In your experiance, how are refurbished units?

[Curtis]

Have you found that refurbished receivers, cd changers, etc. are just as good as new ones, or have you had a lot of problems with refurbished units? I'm wondering if it's worth buying refurbished...

[Geoffcin]

Have you found that refurbished receivers, cd changers, etc. are just as good as new ones, or have you had a lot of problems with refurbished units? I'm wondering if it's worth buying refurbished...

My In-wall rear speakers, and my side surrounds were bought from the manufacturer, Cambridge Soundworks, off of Ebay. They still have a 10 year warrantee from the manufacturer though. Most likely they were not refurbed though, only returned and inspected.

Refurbed electronics have to be bench tested before it goes back to market. If you can get a decent warrantee from the manufacturer then I would go for it.

[bjornb17]

the only company i've bought refurbs from are harman kardon, and they're in great condition.

[This Guy]

I bought a refurb Marantz receiver. It's great, Only a few small scuffles on the remote

[shokhead]

Got my Denon from Dakmart with a full factory 1 year warr and no problems.

[Worf101]

My first receiver was bought refurb but NOT from the manufacturer and that led to problems.. Don't buy refurb receivers from anywhere where all you get is an "in house" warranty that they'll fix it. Cambridge Soundworks refurbs are the shiznit.

Da Worfster :cool:

[Geoffcin]

My first receiver was bought refurb but NOT from the manufacturer and that led to problems.. Don't buy refurb receivers from anywhere where all you get is an "in house" warranty that they'll fix it. Cambridge Soundworks refurbs are the shiznit.

Da Worfster :cool:


WTF is shiznit?!

[hermanv]

Mechanical things wear out so this matters, most electronic devices do not, so there is little to be gained from refurbished with a couple of exceptions.

If its from the original manufacturer they will own the complete test suite for that piece of equipment. So they might ship the unit to the manufacturing site somewhere in China and test it. What do you think? Of course if the unit needed an upgrade to fix a consistent problem you have a good chance they did exactly that, because the cheap upgrade labor is in the same place where the test equipment is.

If its from an after market house, think about this - do they have exotic test equipment and highly paid people that know how to run it? Refurbished probably means: "we turned it on and no smoke came out, let us know if you have any problems." Oh by the way, "we rubbed some shoe polish in that scratch, you can hardly see it even if if you know where to look."

Do you think that expensive CRTs or projection bulbs were actually replaced in that projection TV or overhead projector?

Of course not everyone is a crook but reality of equipment and labor costs limit what is likely.

On the other hand most electronics lasts 20 years so the risk is pretty small.

I bought a refurbished Alesis CD recorder, it had to go back to the shop twice but they did fix it and I did save about $700.

Are you usually lucky? :D

[Curtis]

The Onkyo receiver I'm thinking about buying refurb was factory refurbished and comes with a 1 year onkyo warrantee. It's almost 1/3 the price it was new, so I think it's a good deal.

[topspeed]

I bought a Toshiba portable DVD player refurb'd a couple of years ago to keep the kiddies occupied on a 6 hour flight. It arrived 2 days before we left and consequently died 1 hour after arrival. The local authorized Toshiba repair center wouldn't honor the refurb warranty, even though it was suppossedly a Toshiba factory 90 day warranty. I called the online place I bought it from (can't remember the name) and they told me to send it back for a replacement. Considering I was leaving for the east coast in less than 48 hours, this wasn't an option. Thankfully, they sent a new refurb'd unit before I sent the defective one back. It arrived the morning we left for the airport. Whew!

For the aggravation, trepidation, and sheer hassle of it all, I won't buy refurb'd again unless it's directly from the factory and comes complete with a new warranty like CSW's.

[kexodusc]

I've had good and bad experiences...I'd say that I have saved a good chunk of money buying refurb units over the years if you add them all up, but the few problem pieces were awefully inconvenient at the time...
Ya pays yer money, ya takes yer chances.

[shokhead]

I had several places say,sure you get a factory warr but they were not on Denons website as one of the places to use. I didnt.

[Worf101]

WTF is shiznit?!

Shiznit is slang for "Da S**t". It's a compliment. Like if I said "G'dog was the shiznit last night" it translates to "Geoffcin performed quite well last evening". Hope this helps....

Da Worfster :cool:

[EdwardGein]

The only used stuff I'll buy, if the thread was differentiating between refurbished and used, I appologize, is something that I'll get a great deal on with a huge savings- i.e. I bought a $1200 plus tax Denon 3801 receiver on Ebay for $450 postpaid as a Buy it Now Item that works great but only if the seller has an excellent feedback record and the product is complete (i.e. with instructions & the remote) and is listed as very good or better quality. Anytime on Ebay you see the words "As Is", "powers up", do not buy. Repeat do not buy! A major warning on Ebay. I guess that 30% of the bids made are from shill bidders used by if in fact they are not the seller himself, to jack up the prices. Anytime you see someone with 0 to 2 feedback bidding, its usually a shill. Do you ever notice how these people very seldom bid for an item near the closing. Also if an item has not had a bid at all and then after a few days gets one and 5 minutes later a bidder with 0 to 2 feedback bids on the item, it wasn't by chance! I generally use the buy it now option even if I may have to pay some extra money so I don't have to go through the hassle. If I bid, I only bid in the last 10 seconds, anyone who bids after an initial bid before the last few hours is a fool as your just throwing money away unless you have no way to get to your computer to bid. If Ebay was smart & cared about its members which they don't and wanted to run a fairer auction, they would close the auction in the last 2 hours to only people who had placed a bid prior to that. But Nooooooooooooooooo.

As I advised someone on another thread not having a warranty is no big deal if you've saved a huge amount of money anyway and everything works fine. If it breaks later on, so you have to spend a couple of hundred dollars out of pocket, your still better off overall in what you saved.