn around is a week or less, you are looking at empty shelves.
I actually did have a less than a week turn around on some specific service. The professional equipment, like Tascam DA-88s, CD players, mixing consoles, cassette machines, outboard gear and open reel machines did get swift service. Why and how could I afford to do that? It was very easy, the charges were higher for labour and travel was charged at the bench rate. Overhauls were not done in a week, that's for sure! It was get in and replace the part, or come in and calibrate - then take off. Very fast jobs, board replacement if required. Anything that went after hours (and many did) were charged 50% more per hour. It was the only way to get a technician to leave his work area, or rush something through. We also did touring company stuff - all emergency calls, done without any fuss over money. It really costs to get good work done quickly.
The question about warranty contracts was intended to see if the shop was well equipped for test equipment and used a trustworthy parts source. It also speaks to the quality of work done. If it's poor, no warranty contract unless there really is no one else in the area. These days I expect this to be more common.
One thing I do know is that a strip and rebuild on an Adcom amp like those 555, 555II, 565 and so forth is a good five hour job. Figure about an hour to properly set bias, even if you sit it on the side. Most of that time is waiting for things to settle down.
Replacement outputs are matched (I hope), and so are the transistors in the differential pair. There is a reasonable amount of work just fussing about to do a good repair job.
Odd failures. I have had some that defied normal failure modes and suffered from truly surprising problems. I must admit that this si more common with a Carver, but the odd Adcom can keep you scratching your head. Then we have the wonderful "struck by technician" jobs. The ones you lose your shirt on because they did something that makes no sense. If they use good fakes (they appear to be real), then troubleshooting becomes even more difficult.
Lastly, a fixed price service job works on averages. The odd one you lose on, the rest take less time so that overall. you are making more than simply charging time and parts. You must be coming out on top (similar to the insurance industry), otherwise your prices will increase until you are. If you don't, your business will fail.
Now, the thing that really bugs me about your ad is this. Suggesting that a customer take his unit out of a service shop and send it to you is really peeing in areas you really should leave alone. That is really kind of underhanded and hints at a lack of morals. I think that is the thing that bugged me the most. If a shop does bad work, that's one thing. If they are simply busy, there is no need to "steal" work. Most customers today seem to be low in the morals department as well, so putting that idea into their heads does not help anyone, and it hurts the entire trade in my view. If you want to be regarded as a professional shop, then act in a professional manner. I never once suggested to a customer to take their equipment from a good shop and send it to me. Not even locally. That is a line that should never be crossed. The other line is aggressively pursuing trade in areas not local to you on price issues. Anyone can charge less for a repair. How would you feel if someone started the same thing you are doing, but for .... say $110 flat rate? There are people who will do that. A price war in the service industry will truly drive the last nail in the coffin.
Sorry Paul, that's simply how I feel. If you want to undercut everyone, it will hurt everyone, including you, in the long run. If you are doing proper work, work that would be approved if it was a warranty job, and charging too low a rate for that work, I become very suspicious. Remember too, if you are doing the boards in a replacement type thing where you service them later, it still costs you. If you are not making sure the current sharing is correct, the job isn't done right.
I don't feel good when I have concerns about a shop and fellow technician. It's based on all the horror stories I have had to deal with over the years. I'm just very tired of having to clean up after other people.
-Chris
Thank you for replying. Like I said, I do have concerns when a shop advertises a one week turnaround at a fixed rate. As Glenn mentioned, we've both been around the block more than once, and we also know what reasonable turn around times are.
Firstly, back in the late 70s, it normally took a factory warranty shop 3 months on average to turn warranty repairs around. 2 months was quick. That is a fact, and they had the entire parts stock at hand in their building. They also had only one brand to deal with and good test equipment. Never mind the jigs and any special chemicals. Yup, they had it all and still didn't turn stuff around anywhere near a two week time frame.
Back a ways in time, distributors came up with the bright idea that all warranty repairs must be turned around within two weeks. This was due to pressure from dealers, some of whom were using basement "techs" that had little proper electronics education and a poor work ethic. I went to the mat many times, at least once with every warranty contract. My message was really very simple. Did they want good, complete repairs done, or really fast ones that kept rotating in and out of service. Under the normal service agreement, this was not possible. I did stock a huge inventory in order to attempt to comply. It still was simply not going to work.
Let's review the scene at the time. They were starting to only release manuals to us (and charged I might add) once we had a repair in. Shipping typically ran two days to a week and a half. They didn't stock new product manuals for about 6 months. Parts shipments were charged and often had several back-orders. Seems like they though Just In Time delivery was intelligent. All in all, it wasn't unusual for parts orders to take a month to be complete. Now, add to this that they stopped running service seminars and warranty rates had not increased for 8 years already. Lastly, dealers were not sending repairs in through the warranty network, they went to the hackers they kept. The dealers wanted to at least double our labor charges and parts. Well, that's more than the service shop makes on the job by a wide margin, a few orders of magnitude.
