[Joe Lau]

Sure ! You can return it for repair ! i only think it amy be waste too much time on it and suggest him to cut the switch most people no need it !

Yes ! It is my wrong ! May be he can looking for a electrician to help him and I willing to pay it ! It just take only 1 more 2 minute to cut the resistors.

New shipment problem is corrected.

 

[Kieran Comito]

Joe, I think at this junture I should just send the amp section back to divergent for repair. Ideally, I think we should just exchange my deffective amp for a new one. Frankly, I can't believe you have not offered to do that to begin with. The ball is in your court. Do the right thing.

Everyone. Thank you all very much for your input. I have learned a great deal.

 

[Orpheus]

if you send it to divergent, you better make sure they know exactly what's wrong, and that you spoke to joe about it! i sent two separate MG Heads to Divergent before, and BOTH times they were NOT fixed. once Divergent claimed that there was nothing wrong.... (though the technician that sent it had already verified that i was right)... and the second time they did nothing at all, and had the technician fix it at my expense. they are ******** up people... so again, make sure that joe talks to them before you send it over. or you might be out of an amp for a 1/2 year just like me. and hell, yours costs about 5x more than mine!

and if i were you, i would insist on a true and new replacement, not a "fix." for that price, you should expect the best.

 

[Nightfall]

Quote:

Originally posted by Orpheus this is the only place in the world that i have ever heard of a person paying $1800 for a new amplifier, then personally having to "fix" a problem by disabling another feature. and ASL is the only company i have ever known to ask such a thing of a customer. what should ASL have done?--recall all the amps. and.... if you cannot wait for yours to be repaired, the least they can do is send you a new amp immediately and wait for yours to be returned. that's the least a company can do that's selling such hella-expensive pieces. have you ever heard of another company with such nerve!? you're not a technician.... you weren't even sure what a resistor looked like. why fudge around with one of the most expensive headphone amps ever made?, when it's totally Antique Sound Lab's responsibility to give you an amp worthy of your $1800. (get ready for my next ASL ass-kicking thread. i just received my 4th ASL amp, and NONE of those 4 operated correctly out of the box... gave ASL 4 chances.... i think that's plenty.)

EXACTLY my thoughts!!! If you have read my thread titled, "ASL Twinhead MkII To Buy Or Not To Buy you will see this kind of thing is EXACTLY why I am in such a quandary. The pre-production CES Twinhead Mk II that Jude was kind enough to provide at the Michigan Meet last week offered simply incredible sound quality. It stole the show, which included many, many outstanding amplifiers. No less than Tuberoller was of the opinion that it is the single best headphone amp that he has heard. However, and its a HUGE however, none of the delivered "production" amps apparently equals this sound, including Kierans. If the problem is just the resistor issue, fine, but who knows if that the extent of it? Much less as you point out, the fact that someone who has paid essentially $2000.00 for an amp is being asked to service it himself. To say nothing of the long noted ASL reliability issues as well as their apparent inability to maintain quality control from one unit to the next.
I never imagined I would say this, but I am seriously starting to regret ever listening to that amp. I may well never hear such magnificent sound from any other amplifier. I was willing to pay, what is for me, a LOT of money to have it simply because nothing else could match or even come close to equalling it.
It appears that the chances of me ever having an opportunity to feel secure in purchasing a Twinhead Mk II that I could reliably trust to produce the same sound quality or even work, out of the box, are very slim. What a terrible, regrettable shame.
Now, due to these circumstances, I am being put in a place where I will have to settle for something that is a distant second to that remarkable amp that we were so fortunate to hear at the meet. Knowing that my only viable, safe option may be to spend a lot of money on another manufacturer's amp that will never satisfy me in comparison to that one is equally depressing.
According to everyone who has met him, Joe Lau is a great guy, and obviously a very gifted amplifier architect, but ASL appears to have terrible production problems. I have three e-mails in to him to discuss the Twinhead MkII and what guarantees he could offer me, but have heard nothing yet. I am not hopeful.


JC

 

[evilcthul]

Nightfall,

Point taken though my experiences with ASL have been fine. My two MG Heads were in good condition so I guess it's a bit of a case of hit and miss.

