Cambridge Audio products unreliable/unsupported?

Purchased online - dealer is useless ~ more effort to ship to them and time spent waiting than benefit. I tried this path - I also tried to get local repairs done by a Cambridge certified repair shop - no luck.

I have been in contact with Cambridge customer service - they stated that the US distributor (Audio Plus Services) will contact me to resolve the problems.

I will post an update after I hear from Audio Plus.

4 and also 3 years ago I had to send my Cambridge 840C in for repair, once under warranty and once out of warranty.
First time it was a connection that had come undone, the second time it was a faulty power supply. 2 breakdowns in the span of less than 2 years. Both times it was serviced, it was returned to me in working order. After those incidents, later it developed an intermittent nuisance problem - every couple of weeks the unit would freeze=up and not respond to commands, I would have to completely power it down to get it to work. I would rate my experience with the 840C on the low end of reliability given my better experiences with owning other cd players.

Not at all

My CA 650R AV receiver suddenly failed in its audio board and cooked some capacitors with other failed pieces. The unit was 12 months old with very very little use on it. The product was made in China and the risks with buying Chi-Fi are well known to all in advance. Forrest Gump highlighted it best : "S**t happens."

The Canadian warranty is three (3) years assuming that it was purchased from an authorized dealer with an invoice and related proof of purchase. PLURISON here in Canada were polite, prompt and efficient in repairing it: the support was there when I needed it.

Had two CA items, a surround sound receiver and a tuner. Both were already out of warranty but not by so very much when both developed problems. In my view CA products sound good but in my experience are not reliable.

I always maintain the perhaps unrealistic attitude that gear, especially things without moving parts, should never break. Is "Chi-fi" actually more breakdown prone? I would think that could be true if the quality control part of the process is flawed, but I certainly haven't noticed any issues with my current pile of Chinese stuff...if anything my Kavent preamp, Jolida amp, Dacmagic, Squeezebox Touch, and 640p seem extremely well made. Maybe disaster is around the corner...being paranoid will give me something else to do I suppose...living on the edge!