General Forum

Re: Why I may not buy any more B&O

linder — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 15:22:49 GMT

It is true. It is a challenge to be an owner of B&O products in the US. However it is not unlike other products at this level. If your repairs were done at a B&O authorized shop, I would complain directly to Bang & Olufsen North America. They would want to know if someone had a bad experience. When I purchased a Beocenter 2 a few years ago, B&O telephoned twice to ask if I was satisfied. I told them I really liked the BC2 but it would be really cool if I could remotely open the aluminum doors. The caller laughed and said they heard that a lot.

i recently had a Beomaster 7000 serviced. The repair took about a week and was under $100.00. The Beomaster 7000 worked fine but I want it to last another 20 years. Weak capacitors were replaced and the unit cleaned. Try that with a 15 year old Sony amplifier!

Actually ordering parts is the same in North America as it is in Europe except it takes a little longer to get the parts. Usually parts come from the B&O facility in the Czech Republic.

I could mention a few other B&O experiences but they were all equally positive. I don't think that a love hate relationship is possible with Bang & Olufsen. I think B&O products are wonderful. They are unique and well designed. I don't like everything they make but on the whole I am very satisfied.

Re: Why I may not buy any more B&O

mfirst — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 12:41:30 GMT

B&O is a love hate relationship.

I love going into my Dealer's store - great people, smart, know the stuff, good to talk with. The repair guy is the one I think they use for complex stuff and may be B&O authorized - I HAVE NO PROBLEMS WITH THEM. My problem is that the stuff is expensive to buy, maintain, and repair. Parts have to be custom ordered. The U.S. is not like Europe or Denmark on this regard. I understand that it is a special product, but in this day and age it is now a different world with different expectations. Sure if I bought some real exotic European sports car then the result would be the same - but mainsteam luxury is not that way. Like I said - look at BMW, Infiniti (cars), Porsche, etc - there is clearly a level of customer service that is part of the corporate agenda. I am not blaming my dealer - they can only deal with what Denmark sends them and establishes as policy.

-michael

Re: Why I may not buy any more B&O

Daniel Seiler — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 01:20:27 GMT

So, any updates on this topic? Because i think that's quite interessting to hear how this came out...

Re: Why I may not buy any more B&O

joeyboygolf — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 15:31:26 GMT

From what I can gather, the price of B&O spares is about the same wherever you buy them.

This is vintage electronics we are talking about here. There are very few manufacturers who still make spares modules available 20+ years after production.

99% of CD problems in BC9000's can be cured by replacing components which cost cents. There is no need to replace the module. You just need to find a service center who knows what they are doing.

Re: Why I may not buy any more B&O

Jandyt — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 14:56:56 GMT

Hear, hear!
I totally agree with you ipaul.

Andy T.

Re: Why I may not buy any more B&O

ipaul — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 14:46:51 GMT

Michael, i'm kind of lost here, or missing something ??

You write it did not go to a B&O shop, you had to pay an icredible bill for , basically, a not repaired set and you blame B&O for it ?

I agree with Graham (and believe me, i'm also critizising B&O where appliccable): any technician with proper skills should be able to open and service almost all B&O equipment.

I''ve fixed already quite some different B&O things without doc and most of it is really service friendly and well designed so one can swap parts / service relatively easy.

Also if you don't have parts ''close to home'' for sure a dealer would send it to you (or a proper repair center) if needed.

I have to admit nowadays i'm kind of dissapointed too when i can't get parts for some of my 20 years old stuff anymore but from any other brand you wouldn't get parts after 5 years !

Which brand sells (still !!) the battery lid and even the rubber feet for a remote control ??? (indeed: B&O).

So yeah, if i understood your story correct you should ''blame'' a repairshop for being unable to fix or at least proper advice on this repair.

If their excuse is ''exotic equipment'' i would say if one lacks skills to service ''service-friendly'' equipment, they shouldn't touch it at all and leave it to people who can....

PS: is it a BeoCenter 9000 ???, they needed 6 months to find out the cd player isn't available anymore (after 20 years..) ??

One phonecall of 3 mins could have told them that.

Apart from that, sometimes (like on German Ebay: 50 euro) here and there new exchange units still pop up (i believe it's a Philips CDM4 mechanism).

Re: Why I may not buy any more B&O

mfirst — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 14:34:50 GMT

Sure it is all modular - and the price of those modules from what I hear is very expensive, at least here in the U.S. Furthermore, in the case of my Mom's system, we were told (and confirmed in a previous discussion on this forum) that the CD modules are no longer available. I think she also had some speaker rot in her Redlines. I know in the case of my BS1 the CD and power modules - whatever that means - got fried somehow.........

