"Jeff Liebermann"
" Jeff Urban"

If they need it and you fix it, and they pay you - WHAT
is disreputable about that ?

The lack of a certificate from the manufacturer attesting to my
competence.

** ROTFL - I doubt there is even one importer or manufacturer in Australia
capable of making that determination with any accuracy. After all, how
would any of them know ?? They are NOT operating repair businesses, have
no understanding of them and generally take no interest in the topic.

Anecdote:

One time, back in the 80s, I worked for a repair business that had
"authorised" service arrangements for several brands of guitar amp -
including Marshall, Acoustic and ELFA.

The Greek lunatic who imported Acoustic into Australia decided that he could
" micro-manage " the servicing of his brand by making up " kits " of spare
parts that all service techs would have to buy to repair various classes of
fault. All one needed to do was tell HIM the fault scenario and he would
nominate the kit that you needed to purchase. Ordering individual parts as
required was simply no longer an option.

He claimed to me on the phone that all the auto importers and makers were
doing the same thing and it was more " efficient ". Soooo, I told him about
the fault in the unit I had on the bench - that it suffered from loud,
very intermittent crackling noises. After a long pause, he said to ship the
unit down to him, in Melbourne, 500 miles away.

The boss and I did no such stupid thing, of course.

Anecdote 2.

A Melbourne based maker of guitar amps ( ELFA) had issues with their latest
models:

1. The quad op-amps ( all RC4136s) in the pre-amp section were from a faulty
batch ( rejects?) with about a 50% failure rate in the first 3 months. The
maker had earmarked all their remaining stock for manufacture and REFUSED to
supply any spares to us for warranty repairs.

2. Some nut case, probably as an after thought, had fitted stereo headphone
sockets to the amps with no series limiting resistors. The left and right
earphone connections were simply linked to the internal amplifier module and
the speaker connected itself when there was no plug in place.

Soooo, soon as anyone plugged a mono jack into the headphone socket - bang
went the Sanken 60 watt amp module inside. Then, soon as the mono plug was
removed, a 40 volt DC rail was linked to the 12 inch speaker and burnt it
out.

The 12 inch speaker was made right here in Sydney and despite the scenario
being non warrantee, the people in Melbourne wanted US to send the 6 kg
wrecks down to them for appraisal before they would agree to supply a new
one.

The boss told them to shove it.

From then on, we sourced all needed parts ourselves ( including speakers)
got Marshall and Fender mains and output transformers re-wound as needed and
saved ourselves and our customers a lot of grief. We did no more warranty
work.



...... Phil