Headphone amp audio repair?

[CrimeInPartner]

@amirm Can something be added to the 789 review page warning about the lack of support that will be received if you have problems with the amp? I just got my escalated email from Drop who basically said I was out of luck and won't do anything to provide an option for repair as the manufacturer nor did they partner with any repair services. This lack of service should be something that other users should know prior to purchasing this amp direct from Drop.

 

[Roland68]

@CrimeInPartner

Thanks for the warning.
I find this unsustainable, outrageous, and customer-despising behavior for a company as successful as Drop.

If you do not support the customer in the event of a defect after the guarantee, you should at least provide a service manual.

I hope that many of your customers will see this and react to it.
In the EU there are now the first laws that are supposed to prevent something like this, but it will take a long time before it is implemented.

 

[tomchr]

I find this unsustainable, outrageous, and customer-despising behavior for a company as successful as Drop.

I honestly don't. The Drop business model is to take a product by a (typically small scale) manufacturer and have it mass-produced on the cheap so they can sell it for cheap. They take your money up front and provide you with the product later. This minimizes the risk for Drop.
It looks like you have to buy an extended warranty if you want more than what the manufacturer offers. This further minimizes the risk for Drop.

I have not dealt with Drop as a manufacturer/vendor so I don't know their commission, but I would be absolutely shocked if it was less than 30%. Think about it... Amazon charges 30% in commission, provides free shipping and free returns (free = paid for by the manufacturer), and leaves all the hard work for you, which is why I don't sell there. Common dealer margins are around 38-40%. Some distributors want even more.

So with Drop the manufacturer gets a small slice of an already small pie. They then hope that Drop is able to sell enough pies to make it worthwhile.

There is no free lunch. Buy cheap. Get cheap. This is what I call the race to the bottom. It works well (and makes money for Drop) as long as the products work. But once people realize that the cheap products are indeed ... cheap, they'll (maybe) stop shopping there.
And, honestly, if the EU wants Drop to provide a 2-year warranty or Right to Repair Drop will just not sell there. That's already the case for some of their products. EU citizens work around this by having connections order the products within the US and ship them. This workaround, of course, leaves them with the same rights as if the products were bought in the US (i.e., whatever rights the manufacturer provides in their policies).

I agree that it's disappointing that the product breaks after only a few years. I would be disappointed if any of my products broke within 10 years.

There are many ways to run a "successful" company. Some are successful in the short term. Others will be successful in the long term. I would rather be successful in the long term.

Tom

 

[tomchr]

As for the original question: Without access to a schematic or a manufacturer who's willing to do basic debug via email, this will likely be a case of "buy a new one". If you have access to a digital multimeter (or better yet, an oscilloscope) you could start by measuring the output voltage of the OPA564 opamps. You may get lucky and find that one of them provides excessive DC on its output. That could be a starting point for debugging. It could also be that one of them gets significantly hotter than the others. That could be a starting point for debugging as well.

I'm half-tempted to have you ship the amp to me so I could take a crack at it. But given that I like to eat periodically, hence charge for my work, it would likely be much less expensive to just buy another amp.

Tom

 

[CrimeInPartner]

I honestly don't. The Drop business model is to take a product by a (typically small scale) manufacturer and have it mass-produced on the cheap so they can sell it for cheap. They take your money up front and provide you with the product later. This minimizes the risk for Drop.
It looks like you have to buy an extended warranty if you want more than what the manufacturer offers. This further minimizes the risk for Drop.

Drop is the manufacturer though in this case. This isn't like where they just do large group buys to try and drive a cheaper price by purchasing in bulk. They partnered with THX in designing this thing. Now, I get that they aren't really designed to be doing the repairs themselves as this is outside their business model. But that's why they should be partnering with AV repair places that they can offload those requests off to so Drop can at least provide something to their customer base in supporting their product.

There is no free lunch. Buy cheap. Get cheap. This is what I call the race to the bottom. It works well (and makes money for Drop) as long as the products work. But once people realize that the cheap products are indeed ... cheap, they'll (maybe) stop shopping there.

So people's ideas of what is and isn't cheap is relative, and for me, this was not cheap. It was my first headphone amp and I budgeted over half a year to get it based on the Amir's glowing review years ago. Unfortunately, that review doesn't touch on Drop's support model, and to be fair, maybe it just wasn't known at the time. I already tagged Amir earlier asking to have something added about the lack of support because, really, that should be a factor potential buyers need to know before investing in one themselves.

