Conrad Johnson Repair Issues

With the continuing passage of time and no response from pereza, it has become evermore clear that this post is either a hoax or an exercise in badly flawed judgement. Why then, should CJ choose to dignify it by entering into a public debate?  

CJ is a small company (I believe on the order of 10-15 people). Mega companies like BMW, GM, Apple, Microsoft, etc. and their dealers must receive thousands of such complaints daily. They also have huge staffs to deal with service, marketing and public relations issues. Nonetheless, something like this would be dealt with in the manner that CJ already has - directly with their customer. That's an industry best practice, why should they do more?  

Pereza via the original post initiated this plea for advice and presumably support to all of us. He's now missing in action. The rest of us are clamoring for more from him. His non response is deafening with its silence. We've been fooled and it's time to move on. Removing this entire post sense makes for the reasons I've cited, it's a sham, why allow it to continue?

There are a number of things that could be going on, I think we should wait before condemning either party.

I’m relieved to report that my CJ repair saga has come to a close. I was finally permitted to speak to Mr. Johnson & we came to an agreement whereby they would essentially purchase the repaired Premier 17 from me at a price that represents what I would have netted from
the sale of an undamaged preamp minus the repair charges for replacing a capacitor. Pretty much a wash dollar wise for both parties. He felt the unrepairable shipping damage would knock maybe $500.00 off the resale value. I was more pessimistic.
Mr. Johnson was very pleasant & once he realized what had happened seemed compelled to make things right.
He wasn’t there when the damaged shipment was received & he wasn’t the one who threw away the box making any insurance claim hopeless. He agreed that the whole thing seemed odd but added that CJ receives about 2 preamps & one amplifier per year damaged in shipping so it’s not unheard of.
I was fortunate that when I was first told about the damage I got a little agitated & hung up before giving my credit card info. Otherwise the whole affair would just have gone by the wayside.
Also If I didn’t have another preamp I would have just paid out of desparation to get my tunes back.
The repair manager initially just demanded payment & advised me that I could deal with any insurance claim on my own. When I didn’t respond to phone calls & emails requesting payment he offered to sell me some current CJ products at a discount. The U.S. Post Office confirmed to me that the party who receives the damaged shipment is responsible for filing any damage claims.
I understand that the repair of my 15 year old, out of production product is pretty far down the profit margin food chain but until Mr. Johnson got involved this was an unacceptably low level of service. My 2006 dealing with their repair dept. was so different. A comparison of the 2006 invoice, for the exact same repair, shows that the stereo repair industry has been hit very, very hard by inflation.
I may have started off the transaction poorly with multiple phone calls & emails asking about progress. I really did want to know what technically had happened. What specifically was damaged? Did I do anything that caused or contributed to the damage? Is there anything I could do or not do to help prevent future damage? My curiosity may have been misinterpreted as pressure or unhappiness with the estimated charges.
I know everybody’s busy but there was no chit-chatting with these guys.
But hey… “all’s well that ends well”… Mostly.
I came out of this experience without any monetary damage & still love the products. I will continue to be loyal to the brand.
My wife & I listen to it every day & marvel at the depth, detail & warmth it produces.
My wife is a classically trained musician who loves many genres of music. The quality of reproduced music took on much greater meaning after acoustic neuroma surgery resulted in loss of hearing in one ear. She might just be trying to make me feel good but she insists that a quality preamp provides a sense of depth she can feel even with only one ear.
We listen to it extensively every day. The preamp vs. no preamp discussion has to be one of the most argued over Audiogon topics of all time. I feel the current technology CJ preamp actually digs out more detail than the straight Dac to Amplifier configuration I tried while adding an element of warmth & musical soul.


I truly hope that my experience was an exception not the norm.

Cheers!

Pereza - I'm very happy to hear that you and CJ have reached a satisfactory settlement. It's also good of you to respond back to all of us that had taken an interest in your situation. Best wishes for much future musical enjoyment and high equipment reliability. 
Mike

Scratches CJ Off my list no matter what.

They should never have accepted it to begin with, or notified you at the very start of the process, not afterwards. Also sounds like they overcharged you for a capacitor replacement.

Well, I'm a long ways from buying tubes again, but now I know.

Thanks for the update,


Erik