Having said that, if you purchase through someone like Upscale Audio and make an agreement that you can exchange on defective then I'm sure you can come to some sort of understanding. Joe is kind of busy at the moment (I think) because of the server being down and his expanding of warehouse space due to lots of interest in the Hurricane so I'm not too sure about email. He also stated that he was improving QC with a good burn in period before every amp is shipped.

My personal advice is to buy through a third party like Upscale Audio and Divergent is probably less likely to give them the run around. Also, wait for the new shipment. Alternatively, you can get Joe to check a unit for you and put it in the next shipment. ASL products are great when they're working. You get the best of both worlds in terms of price and performance. Hopefully with enough time it won't be an issue of "when they're working" they'll just work... It's certainly damaging to ship an $1800 US amp and have the end user fix it and I can definitely sympathise with Kieran's situation. If the Twinhead is as good as reviewed then I can see it being a serious piece of gear and obviously if you splurge that much you'd want that piece of gear to be working.

Unfortunately Kieran, you've been caught at the short end of the stick being an early adopter and being faced with QC issues... I hope all goes well for you. I personally think the most elegant solution would be to find a tech savvy friend or a technician to do the work. It's best not to go into the unit yourself.

 

[elrod-tom]

I'm sorry to hear about all of your problems. I would tend to agree that it's pretty unreasonable to expect the end user to pull out the soldering iron to fix a problem on a new amp. At the very least, some kind of arrangement should be made to have a qualified technician make the repair. Given the history, I would hope that some kind of arrangement could be made with a local service person (some kind of credit for $X, to be used at a local repair shop).

I too found the TwinHead II to be an exceptional amp. However, if I were to make such a purchase today (I'm tapped out...the next purchase would have to be made after a divorce settlement

), I would do so with more than a little consideration for what I was in store for after said purchase. What I'm hearing, frankly, scares the hell out of me.

 

[Joe Lau]

Quote:

Originally posted by Kieran Comito Joe, I think at this junture I should just send the amp section back to divergent for repair. Ideally, I think we should just exchange my deffective amp for a new one. Frankly, I can't believe you have not offered to do that to begin with. The ball is in your court. Do the right thing. Everyone. Thank you all very much for your input. I have learned a great deal.

Why I suggest you to do something and I pay for charge ! Due to I know "Divergent"don't have stock ! You need to wait too long time !

I like to solve the problem if you have any suggestion.

 

[Kieran Comito]

I can take it to an audio shop and have a technician fix it. What I want to know, if I do this will it make my unit sound like the CES unit.

 

[Joe Lau]

Quote:

Originally posted by Kieran Comito I can take it to an audio shop and have a technician fix it. What I want to know, if I do this will it make my unit sound like the CES unit.

I konw it is the only problem ! We are not change parts quality. So I think it is the only mistake.

 

[Kieran Comito]

If that is the only thing preventing this unit from sounding like it should, then we have a chance to putting an end to this. I hope I notice a change in the performance. Others will have a chance to hear it too as I plan on going to more meets. So we shall see. Thats all for now. Thanks Joe.

 

[Joe Lau]

Please keep contact with me ! I like to know the result.

 

[andrzejpw]

Good luck Kieran, I hope that your repair goes well. From what it sounds like, it's just a matter of snipping a few resistors out(not a big deal), though I understand how daunting it may seem. I wish you the best of luck and I hope that your twinhead reaches its potential.

 

[lextek]

I've had a few ASL products (MG Heads) and loved and enjoyed them all. I never had a problem with any. But a new $1500 amp should work out of the box. I mean no disrespect to ASL, but come on. Unless I missed something and this unit was purchased knowing it had a problem.

 

[chefbeldar]

How does the Twinhead sound with the R10? I've read the Twinhead does not sound as good with low impedence phones? Is this true?

Mahalo,
Bryan

 

[Kieran Comito]

I never thought the Twin Head was anything special with the R 10s. I do not know if it impendence is the reason or not. I read what a great amp The Twin Head was from people that had heard it. I thought I could not go wrong with this purchase. Boy was I wrong. I do intend to use the Twin Head as a preamp in my main system and you can sure bet I am going to give it another try with the R 10s after I bring it to the shop on monday. For now, the Emmeline HR -2 is the amp of choice for the R 10s. If something better comes along, I will probably be all over it. Again, thanks to everyone for chiming in on this. I still can't believe how helpful everyone on this site is. Anyone want to test the Hurricane for me?