VTL Service ??

I've gotten my response from Luke, and it is the same story. He doesn't want to speak by phone, or help me to fix the switches or get the fuse issue diagnosed without sending everything back to the factory. They will not consider selling parts or schematics that would make this easier. In fact, he even declined my invitation to describe to me upgrades they might be able to do if I ship them to the factory, saying he would talk about that if and when the amps arrived. And he also wouldn't comment on my asking for any recommendations about whether to use the balanced inputs, or aftermarket AC cords, saying if I had a dealer, I should ask them. He did, however, scold me for buying his amps used. I replied that this is diametrically opposed to the attitude they should be taking, and indeed to the one that most manufacturers I've dealt take. I'll try to get the amps running again on my own, because I need to audition them at length before making a commitment to spend over $1,000 on service at this point. Wish me luck!

I have listened to the VTL MB-450 amps and they sounded very
good indeed, so I added them to my list of possible new amps. The favourable reviews and attitudes by TAS,
made me feel even more convinced, that the VTL MB-450´s were
a strong alternative.
But after reading these postings about bad customer service, I changed my mind.
I find that we, the consumers,have gained much more power, with the Web.
According to the liberal economical theory,the market:i.e.
the sum of all individual customers,will award companies
which have and get customers who are contented with their purcases;the product, its price,the service provided before
and after the purcase and even the company´s reputation or goodwill,all this has to be just right,for a company to survive in the long run.Naturally, the marktet will, in the long run, punish companies that fails to meet the above criteria.
In short, with our money we vote which companies are the best to us.
But before the Internet,we were much more restricted in sharing our findings.The Hi-fi magazines (seen as a group)e.g.are too dependent on the manufacturers, to tolerate a free debate.A monopoly of information even in the western countries where money was the paramount key, in a way resembled that of totalitarian states.That was a paradox that had to be be solved by the open society!Remarkable, the money that was put into military research, forced by the Cold War to escalate,provided, -among other things,the root to the Internet as we use it right now.This has provided relief in , but obviously not a total freedom from monopoly or oligopoly tendencies in media.
By reporting good, as well as bad experieces with a certain company, you make us a great favour, in our coming buying decisions.Thank you! Thanks also to Audiogon for publishing
this information!
Sharing information and knowledge about Audio,is the most important way for us to develop as audiophiles.
A free debate,hopefully, may also put an end to, or deminish
the influence of some false myths and ignorance about audio, that has been taken for granted for too long.
I will return to that, soon.
Regards
Håkan
(Sweden)

Well, Hakan, where you are in Sweden, you would presumably be dependent upon the local distributor anyway, not an American company such as VTL itself, so don't let this disuade you from checking out the reputation that disributor might have in your country if you really like the amps. As for the rest of your post, it just makes me glad I didn't grow up in the shadow of the Soviet Union! You are right about the market forces and the internet thing, though, and I reminded Luke Manley of this in my correspondence to him - not that it helped. In fact, I invited him to search for this and other similar threads on Audiogon, and I hope he does. I still think he makes fine amplifiers, and for the money too, but I definitely have encountered more helpful service elsewhere.

I was the second owner of a used vtl Stereo 50/50. It was a great sounding amp but shortly after I bought it it developed a popping noise.When the unit was built it came with a "lifetime transferable warranty".When I spoke to Luke Manley he informed me that vtl no longer honored that warranty. Naturally I was disappointed that they would not stand behind their "warranty",but sent he unit out to have the input caps replaced($200). When I got the amp back it sounded great but within 2 months I had a bad resistor(which I replaced )and then only weeks after that the right output transformer failed. Bea Lam at vtl was very pleasant to deal with, but the fact that they would not stand behind the original warranty caused me to buy a McIntosh amp and preamp. The irony is that when I was trying to get them to honor their word I was auditioning a vtl 2.5 pre and ST85 amp,and their reluctance to do so cost them a customer for life.

I've gotten my MB-185's running with new tubes and higher-rated B+ fuses (now standard on the amp), and have experience no further operational problems. Luke finally talked to me by phone, after deciding that my emails were too long! He was still of very little help, though. "Send them to us" is all VTL will comment, basically. They still refuse to assist me in restoring the missing switches, and seem annoyed that I bought my tubes elsewhere. Frankly, they probably would have already gotten my business on a coupling cap upgrade, if they weren't so guarded and unhelpful about my need to continue auditioning the amps *before* deciding to invest big $ in cartons, shipping costs, time out of the system, etc., not to mention the repairs and parts. I wouldn't want to do an upgrade if I decided to sell the amps, but I would want to do the switch restoration - but at a reasonable cost, which means locally! VTL, however, is emphatically not sympathetic to this logical position, something I will remember before recommending their products to anyone else.