Are High End Audio Products Unreliable?

03-03-12: Inna
"Megabuck German table with junk switch and unreliable motor? Are you kidding me? Thank you for telling us that. No TW Acustic for me. Ever".

Sorry, but I could'nt agree less. Firstly, by current insane standards for turntables, the Raven one is relatively cheap. Now $20,000+ seems routine these days.

Secondly, all gear can have problems, Thomas, the TW designer was clear that this was the first motor that had ever needed replacing, other than one other, injured by dropping the unit. That's pretty good.

Nottingham turntable motor is designed to run all the time, and from what I heard they do break too but rarely.
And how do you know that Thomas told you the truth? Not to mention that power switch. Nottingham has none. I say go British - Nottingham, SME, Simon Yorke. Or, of course, some American. Germans not needed.

I don't know how anyone can go from one anecdotal account of a failure to a generalization about the product, the company producing the product and the company's country of origin. Rush Limbaugh would be proud of such leaps of logic (supporter of healthcare coverage for contraceptives to slut demanding payment for sex).

There could be a variety of reasons even good product lines will have occasional problems that are NOT the result of trying to cheat the customer, cutting corners, etc. Sometimes the company gets a bad batch of parts or the parts supplier changes the part without notifying its customers. This can happen to a company with a great record for reliability and quality control. An example of that would be the brief period of time when Basis motor controls were prone to premature failure. I own a Basis table and I am amazed at the machining tolerance of critical parts--no discernable runout issues with any of rotating parts--something I cannot say for some of the tables mentioned above.

I have great respect for Nottingham tables. But, I knew a dealer that had a brief period when several tables suffered motor failures in a matter of a few weeks after the sale. The distributor said that one batch of motors from the supplier were bad. These things happen.

I don't think high end gear is particularly prone to such failures, it is just more painfull when something expensive goes bad. What I have found is that most high end dealers work to get things right and make the customer happy even when that means doing repairs for free well outside of the warranty period.

I agree w Larryi and also point out that if you are operating on the bleeding edge, then you have to expect more failures. Nascar or F1 engines only go 500-600 miles or less between rebuild and or junking. Fuel dragster engines maybe a mile or 2. does that make them unreliable?

Larryi,
Rush would need two life times to equal the mangled logic of Bill Maher or Chris Matthews have provided.