Bowers Wilkins/Classe - Anyone had service from them as horrible as me?


I have a Classe CA-2300 power amp....or rather I HAD ONE, until I sent it to Classe/B&W for repair FOUR MONTHS AGO. 

It's a 100 pound amp, so at first, I wanted to have it fixed by a local, well regarded electrical engineer (I'm in the Bay Area).  I took it to his shop and he said the power supply was dead. He spent days trying to get a schematic from Classe and they wouldn't give him even the smallest bit of information. They told me I had to send it in to them.  I was hesitant to send a 100lb, $6500 amp across the continent, but I did it anyway.  

That was 4 months ago. 

I've spoken with them on the phone maybe 5 times, now, and every time they assure me that they are just about to get working on my amp.  B&W now owns Classe, so B&W is in charge of it.  I had an issue tracking code and I used to be able to enter it on their website to check the repair status. For 3 months, it said "in queue, awaiting diagnosis", now, however, when I put in my code, it says "Item cannot be found".  

At this point, I'm basically saying that B&W have stolen a $6500 amplifier from me after spending a bunch of time purposely blocking a local technician from fixing it. I'm furious. 

Has anyone else here had a successful or unsuccessful experiences with B&W/Classe service recently?  This is insane. What do I do?

thanks!

Hogarth de la Plante
Oakland, CA
hogarthd

Thanks! for sharing your story- All.

it is imperative that you post both positive and negative experiences when dealing w/ these companies. Keep us posted on your situation- hogarthd.

I wonder why a competent tech can't fix an amp problem without a schematic.  Obviously it would be easier, but capacitors, transformers, power supplies.....how hard can it be to solve?

Maybe I am in left field....
Somewhat agree with you. However, many amps have protection circuits, some have digital controllers, rebranded components, potted parts etc. A good diagram will have test points with expected voltages. It may not be worth the tech’s time to try decipher the circuitry and make a viable repair.

The tech who tried to fix the amp locally said that they have a very complicated, proprietary, digital power-supply component that he needed to get a part number for in order to replace it. Classe would not give him any information. This was one week before Classe actually closed their shop in Montreal.