Beware of new Krell Waranty Policy

Samski In my opinion, a bad investment would be buying a product on its warranty as opposed to its sonic merits. If Krell works well in your system and to your ears I find that a good investment. Buying and reselling in itself is a bad investment as you almost always lose something in the resale once you figure in shipping costs to replace the old piece and the depreciation on the sold piece. Ive been fortunate to live in area where I know knowledgable service people who have fixed most of my gear.

I have bought and sold a lot of Krell equipment over the years. I have almost always used it long enough that it was not in warranty when I sold it. I NEVER had any trouble selling gear. Their stuff is extremely reliable and people know it. Buying Krell new or on the used market is almost always a good deal! In fact I am looking now to buy another Krell amp, and nothing else will do.

I bought a used Ayre V-3 amp a few year back, it had a transfrable waranty & about two years later it developed a hum. I contacted them & they requested me to send it back for an evaluation, they replaced the power supply & did some up dates for no charge. If those repairs would have come out of my pocket it would't have been cheap. I for one am a firm believer in transferable warranties if there is any remaining time left. If the company is sincere about their product holding up for the specified time of their waranty, why not transfer it.

I was told by Krell that this new policy went into effect for pieces built after Jan. 2000. Pieces built before that, with remaining time on the warranty, will be fixed under warranty. This means that there are many used Krell peices out there with almost four years remaining on a transferable warranty. I recently bought used Krell gear and made sure the pieces were at least one year old. I think it is ironic to do this, but I stayed away from deals that were advertised as brand new in the box, and weren't from dealers. As always,when buting used gear, the more info we have, the better protected we are, or at least we will be able to make informed choices.

Cary has also has this policy and I think it is BS. If a product is good enough to warrantee it shouldn't matter who owns it ! Remember guys you vote with your $ so support the manufacturers who back up their products with no reservations. Competition will weed out those who think they make such good stuff that they dictate the rules. The marketplace is littered with the bones of good companies who forgot that the customer is king and they exist because of them.

My advice is don't buy their products and let see who is suffering in the long run.

There is usually a reason for a change in policy like this. The most logical one being that too many pieces are breaking. I bought a used KAV-500 which required fixing twice. They did fix it under warranty and they also paid to replace the drivers in one of my speakers the amp took out. They took a while to do it, but they did do it. Maybe they are just tired of being good guys, but I doubt that is the reason. I did like the sound of the amp though.