Intermittent faults that appear and disappear can be a real challenge. Anyone in the repair game is bound to get a bounce back every once in a while. Most important thing is that the customer at least gives the technician the the opportunity to rectify the situation ,rather than saying nothing and then embarking on a social media campaign to try and hurt the persons business.
In all the years Ive been in servicing ,actually there was only one customer who stands out in my mind for the wrong reasons .
Theres was a particular brand of amp made in the Uk in the early to late 80's , they were always notorious for having alot of gain.
Anyway this particular guy brought me in one ,a 30 watt transistor based unit ,10 inch speaker .His complaint was it was cutting out after being played for a while . Amp was a bit of a pig to work on ,several separate boards all linked by a wiring loom cable tied together .I tested the amp for sound ,seemed to be working fine for what it was ,anyway I spent the day carefully dismantling and going over every solder joint , found nothing wrong. Anyhow put it all back together ,powered up the amp ,left it on continuously for a day or two,all good, eventually called the customer and told the guy that Id been over the amp with a fine tooth comb and I hadnt found any fault with it ,I charged the guy the basic minimum bench fee and he took the amp back .A month later he comes back in with the amp ,still faulty according to the customer .I tore the thing down again, checked everything ,in the end I adjusted the bias on the output transistors, amp ran a little cooler in the absence of signal and gave marginally more output. This time I charged a fee that reflected the time I had spent on it .Guy phones me back a week later again ,screaching and roaring at me threatening to bring me to court saying I made his amp worse . I did a bit of looking on the internet found the site by the original designer offering a modification service for owners of said range of amps ,about half a dozen modifications were needed at a cost which including shipping ,parts and labour would have amounted to a couple of hundred pounds sterling ,just not financially viable in my mind .Turned out all along the owner was'nt even a musician,a friend of his had been using a modern acoustic guitar with high output active preamp, which the amp was never designed for . He seemed to think that because his input gain was only upto 2 on the dial and the thing was cutting out there was a problem ,30 watts Id really only regard as a practise amp . In the end I phoned him up ,pointed him towards the designers site ,said there was nothing more I could do for him or his amp, I wasnt offering a refund and that I was prepared to go to court if nessesary .At this point he said, in his creepy voice, aww what a shame a 'nice young guy' like you will end up with a damaged business reputation over this . At this point I put the phone down and never heard anything more about it again . ;D
The workplace accident I mentioned earlier , the father lived ,the son was killed instantly ,a sad old story for sure .
