[jlaseter]

Hi all.
 
I'm really just posting this as a final step in my relationship/ordeal with tamaudio.com. Forgive me for using the board just for griping, but I feel also that others should tread carefully when dealing with this company/seller. Beware false promises and shiny baubles! Horrible experience to say the least.
 
I started a couple of months ago by purchasing a Matrix M-Stage amp, and absolutely loved it! I heard about modding it into Class A and couldn't resist the thought of improving on this thing. Unfortunately, my experience with a solder gun is very limited (as is my time). So I was delighted to hear that tamaudio.com sold a pre-made OPA627 package on a dual-socket-to-single-socket adapter. Schweet.
 
Here's what happened:
Ordered October 31st, 2012.
Waited.
...
...
...
Learned what fun it is to wait on some items to pass through Chinese customs.
Waited some more.
...
...
...
November 28th, 2012 rolls around. Opamp has arrived, packed in a bubble-wrap-lined envelope with a sturdy foam encasement for the chip itself.
The chip has 1 pin missing, looking like it had been quite cleanly broken off.
 
So, like anybody would, I wanted a working product for the 30 bones I paid. I visited the tamaudio web page and proceeded to fill out the return form. Unfortunately, the return form is missing a field for "Reason for Return", which is a mandatory field. I tried this in Firefox, Internet Explorer 8, and Chrome. No dice.
 
I next used the "Contact Us" Link. And used it once again on Dec. 2nd. At the time of this writing there has been no response. I have been left with nothing, and $30 poorer. Good thing I didn't by my amp directly from the tamaudio site, or I'd be out quite a bit more!

In short, this seller has no consistency, unless selling via eBay (coolfungadget) or Amazon. I will renew my faith in him only when I have been given what I paid.
 
Am I the only one?

 

 

 

[Armaegis]

$30 for two 627's mounted on an adapter with a class A mod... when the 627's are roughly $25 each from digikey? That seems fishy to me... 

 

[jlaseter]

From the little (very little) I read regarding these opamps, these looked genuine to me, but yeah. I guess I just expected it to be legit, since Mike from Headfonia recommended the pre-built mods from tamaudio anyway. 

FIY: Mike wrote Headfonia's guide on the Class-A biasing mod for the M-Stage, so I had no reason to think twice about it.
 
Either way, real or knockoff, I'd have liked the thing to work.
 
 
Edit: Of course, I'd like to get a response from jtam on this forum, but a PM and a thread don't seem to be enough to catch his attention.