Big Thumbs Up: Sound Devices ... Big Thumbs Down TASCAM

J

jmarkham

Well-known member
So .. you get to know how much people stand behind their gear when things go
wrong.

Our Sound Devices MixPre developed some noise in the channel ... called .. got an RMA .. shipped
it off to Wisconsin .. they fixed it .. sent it back .. it's perfect again .. total cost $0.

Our Tascam HD-P2 field recorder developed noise in one channel. Sent it off to TASCAM ...
a whopping $550 to fix. We said "No Thanks .. can get a new one for $800 or so" .. and
they charged us $60 to send back even though we're practically in the same zipcode.

The units were purchased one month apart from each other.

I really appreciate how professional Sound Devices was and they kept us in the loop.

TASCAM never said what was wrong .. they just had a fixed price tag for what they charged
no matter.

Guess which gear we're gonna buy next time ? :-)

jeff
 
I own gear from both companies. SD is high end gear, with high end pricing, I love there stuff. Most of the Tascam stuff used for audio for video is modestly priced, but still has decent performance. Think about how much more you have to spend to get a SD equivalent to the HDP2, over a grand. No critisizm of your comment, but they are in different places in the market.

Grant
 
And I'm OK with that .. but .. when the gear malfunctions . and it's clearly a manufacturer's problem (as it was in both cases), I expect
a reasonably priced repair option. To charge 50% of the price of a new unit (for their problem) is a very poor practice.
 
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while I agree 100% with your coment (I bought alot of stuff from my local pro dealer for the same reasons) I will say that Tascam has been a good company as far as user service in the past. I had a piece of gear that had a problem that was not really their problem and they built an acessory to fix the problem and sent it free of charge to users who needed it.
In your shoes I would take the same position, but my experience has been a bit different.
 
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Noiz2 said:
while I agree 100% with your coment (I bought alot of stuff frkm my local prrk dealer for the same reasons) I will say that Tascam has been a good company as far as ustkmer service in ghe past. Ihad a piece of gdar gha had a problem that wss notreally their proem and they built anacessory tofix ghe proe. and sent ig free of charge to users who needed it.
In your shoez I would take the same position, my experience has been a bit different.
Click to expand...

Scott... you feeling okay?
 
Many companies charge flat rate repair fees for their consumer electronic gear these days. This is because the internal circuit boards are not repaired, they are replaced. Other than verifying there is a hardware problem there is typically no trouble shooting done to consumer level gear. You get your unit back with new guts. It is not worth the bench time to trouble shoot a board which is designed for mass manufacture and can't be economically repaired anyway.

High level professional gear typically has more modular design and can be disassembled and repaired more efficiently than consumer gear. But it costs significantly more to make too.

I had to replace a user damaged channel board in a modular design Soundcraft audio mixer once. Pop the chassis cover, unplug the board from the bus cable, dismount from the chassis control surface, and replace with a new board. Board cost was $38.Total time involved was less than an hour. I asked Soundcraft what it would cost to repair the old one. $42/hour for trouble shooting and repair plus parts cost. The old board went in the trashcan.

The comparable lower cost model in the Mackie line was fabricated on a single large circuit board, not modular. You would have had to replace the entire guts of the mixer at far higher cost for that one.
 
this is why I'm so glad we don't make stuff with electronic components. It makes service SO much easier and faster and cheaper.
 
Couldn't agree more on the flat rate repair scheme. I did one recently with motu and it wa easy, quick, and decently priced. No reason Tascam should be different on this.
 
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