Harman Replys :-)

[poneal]

I copied the EMail from HK and am very happy with the way they resolved this issue. It actually sounds like someone wrote part of that. Very nice touch.

Hi Paul,

I'm sorry to hear of the problem that you are having with your receiver. Electronic problems happen. It is difficult to compare today's home theater receivers with older stereo receivers. There is so much more going on in the new receivers. There isn't much to stereo receivers of 15+ years ago and, as a result, the odds of a malfunction are much less. It's like comparing a car from the 1960s and early 1970s to today's cars. Things were much more basic then. With today's cars, there is much more potential for something to go wrong because of all of the added electronics and features.
The warranty for the AVR320 is actually two years, not three. Perhaps you had an extended warranty. I would like to help with this though. What I will do is authorize parts and labor under warranty. To be fair to the service center, who will be repairing an out of warranty product under warranty, I would ask that you simply pay the remainder of their labor charge for the repair. For example, if our warranty rate is $40.00 and the actual labor cost is $65.00, you would only need to pay the remaining $25.00. You can find an authorized repair center directly from our website. Please visit www.harmankardon.com and click on Product Support. Select Authorized Service Centers and select the type of product and your model. Entering in your zip code will give you service centers close to you. The link below should take you directly to the Service Center Locator.

[kexodusc]

I had a similar experience with Yamaha two years ago. No warranty remaining, but they repaired my receiver under "good will"...So I bought another gladly. Some companies still no how to take care of you.

Toshiba replaced my cheapo dvd player this year, paid shipping both ways (which might have cost more than the actual player itself). Kudos to them too.

My old H/K stereo receiver crapped out after about 3 years. I can't fault H/K though, we ran 4 Cerwin Vegas in college of it, 4 ohms each, every day for 2 years. Most $300 pieces of gear would crawl under a rock if asked to do that. I replaced it with a Technics receiver of all things that actually did the job for the next 2 years until finally melting (literally). Man, I could have used info from this site back then.

[poneal]

Sounds like me when I was younger. You were probably down below 2ohms a some points in the FR using four of those guys. Bet it sounded pretty good though. Quadraphonic :-). I really didn't start having any problems until I built this 3 way which dips down to 3ohms in some tough spots to reproduce--down low. It's definitely a 4ohm speaker. That and I feel bad because I never cleaned it out. I opened it up last night to take some pictures before I take it in (just in case) and the dust and dog/cat hair inside was pretty amazing. Wasn't as bad as some I've seen but definitely in need of a good cleaning. That may be causing the heat buildup which in turn could have caused some little resistor or cap to overheat and fail. Anyways, lesson learned from this is blow out the equipment twice a year at least. It's really dusty down here in South Texas. Anyways, I'm telling the the tech to bring it back up to factory specs, clean it out, and polish it up. Cheers, Paul.

[Eric Z]

It's nice to hear good customer service stories- I know companies aren't as customer friendly as they used to be, but I'm glad there are still good ones out there.

I keep on shopping at Abt Electronics in the Chicago area because there service is far and beyond better than other companies I've dealt with. On a few occasions, I didn't even have to deal with the manufacturer with rebates. Abt would just cut me a check and then they would deal with the rebate behind the scenes. Not sure if other companies do this, but it can be helpful if you're having issues with rebates- also, I didn't need to wait for 6-8 weeks for my rebate (I was able to get my $400 rebate right away).

I wish companies knew about how important it is to keep customers by exceeding expectations- exactly what Toshiba and Yamaha did with Kex and HK did with Paul.

[Tarheel_]

similar experience, i own 2 AVR HKs. they always step up to the plate. Recently, i emialed them asking for a replacement to a broken 'zone 2' remote. They immediately mailed a replacement and it was the main programmable remote. Class act.