[sephka]

I know the use of the MG Heads has fallen out of fashion in the last few years, but I’ve had a terrible “repair” experience (perhaps more accurately dubbed “nightmare,” “outrage,” or “outright ripoff”) with one and I felt I should let the people of this forum know of it.

Divergent Technologies is the North American supplier of Antique Sound Lab products. Since I bought my amp (MG Head DT OTL), I observed that the transformer jack exhibited the infamous buzzing in the left channel when the feedback was off, and sometimes even when it was on. In addition to this the OTL jack had the stereo channels reversed. I contacted Antique Sound Lab about how best to approach this, and they said Divergent Technologies could service it. Long story short, I went off to the post office, mailed it off for a substantial sum of $30, and have been without it for over a month.

These jokers are trying to tell me there are no problems with the thing. Since the buzzing is somewhat power-related, I could possibly buy that it would somehow disappear in a different location (even though I tried every outlet in my own home, various cables, various tubes… just about everything you can imagine). Of course, the buzzing had been evident on probably every single listening session I had done, which amounts to thousands of hours. I asked if they could do the repair for buzzing regardless, and they refused. I know from personal experience in opening the damn thing that it, in part at least, is a pretty simple matter to at least “tame” the buzzing.

That aside, they have the nerve to tell me there is “no fault with the unit” at all, which means they didn’t even notice the reversed OTL jack channels. Despite numerous attempts on my part to at least get an acknowledgment that the OTL jack reverses channels and that this needed to be fixed, nothing was done. This is pure conmanship, laziness, or ignorance, none of which are acceptable.

It’s not in my nature to be unfair, and I’m not even that angry, because I was only half expecting a repair due to this company’s poor reputation and the negative experiences I’ve read on the forum. In any case, I hope this further indicates how Divergent Technologies is, at best, a spotty company with a poor repair record that has certainly done this customer wrong.

 

[gpalmer]

Sorry to hear about your experience. It's very frustrating but this type of experience is one of the big reasons they fell out of favor around here and why a number of resellers stopped carrying them. Too many broken units were shipping. It's a pity since they were always great bang for the buck units when they worked.

 

[sephka]

Haha, only one reply? Well, I guess that's proof enough that ASL/Divergent Technologies have fallen out of favor. Back in 2002 or 2003 this sort of thread could easily spill into a few pages.

In any case, I hope this post does indeed serve as a warning to future buyers considering ASL/Divergent Technologies.

 

[SWS]

Wow! Last time I visited regularly, these were among the amps to have... now I return to find that there only the tumbleweeds are visiting their shop... How times change!

 

[tkam]

The reason they aren't in favor anymore is because of their terrible reliability and overall bad service. That and they have a lot more competition in their price range than they did a few years ago.

 

[Blasyrkh]

is it the first model of the mg head??
hope the new mk3 aren't faulty

 

[sephka]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blasyrkh is it the first model of the mg head?? hope the new mk3 aren't faulty

Yes, it is the first model. I think the revisions should fix the buzzing issue. However, if you get a bum unit, no matter what model or revision, be warned that Divergent Technologies may very well give you the runaround and refuse to fix your faulty product, as they did with me.

 

[Blasyrkh]

i'm from italy, so i'll never have to deal with Div. Tech.

still i hope that even if i buy it from italian distributor, it doesn't (and will never) have problems

 

[nblis]

I just bought an UHC Signature, and it doesn't work right out of the box. Everything is dead center, even when I use my speaker set up disk.

Oh well, I am done with ASL and Upscale audio who sold me the UHC. We don't need their crap.

Noel

 

[Towert7]

Wow sephka, what a coincidence. I just ran across the ASL headphone amps today when viewing audioadvisor.com and also came up to Divergent Technologies. I'm very thankful for the heads up, (even though it was at your expense).

It's too bad too, because from the sounds of it they had some potential for their price range. Oh well.

~Thanks again

 

[Born2bwire]

The problems did not use to be a big deal because Joe Lau was active on the forums. The last time we had a series of problems he more than corrected them. But Divergent has always been nothing but headaches when it comes to repairing obviously faulty amps.

EDIT: I would strongly suggest seeing if you could e-mail ASL directly with your problems. I don't know if you will get any results but if they get enough complaints maybe ASL would be pressured to find a different NA distributor.

 

[euclid]

i'm sorry for your experience, ive read alot of quality complaints with ASL products in general. the amps look great IMHO and a good deal on top of that, but shoddy workmaship lingers under the surface, search audiogon about this topic.

 

[tyrion]

I've had an ASL MG Head OTL32(latest version), mainly for a preamp for the last 2 months and so far so good. From what I understand they are moving away from internet sales and into brick and mortar shops. I've had a chance to hear the AQ1001DT and a pair of their mono block amps. They sound great. The AQ1001DT beat out the Cayin KT88 integrated in both sq and build quality. I've never owned an ASL product before so I haven't had the bad experience that others have had.

 

[AlanY]

I was under the impression that ASL was losing a lot of dealers because of the quality issues and competition from other Chinese companies with better quality (Prima Luna, Cayin, etc.). Kevin Deal of Upscale Audio stopped carrying them and is still trying to sell the last of his stock. There's a great quote on his website: "We don't know anything about Mk1, Mk2, etc. Every shipment showed up different, so we never knew what was in an ASL box. So think of it as the Mystery Grab Bag."

 

[kentamcolin]

Sorry to hear about your experience. Unfortunately I have to agree with other posters who say they fell out of favor because of poor quality and even worse customer service. I could understand some of this with a new manufacturer just getting started, but ASL has never improved their reliability or service. There are many better options out there now and I'll never buy another one.