yep, you have to climb down many flights of stairs and a sewer hole or twoSorry, I'll try to reach higher. Don't know if I can reach Jimmys level though......
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Markbass Amp repair?
- Thread starter BassSaxMan
- Start date
I don't take this post seriously, if that helps. You guys are so desperate to make these weak points you're willing to ignore just about anything.
I have all the respect in the world for Mike Dimin, known him for years. That's why I said what I said and asked what I asked. The fact that you and likely people like you don't see them as legitimate questions is telling.
If this were a thread about EA kit and repairs, I'd have no questions about his estimates. Since it's about Markbass, in particular the Little Mark II, which somehow came in way under the competition price-wise with it's introduction, what does he really know about their cost model? If you don't find that to be a legit question, so be it.
Read the thread. If you don't see people talking about the $415 repair as if it's the norm, fine.
Otherwise, maybe it's time for you to back out of this conversation.
Brad,
I do not know their cost model, but I know what it takes to get things to market. Could the LMII be a loss leader, perhaps, but you have to be able to sell enough other gear to make up the loss.
However, the most important thing might be that no one mentioned WHO did these very expensive repairs. Was it MB or and MB authorized dealer or some tech that had no relationship to MB, who had to pay full retail for the replacement parts.
Mike
You need to read the threads a little more. All these repairs were done at the MarkBass reapir facility in the US.
high tech electronics in mass, up until this new one, the only authorized markbass repair facility in the us.
Is the
owned by Markbass or are they a subcontractor. If the latter what, what controls over pricing does Markbass have?
Mike,
This repair happened about 2 years ago prior to MB having their current repair service network set up. It was, as a few of us who were active in the thread it was reported in back then, a kind of strange thing... I think a unit that was sold (used) and then had a failure or was dropped or something, and was sent to the MB approved repair facility without MB being contacted. At that time, my guess is there were so few repairs that had been conducted (since virtually all units were still under warranty), that there was a lack of coordination with that single repair facility, and there were no economies of scale built into the pricing.
Again, as stated above, MB has a new, large network of repair locations now that the initial units are past the warranty level... totally different system.
They actually used a pretty cool 'stop-gap' method of warranty service prior to setting up a US repair network (which as you can imagine, would not be easy to do, especially with so few units needing repair). They did this by doing a quite amazing 'anything goes wrong, get a new unit', which worked very well for people based on the few posts of people having faulty units.
I would assume that now that they have a repair service network set up, the repair prices will be more representative of the figures you estimated in a previous post in this thread, and there will be many repair locations based on the network of the approved repair supplier.
Pretty difficult for a 'foreign company' to deal with massive sales on another continent. However, IMO, for the most part, so far so good, with a few bumps along the way for MB.
That 'get a new unit under warranty' gave them some nice breathing room to get a true service and support network set up in time to really take care of any out of warranty issues that come up. We will now see how it goes!
Again, this will never be the same as a small US based company servicing units in the US... always trade-offs and positives/negatives.
IMO, and based on a few PM's I've had with Peter Murray (as you know, given my day gig, I'm very interested in the business aspects of the gear stuff, and given that I have some international clients, this is all particularly interesting to me (not to mention the fact that I absolutely love the gear... at least the heads and some of the cabs).
IMO and based on limited (but at least 'some'
) information.K
Mike,
This repair happened about 2 years ago prior to MB having their current repair service network set up. It was, as a few of us who were active in the thread it was reported in back then, a kind of strange thing... I think a unit that was sold (used) and then had a failure or was dropped or something, and was sent to the MB approved repair facility without MB being contacted. At that time, my guess is there were so few repairs that had been conducted (since virtually all units were still under warranty), that there was a lack of coordination with that single repair facility, and there were no economies of scale built into the pricing.
Again, as stated above, MB has a new, large network of repair locations now that the initial units are past the warranty level... totally different system.
They actually used a pretty cool 'stop-gap' method of warranty service prior to setting up a US repair network (which as you can imagine, would not be easy to do, especially with so few units needing repair). They did this by doing a quite amazing 'anything goes wrong, get a new unit', which worked very well for people based on the few posts of people having faulty units.
