Joined: Mon Jan 08, 2007 4:24 pm Posts: 2425 Location: The Last Place You Look
SO.....
About a year ago I found myself with a nonfunctioning Fender HR Deluxe amplifier. I bought it from a fellow list member for about $200 as I recall. A previous "technician" had attempted some ill-advised "repairs" most of which had absolutely nothing to do with what was wrong with the amplifier in the first place. I did a whole bunch of corrective surgery, spent some time selecting a speaker and a batch of tubes that sounded really good.
And all was well.
Then one day young man came into my shop and fell in love with it. I had absolutely no intention of selling it. I've always liked those amplifiers and this one was dialed in to the absolute last drop.
Well, this kid kept peeling off pictures of Benjamin Franklin and he got to a certain number that I couldn't turn down. So, he paid for it and left with it. A happy customer. At least for a while.
Several months later after he had taken it home to Virginia or wherever it was that he lives I got an email from him saying that it started smoking one day. He was just playing it, left the room for a minute and when he came back there was smoke pouring out of it. At this point he got his father involved and it got kind of "sticky". I had them send it back in order for me to examine it. For some reason they don't have any amplifier techs where he lives.
Once I got it back it was obvious that some sort of coffee beverage - a syrupy latte or something had been spilled inside. It got all over the power tube sockets and caused everything to go haywire. After much back-and-forth I ended up giving them back most of their money and started it all over again.
I messed with it for a while and was simply unable to make it work again. It just couldn't be stable at this point. So, at the suggestion of my good friend Charles Lyon I decided to transform it into a single channel blackface Bassman combo. I have, for a variety of reasons I won't go into here christened it the Granville Mystery Marvel amplifier.
It was a long painful journey but I'm really enjoying it.
Joined: Mon Jan 08, 2007 4:24 pm Posts: 2425 Location: The Last Place You Look
hylandren wrote:
Extremely fair-minded of you to refund the young man's money, in spite of the obvious coffee-like syrupy substance inside....
Well I try to be as fair with people as I possibly can. In all candor, after three months I felt like telling him that it was a used amplifier and no warranty was implied in that transaction. That attitude is heightened in these days of the double edged battle ax that we call the Internet. As much as the Internet can be a tool to help small businesses like mine do well, all it takes is one dissatisfied customer to completely ruin your reputation.
In the interest of full disclosure, I refunded $350 of the $500 that he paid and allowed him to keep the tubes and speaker. In this way I figure that if he tries to smear my name on the Internet somehow I can at least say that I tried to do the right thing.
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