-michael

Re: Why I may not buy any more B&O

Kokane81 — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 14:23:43 GMT

Yeah its not B&O's fault they don't control how much a technician charges to repair things.

I know of one place that charges £45 a hour and most things are fixed within a few hours now a days because it's mostly modular parts.

plus this place will repair items upto a cost of £120 anything after that they will call the owner

You just had a bad experiance with those guys

Re: Why I may not buy any more B&O

joeyboygolf — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 14:18:21 GMT

I have owned B&O stuff since 1979 and I have never needed to have any of it fixed by a service center. The equipment is in fact relatively simple but wrapped up to look smart.

I do believe that service companies assume that they can charge extra high prices to fix B&O equipment. Why? 'Cos they think they can get away with it.

I would see if you can get a look at the invoice for this service work and then make a judgement.

Re: Why I may not buy any more B&O

Mico — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 13:05:50 GMT

I'm a little confused. Was the system BS9000 or a BC9000?

Regardless of this in Finland you typically ask for an estimate of repair costs when you leave the system and if the costs exceed the estimate repair shop has to contact the customer for approval. You may leave an open voucher but this is normally not recommended. So called "major repair" is around 600€ plus parts. This is not going into thousands of $'s but can be very costly anyway. The official B&O repair shop (there is only one in Finland) charges around 70€/hour for repair.

Repair costs in Belgium were much lower than the Finnish ones. B&O streamlined their repair chain in Europe a while ago. My repair shop in Belgium was "discharged" in this process. This did not affect their abilities with the old systems in any respect but might have had impact on the repair costs.

Re: Why I may not buy any more B&O

Alex — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 11:53:28 GMT

Sounds to me like you've been seriously scammed! B&O do not scam people, if they did, they would not have been in business for 80+ years...

A BeoCenter 9000 will NEVER cost that much to repair, not in a million years.

Don't just accept what happened, get in touch with the company who did the repair, see why it cost such an absolutely ridiculous amount of money, and if necessary, contact trading standards (not sure how this is done in the US to be honest with you!).

Re: Why I may not buy any more B&O

expoman — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 10:47:13 GMT

Where you you live? I just had my Beocenter 9000 repaired by the shop in Las Vegas total cost $250.00 labor plus two new glass panels because the glue had failed, cost $250.00. The tech fixed the CD player. It was not the laser only a couple of resistors. Total $500.00 plus sales tax. I think you just got bad service.

Re: Why I may not buy any more B&O

mfirst — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 10:31:27 GMT

The fraud and larceny is on B&O not the tech who has to fix and deal with this nonsense

-michael

Re: Why I may not buy any more B&O

soundproof — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 10:27:02 GMT

If she paid several thousand dollars to have her Beocenter 9000 repaired, then someone should be arrested and charged with fraud and larceny. That dealership or repairshop should have suggested that it would be much more economical to purchase a BS4, for instance. (Must say I'm skeptical of the amount you quote.)

I agree with your point about B&O stores in the US, there are just too few of them.

Why I may not buy any more B&O

mfirst — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 09:49:55 GMT

Sure looks nice, sure plays well, sure easy to use??????

Several months ago I posted a question about my mother's Beosystem 9000 CD drive not work and some "problem" with her speakers. After about 6 months of "being in the shop" she finally got it back - and she is too ashamed to tell me how much she spent to have it "fixed" - although it was several thousand dollars (US). So after all of that - how does she play music? The CD was never fixed and she was given some kind of cable system to plug the Tape-2 into the line out on her Bose WaveRadio/CD - and that is how she plays her CDs. I mentioned that she should just plug in her iPod, but whoever "fixed" this never explained/set-up how to do that. It was not a dealer (since the nearest dealer is 200km from where she lives and they just contract out to this guy. This guy was the same who charged me US$400 (or so) to repair my 4 year/old BS1 (I posted my experience with this a while back).

This stuff is just to expensive and complicated to deal with beyond just turning it on/off and simple functions. Sure once you have some dedicated specialist set it all up for you and spend zillions it may be great - but have mercy if anything goes wrong or if you dont know anything about basic electronic stuff.

Now, I am just waiting for my BS3200 to breakdown - regardless of how much I payed, unlikely that it is worth fixing considering the headache. You Europeans are lucky that you have B&O stores in every town and a reasonable network of repair systems. But, here in the third world (USA) we are not so fortunate.

Next time.......... I will shop for some Japanese brand or at least something with standard cables, interfaces, "modern" technology that works! And when it breaks.......doesn't require a PhD to get it fixed (or is easy enough to just replace!)

-michael