The service agreement for warranty went something like this. The distributor was to supply a complete set of service manuals for the entire line that a shop was authorized to service. The shops were to agree to a painfully low service rate, only because the out of warranty service was to be sent to the service shop network. Dealers were to have nothing to do with service unless they had an authorized shop in their name, then only to service what they sold - nothing else. The service shops were to attend service seminars held once a year per device type. The shops were also inspected occasionally. Parts were to be supplied through the parts network to ensure the proper parts were being used.
With no increase in payment, increased parts inventory load and no after warranty service made it extremely difficult to survive, it was no longer worth the trouble to do this as a business. So, I sold out and didn't look back.
I forget the conversations we had a ways back, sorry about that but my memory simply is not that good anymore. So I'll just run through some things that I know to be true from experience.
So, what did the stuff I just wrote have to do with your business? Well, parts I guess you can keep on hand if you are only doing a couple specific models. Otherwise the cost of inventory tends to eat the profit away. It's been my observation that any good shop, or good technician on their own is usually backed up. There is a lead time before the tech can look at the unit, and this is very normal. That time probably averages out to 2 ~ 3 weeks for well regarded shops. When turn around is a week or less, you are looking at empty shelves.
I actually did have a less than a week turn around on some specific service. The professional equipment, like Tascam DA-88s, CD players, mixing consoles, cassette machines, outboard gear and open reel machines did get swift service. Why and how could I afford to do that? It was very easy, the charges were higher for labour and travel was charged at the bench rate. Overhauls were not done in a week, that's for sure! It was get in and replace the part, or come in and calibrate - then take off. Very fast jobs, board replacement if required. Anything that went after hours (and many did) were charged 50% more per hour. It was the only way to get a technician to leave his work area, or rush something through. We also did touring company stuff - all emergency calls, done without any fuss over money. It really costs to get good work done quickly.
The question about warranty contracts was intended to see if the shop was well equipped for test equipment and used a trustworthy parts source. It also speaks to the quality of work done. If it's poor, no warranty contract unless there really is no one else in the area. These days I expect this to be more common.
One thing I do know is that a strip and rebuild on an Adcom amp like those 555, 555II, 565 and so forth is a good five hour job. Figure about an hour to properly set bias, even if you sit it on the side. Most of that time is waiting for things to settle down.
Replacement outputs are matched (I hope), and so are the transistors in the differential pair. There is a reasonable amount of work just fussing about to do a good repair job.
Odd failures. I have had some that defied normal failure modes and suffered from truly surprising problems. I must admit that this si more common with a Carver, but the odd Adcom can keep you scratching your head. Then we have the wonderful "struck by technician" jobs. The ones you lose your shirt on because they did something that makes no sense. If they use good fakes (they appear to be real), then troubleshooting becomes even more difficult.
Lastly, a fixed price service job works on averages. The odd one you lose on, the rest take less time so that overall. you are making more than simply charging time and parts. You must be coming out on top (similar to the insurance industry), otherwise your prices will increase until you are. If you don't, your business will fail.
Now, the thing that really bugs me about your ad is this. Suggesting that a customer take his unit out of a service shop and send it to you is really peeing in areas you really should leave alone. That is really kind of underhanded and hints at a lack of morals. I think that is the thing that bugged me the most. If a shop does bad work, that's one thing. If they are simply busy, there is no need to "steal" work. Most customers today seem to be low in the morals department as well, so putting that idea into their heads does not help anyone, and it hurts the entire trade in my view. If you want to be regarded as a professional shop, then act in a professional manner. I never once suggested to a customer to take their equipment from a good shop and send it to me. Not even locally. That is a line that should never be crossed. The other line is aggressively pursuing trade in areas not local to you on price issues. Anyone can charge less for a repair. How would you feel if someone started the same thing you are doing, but for .... say $110 flat rate? There are people who will do that. A price war in the service industry will truly drive the last nail in the coffin.
Sorry Paul, that's simply how I feel. If you want to undercut everyone, it will hurt everyone, including you, in the long run. If you are doing proper work, work that would be approved if it was a warranty job, and charging too low a rate for that work, I become very suspicious. Remember too, if you are doing the boards in a replacement type thing where you service them later, it still costs you. If you are not making sure the current sharing is correct, the job isn't done right.
I don't feel good when I have concerns about a shop and fellow technician. It's based on all the horror stories I have had to deal with over the years. I'm just very tired of having to clean up after other people.
-Chris
Hi Ardvaark, all,
Ardvaark and I have sorted out our differences. Everything is fine, and I do accept that I come on strong about service issues. Like my previous post (sorry for the length on that), I am concerned about service being done right.
-Chris
Ardvaark and I have sorted out our differences. Everything is fine, and I do accept that I come on strong about service issues. Like my previous post (sorry for the length on that), I am concerned about service being done right.
-Chris
hello, please advice.. i am trying to learn the proper way to service an HI POWER AMP..
i have 2 monoblocks.. GFA-565 one of them with 79 volts on the speaker post.
the best way to start ... ??? please advice..
my kind regards
federico
i have 2 monoblocks.. GFA-565 one of them with 79 volts on the speaker post.
the best way to start ... ??? please advice..
my kind regards
federico
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