In any case, this experience has given me something to chew on as to what I do to replace it. The way I see it now, you either spend just enough so if and when it breaks you are okay with just throwing it away and getting another, akin to the disposable economy that we seem to live in nowadays with how manufacturing is typically, or you pay the premium so you have a high quality product that comes with options for support when your device runs into problems in the much more distant future ideally, much like how you seem to run your shop. I had thought the money I spent on the 789 was enough to get me in that supportability tier at the time, but, given my lack of knowledge on how expensive this rabbit hole can get, that was evidently not the case. I am wiser to that fact now and will need to do some research and figure out for myself how much having a repair option is worth to me, because I don't want to put down another $400 on something that will last me 2 years and be in this same place all over again.

 

[threni]

... this was not cheap. It was my first headphone amp and I budgeted over half a year to get it based on the Amir's glowing review years ago. Unfortunately, that review doesn't touch on Drop's support model, and to be fair, maybe it just wasn't known at the time. I already tagged Amir earlier asking to have something added about the lack of support because, really, that should be a factor potential buyers need to know before investing in one themselves.

I think when you buy something you should get more than 12 months support but...well, that's just my opinion, and you don't. The law would need to change (in pretty much every legal jurisdiction). You had 2 years use before it failed. Not sure what you'd have Amir put as a warning on reviews, as he reviews products made by manufacturers, not the service provided by retailers (who are the ones responsible for after sales service/repairs). Maybe encourage manufacturers to provide five or ten year warranties? I don't really see if though. I paid ~£90 for my E30; it's hard to believe they'd be selling them that cheap if after 9 years of daily use the display failed and they were on the hook for the cost of a return trip from Europe to China for repair and replacement.

 

[tomchr]

Drop is the manufacturer though in this case.

I doubt that, actually. I would be surprised if they didn't hire a subcontractor.

So people's ideas of what is and isn't cheap is relative, and for me, this was not cheap.

I'm sorry to hear that you sunk significant savings into this. Just to clarify, I was referring to Drop's model of cheap and not so much the price. If the business model is to cut cost, cut cost, cut cost you get a cost-reduced product in the end. Corners will be cut. Reliability will be impacted. Service will be non-existent. That's reality.

I'm reminded of car commercials where manufacturers claim their vehicles are "best in class for initial quality". That's great. How about "best in class for quality five years after purchase"?

Being left hanging with a broken amp does suck. But maybe you're the unlucky customer out of a million. That obviously sucks for you but doesn't necessarily indicate a widespread issue.

Tom

 

[groovybassist]

Drop is the manufacturer though in this case. This isn't like where they just do large group buys to try and drive a cheaper price by purchasing in bulk. They partnered with THX in designing this thing. Now, I get that they aren't really designed to be doing the repairs themselves as this is outside their business model. But that's why they should be partnering with AV repair places that they can offload those requests off to so Drop can at least provide something to their customer base in supporting their product.



So people's ideas of what is and isn't cheap is relative, and for me, this was not cheap. It was my first headphone amp and I budgeted over half a year to get it based on the Amir's glowing review years ago. Unfortunately, that review doesn't touch on Drop's support model, and to be fair, maybe it just wasn't known at the time. I already tagged Amir earlier asking to have something added about the lack of support because, really, that should be a factor potential buyers need to know before investing in one themselves.

In any case, this experience has given me something to chew on as to what I do to replace it. The way I see it now, you either spend just enough so if and when it breaks you are okay with just throwing it away and getting another, akin to the disposable economy that we seem to live in nowadays with how manufacturing is typically, or you pay the premium so you have a high quality product that comes with options for support when your device runs into problems in the much more distant future ideally, much like how you seem to run your shop. I had thought the money I spent on the 789 was enough to get me in that supportability tier at the time, but, given my lack of knowledge on how expensive this rabbit hole can get, that was evidently not the case. I am wiser to that fact now and will need to do some research and figure out for myself how much having a repair option is worth to me, because I don't want to put down another $400 on something that will last me 2 years and be in this same place all over again.

@tomchr does offer a headphone amp that’s $469 (TCA HPA-10) and offers incredible performance. If it meets your needs, I’m confident you’d be satisfied with the longevity and support for the product.

 

[tomchr]

I also won't leave you hanging if you ever need a repair.

Tom