Factory service for products from the 90's

Lamm never authorized third party repair or made schematics available. I do have a guy here in Austin who rebuilds pre-war tube amps, so if I needed him to work on the Lamm ML2s, I suppose I could get his help. But, Elina is planning on opening a facility in Florida. Let’s see how that goes- I’d rather stick with the factory, despite the shipping factor (I lived in NY for a long time and had Lamm service my equipment regularly -- we would drive it from the Lower Hudson Valley to Deep Brooklyn). I’m now in Texas, which means shipping by air freight if I continue to rely on the factory. So far, I haven’t had a need-- Vlad went over the amps before I moved down here full time, 5 years ago and I’m pretty well stocked with extra tube sets.

Sorry Vlad passed. He was a good guy.

The simpler the circuit the easiest to repair, that is why vacuum tube power amps and most preamps can be repaired. Only with custom made ic’s and sime mechanical parts things are getting tough but even then substitutes may exist as some reputable individuals. Problem is that they are getting older too.

I don’t understand why anyone would expect to get a 30 year old or more piece of equipment fixed.  Would you try that with a 30 year old car?  If you want to be able to get service almost forever, look into McIntosh.  They are very reliable and the factory backs all old products when possible.  I bought a 10 year old McIntosh integrated amp in 2017.  As of today, I have never, ever encountered a problem with it.  In 2017 I paid $3200.00 for it, today the asking price on the same unit is $5000.00.   

My very early model Lamm preamp has been back to them a couple times in the past few years or so. Despite the shipping cost, I was happy to have it repaired. I had a fifty year old car that could be fixed, easily. It too was a 'classic'. 

@stereo5- I’ve owned cars that dated back to WWI. Some of the great cars were made pre-WWII. The analogy fails. There are pieces of equipment that are well worth restoring- old WE, Saul/Sid era Marantz, etc.

(there are many post war cars that are great, but whether they are worth restoring for market sake, e.g. BMW 3.0CS, Mercedes 300 6.3, etc. is a different question).

If your point is that the only safe bet is McI, I’ll disagree, though I’ve had McI stuff since the late ’60s- early ’70s and still use it. It is one of many that came out of WWII as mil-spec.