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has anyone had problems with wadia service?

i have a wadia 381, and for some reason when it is turned on it now emits a high pitched tone, which can best be described as sounding like that of a flying insect. i have called wadia several times and most of the time i get an automated message - on some occasions i get an announcement saying "thank you for calling wadia" other times it says "thank you for calling audio research". it almost seems like there is no one there. the whole thing just gives me the sense that something strange is going on (like, maybe wadia is about to go under).

in any event, i am currently stuck with a cd player that doesn't work and no apparent way to get it fixed. has anyone else had problems contacting wadia?
paperw8
paperw8 OP
165 posts
 

08-24-12: Bizango1
They should have handled their move better and had a plan to take care of their customers. I bought a 121 that didn't work properly in my system a couple weeks ago. Called and didn't get a response to a VM in 24 hrs. Since I read about their communication issues I called back and got a very nice and concerned cust serv rep on the phone who said he would run it by engineering and get back to me. It has been two weeks and I haven't heard back. That's too long in my book. No worries though, my online dealer has already swapped it out for the Rega that works perfectly. So I'm not really unhappy in the end. I've had no issues with their phone system or emails-they just didn't call back (yet). Maybe the note flew out the window on the highway to their new facility.

it seems to me that the fundamental issue is that you just didn't like the unit. if you don't like the produce *and* you perceive poor service - that's doubly bad.

in my case, i actually like the cd player, and my previous customer service encounters had actually been pretty good. my sense is that the current problem is temporary; the biggest problem that i had was that i just didn't know what was going on which led me to wonder if the company was going under.
bizango1
276 posts
 
Paperw8,
Did I say I didn't like it? I DID like the sound, the look, features, built-in headphone amp, even the brand name. Two things I didn't like: it clearly did not function as designed and the Wadia guy said so, and no response after two weeks to an acknowledged operational flaw. The DAC's relays clicked loudly and continuously whenever the transport was paused, clicked at the beginning of each song, and frequently cut off the first few notes. This wasn't a matter of liking but a matter of working. It just didn't work. The Rega I have now works perfectly in the same setup.
dr_john
66 posts
 
They still haven't gotten that act together - I bought my 27/0 combo in 1996 and from reading these posts, nothing has changed in 15-16 years. Shoddy customer service is in their DNA.
paperw8 OP
165 posts
 
bizangol,

i think i did a bit of projecting of my own thinking here (which assumed that you would think that same way that i would). my thinking is, if i had a unit that didn't work, i don't think that i would like it very much. if i contacted the manufacturer and they didn't/couldn't do anything about it, then i probably would have liked the unit even less; and likely would have ditched the unit, as you did.
paperw8 OP
165 posts
 
dr_john,

i can't speak to the way things were in 1996, but shoddy customer service was not my experience a couple of years ago. so for me, the recent experience (although i have had admittedly limited experience with wadia) was a new one.
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