I would assume that now that they have a repair service network set up, the repair prices will be more representative of the figures you estimated in a previous post in this thread, and there will be many repair locations based on the network of the approved repair supplier.
Pretty difficult for a 'foreign company' to deal with massive sales on another continent. However, IMO, for the most part, so far so good, with a few bumps along the way for MB.
That 'get a new unit under warranty' gave them some nice breathing room to get a true service and support network set up in time to really take care of any out of warranty issues that come up. We will now see how it goes!
Again, this will never be the same as a small US based company servicing units in the US... always trade-offs and positives/negatives.
IMO, and based on a few PM's I've had with Peter Murray (as you know, given my day gig, I'm very interested in the business aspects of the gear stuff, and given that I have some international clients, this is all particularly interesting to me (not to mention the fact that I absolutely love the gear... at least the heads and some of the cabs).
IMO and based on limited (but at least 'some'
K
Ken,
I agree with you, on these points. The only point that I was making is that a board replacement is not an expensive proposition, under normal circumstances. Others have gotten emotional about the situation. One's love and/or loyalty for a product or brand does not change the facts of certain circumstances. There are also the 5% of the population that no matter how far you go to make them happy, it just will no happen.
mike
+1 I don't think anyone is saying that ridiculous service charge didn't happen a couple of years ago, just that it probably isn't representative of the current state of affairs. Again, it will become clear over the next year or so, as some of these units will need non warranty service under the current, expanded service network.
it was actually a little over a year ago, ken. we'll see how this expanded repair network thing shakes out, but i consider myself in the 95% that can be made happy fairly easily and $415 for a motherboard doesn't make me happy. maybe it's high tech's doing that the board was so high priced, but if that wasn't markbass' wishes, they should step in with a "what are you doing to our customers?" so far these threads have elicited nothing but silence that i can see.
It's certainly their choice... but if they had some sort of legally binding IP, they'd be using the appropriate channels.
Patents aren't that hard or expensive to get.
Well - the amp sells new for ~$600.
That means cost to Markbass on that board is well south of $100.
Source - reality.
Seriously... there just aren't a ton of modern fab facilities in Italy.
How on Earth do you draw that conclusion?
And even if it was correct just because they get it for one price does not mean they are or have to sell it to a repair facility for the same price.
A new car sells for, let's say $25,000. Do you really believe that you could buy the individual parts for that car and that would equal $25,000 or less? Hell no! More like double that. Do you really think that Chevy or Ford or Toyota is going to sell their parts to a repair facility or even their own dealers for the same price they get them? I think not. If you want some accurate info on how the electronics repair industry works I would be glad to offer it as I have been in that business since the early 70s. I am retired now so maybe it has changed drastically in the last 4 years although I doubt it.
I think they may have done that. In spades
. That was about the most successful bass gear product launch that I can recall.I agree, that is very pertinent.
I'd hope you're not referring to me. Most of these rants have been void of key facts. That's what I pointed out.
No, it doesn't. And this is exactly what I was talking about. For example, do you understand what a loss leader is? If you do and it happens that that's what these are, your calculation makes no sense, nothing more than another WAG.
This. It would be nice if some would take the time to understand this and take it into consideration. So far, no dice.
I agree with this... even if it was after the fact they could've done something besides make it up on the next problem... who says there will be a next probleme(the response from Peter Murray in that link)
. As a company, I would've addressed it if wasn't representative of my policies, even if I wasn't at fault. They have a website and not having everything clearly spelled out didn't help if that was the case. Bad news travels much faster and farther than good. But then we probably wouldn't have these threads.
I'd hope you're not referring to me. Most of these rants have been void of key facts. That's what I pointed out.
"The lady doth protest too much, methinks"
I think they may have done that. In spades
I agree, that is very pertinent.
I just don't think so. A loss leader really only works when the consumer buys other products as well. Perhaps GC used it as a loss leader, but not MB. For MB, it just does not make sense
