Electrocompaniet owners

All of what has been posted is accurate. While Electro has been around for 30+ years, they have historically been slow and/or uncaring about after sales service. It is both a combination of cultural differences between the US and Norway and the way the company has always been privately funded and managed. The CD player is great. The old 25 and 60 watt amps were the better amps. Their pre amps have always had problems.

MAS Imports were one of the best importers (now Camelot Technologies) and if they gave up, then think twice about Electro separates.

Stick with your Bel(great amp)and take the time to listen to and select a preamp that does what you want it to. Maybe you need to repost your thread and focus on recommendations for a new preamp. I have gone passive, and have not paid much attention to preamps for some time. But, I have listend to the following and like what I have heard. I am also familar with your amp. Consider CJ, BAT, Sonic Frontier, 47 Labs and Manley. Good luck.

Well Said, and thanks for a voice of reason.
Rusty

The only way to get Electrocompaniet to care about their customers and improve on their service, is to stop buying their products. This does the job most of the time, in the business world. I don't care how good their CDP is, how cheap it can be bought; if the service is poor I'm going elsewhere. Which I have done.

Electrocompaniets current wowes with customers isn't something new to them. Years ago customers complained of amps "blowing up". I'm hesitant to repeat "rumours" but the reason "rumoured" for the past problems was blamed on a distributor who took it on himself to "moddify" the amps by removing some protection circuitry in an effort to improve the sound. I have always liked Electrocompaniets stuff, though it really isn't to my particular taste. I always thought of their stuff as being a poor man's Mark Levinson. There seems to be a place for something like that. Untill the current debacle with Subaruguy is cleared up in a satisfactory and expediant manner I can no longer recommend their stuff. Damn shame that an other wise legitimate company suffers because they can't get their distributors in line. Buy Electrocompaniet at your own risk!

There are way better components out there for amp and pre then the Electrocompaniet. I went through all of this for the past year, tried many preamps and amps. AND when it all came down to it, they each have their own personallity. I preferred the Pass Labs components in my system. Are they the best I heard, No, but overall, there is no best, just compromises. After buying the Pass, I inquired about a shorter connecting cable between the preamp and power supply for the X-1. This is cheap cord that I probably could have bought for under $10. Peter at Pass asked for my home address and within two days, I had a cord delivered, at their cost. Look at my recent thread and see how they handle customers even after the warranty is over.

Sorry, but the EMC-1 is now off of my list, remember it may be very good but there are others that are just as good plus I can get treated like they want me as a customer.

Peter