Frequently Asked Questions About Our Repair services
Collection / Drop Off
Our repair facilities happen in-house at our workshop in Harlow. You can find it on the find us page along with a map. Our postcode is CM19 5QE
Please contact us using the original booking email. We will authorise a cancellation.
We generally give you the appointment time plus 30 minutes if booked via our appointment page system. For discussed appointments we generally expect you to be there at the time, we’ve had instances where people are ‘running late’ but turn up 2 hours after they say they will, we cannot guarantee availability in this instance.
Likewise telling us you’ll be with us at lunchtime is very vague. Please be as precise as possible.
We prefer to have drop offs and collections arranged for 2 reasons, 1 we may not always be around and do not want to disappoint you. and secondly, for security if you arrange to pick-up an amp at a time and day there is less chance of somebody trying to take your amp and claiming it was theirs.
Yes, we accept parcels however if equipment is damaged we will advise as such and you may have extra repair costs.
When it comes to collection, you will need to arrange a courier service yourself. We do not get involved with posting repaired equipment.
Price
We accept all leading payments including all UK debit and credit cards using an online worldpay email link system. Once your repair is registered on our system it operates seamlessly from the booking in to automating payments online.
We are also able to accept card payments at the workshop
We take Cash but don’t carry much change in the workshop so please bring as close to the final cost as possible.
We do not take Cheques, Paypal, or Bitcoin
In some instances we may take a 1st hour bench fee if we consider the repair to be under a certain value, this is purely at our discretion.
We are a limited company but are not VAT registered. This mean that all prices quoted to you are the total.
Repairs
In order to streamline our repair processes if we deem the repair to fall below the prices outlined in our automatic repair terms and conditions, we will automatically repair the item unless otherwise advised. This speeds up the need to get back in touch throughout the repair process and results in a faster turnaround. We consider the relative cost for replacing and place a fair assumption on how much value is in repairing and where it then becomes uneconomical to do so.
We’ve changed our system to go paperless. Instead of filling out the details at the workshop we try and speed up diagnosis by getting you to do the prep already so you can just drop off your equipment and go. It’s still the same amount of questions we ultimately ask when you! The new ‘Live’ system also allows you to log in and trace the exact stage we are at with repair! you can ask questions along the way with the knowledge that you can just log onto a website to do this. It also enables you to see your other repairs you’ve sent to us!
We warranty all our repairs for a period of 2 months from repair date, not collection date and will be totally at our discretion. This will cover the workshop time against the original fault reported and the actual repair carried out. Material cover will be at the discretion of the repairer and may or may not be covered. Items such as Valves and loudspeakers we are unable to offer warranty on as they are classed as consumable items and can be easily damaged through no control of us.
Please refer to our Terms and conditions for full wording, limitations and coverage.
My amplifier powers on, but doesn’t make a sound, can you tell me how much it will cost to repair?
This is a common question we get asked, at this stage we’re only able to give you our minimum hour bench fee cost. Associating ourselves to a car garage repairer you don’t phone up the garage telling them your car doesn’t work, but ask how much it will be to fix. It could be a simple fix i.e. its run out of fuel, or more sever like the engine has seized up or the gearbox has blown up.
To add to the frustration on both sides we often find these enquiries are urgent and the too and throw of tickets causes stress to ensure we can turn your repair around in time.
Yes, typically repairing an amplifier for example may cost £90, to replace some of the higher end valve guitar amps can cost in excess of £2000. You’ll also be saving waste electrical equipment from needing to be disposed or recycled. By doing your bit to have equipment repaired saves huge resources including mining for metals and materials such as silicone, plus the processes needed including transportation, the huge energy requirements to process metals. Where possible we replace to component level and save lots of PCBs from scrap.
We’ll aim to repair amps between 5 and 20 working days, this is our normal operating window however with some repairs we may be able to turn them around quicker and likewise if we require parts from manufacturers which are out of stock then this may extend the time. We can usually accommodate emergencies.
We’ll aim to repair amps between 3 and 15 working days, this is our normal operating window however with some repairs we may be able to turn them around quicker and likewise if we require parts from manufacturers which are out of stock then this may extend the time.
Unfortunately there are several factors restricting repairs, mainly cost to replace with new as opposed to repair costs, we’ve also found many HiFi brands use hybrid components built specifically for the unit and once they’ve built a batch production is stopped and so getting spare parts is very hard. We also struggle with schematics and drawings for the repairs again boosting the cost trying to diagnose blind.
Yes! as long as you book in a minimum of 3 items for repair and bring them to our workshop at the same time we will combine the total time and charge rather than individually booking an hour minimum to each amp. Obviously if an amp takes an hour to repair you will have to pay for more time.