Hi-fi advice needed...

[JohnH]

Fellas, thank you for the posts and the suggestions. I was going to respond to each of your messages, but the reply that I received from Richer Sounds is far more interesting than anything I could say....

Dear Sir,

Thank you for contacting Richer Sounds.

I am sorry to read of the predicament with your Cambridge Audio Amplifier.

In response, this is not an actual fault on the Amplifier, all CA models in
that range, will only output to one channel at very
low volumes to prevent undue wear and tear on the Internal Transformer, you
will find the sound phases back in as the volume
is increased.

If you would like to have Amp checked, we can do, but there is a charge of
£40.00 to do so and this can be done at any store

I hope this of help to you

Yours sincerely

Mark



Tom Griffiths
Richer Sounds Customer Services

:shock:

Crikey. And there was me thinking that this amp was faulty... :roll:

Still, I always have the option of paying Richer Sounds £40 to check over an amp that cost £80...

 

[legrandefromage]

low volume undue wear and tear - on a transformer? Thats a new one on me.

 

[Tad]

Many years ago I wrote a letter to Julian Richer complaining about a set of ex demo TDL RTL3 speakers I bought from Richer Sounds. They were immediately replaced with a brand new un-used set and I was also refunded £20 on top. That's what I call customer service!

Always worth going to the top rather than via a flunkey.

 

[xerxes]

low volume undue wear and tear - on a transformer? Thats a new one on me.

+1

 

[JohnH]

Many years ago I wrote a letter to Julian Richer complaining about a set of ex demo TDL RTL3 speakers I bought from Richer Sounds. They were immediately replaced with a brand new un-used set and I was also refunded £20 on top. That's what I call customer service!

Always worth going to the top rather than via a flunkey.

That's good advice, Fixies -- although after owning this amp for 6 or 7 years, I'm not sure that I have much hope of getting a replacement...

LGF & xerxes: I'm glad it wasn't only my "bullshit detector" that bleeped when reading that e-mail...

 

[dyna-ti]

I've got the A5.great amp but sadly lacking a headphone socket

 

[xerxes]

I've got the A5.great amp but sadly lacking a headphone socket

Buy a headphone amp, it'll almost certainly sound better than any heaphone socket on an amp, which are usually a bit of an afterthought. Some CD players have two sets of line out sockets, but if not you can connect a headphone amp to the REC out socket on the speaker amp.

 

[magicmistertea]

Fellas, thank you for the posts and the suggestions. I was going to respond to each of your messages, but the reply that I received from Richer Sounds is far more interesting than anything I could say....

Dear Sir,

Thank you for contacting Richer Sounds.

I am sorry to read of the predicament with your Cambridge Audio Amplifier.

In response, this is not an actual fault on the Amplifier, all CA models in
that range, will only output to one channel at very
low volumes to prevent undue wear and tear on the Internal Transformer, you
will find the sound phases back in as the volume
is increased.

If you would like to have Amp checked, we can do, but there is a charge of
£40.00 to do so and this can be done at any store

I hope this of help to you

Yours sincerely

Mark



Tom Griffiths
Richer Sounds Customer Services

:shock:

Crikey. And there was me thinking that this amp was faulty... :roll:

Still, I always have the option of paying Richer Sounds £40 to check over an amp that cost £80...

what a load of BullShit.. :?

 

[JohnH]

Problem solved.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 0640824044

 

[Kestonian]

This isn't a lot of help to you, but in around 2002 I bought a CA amp from Richer. I can't remember which model it was (A2 or A3 I think but can't be sure as the kit is all in the UK) and had exactly the same problem.

One channel cut out at that precise volume where you want it on in the background, and it was incredibly frustrating!

For some reason, I'd bought their supercare package* so took it back to (a different branch - Chelsea branch) of RS. They loaned me an amp while they repaired it and it came back sorted.

So the good news is that it's fixable, but for the money you can probably buy a decent second hand unit.


*Generally, these are a rip off, but I liked the buyback price and hoped I would upgrade within 2 years. I didn't.