Renegade and Quality Control

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MariettaBob

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First of all, let me introduce myself, since this is my first visit here. My name is Bob Farlow. I am located in Marietta Georgia USA, where I have a amplifier repair shop. I repair all makes and I am not a
"authorized repair facility" for any manufacturer, nor do I wish to be. Now a bit about the title of this post. I think Egnater has a serious quality problem. I had a customer bring in a 2½ year old Renegade that crapped out in the middle of a performance. I checked it out and found a shorted winding on the secondary high voltage winding. I did a little research on the web and found out this problem occurs with alarming regularity. A company like Egnater needs to resolve this kind of quality control problem. For a piece of equipment that costs as much as a new Renegade to last only 2½ years is not in any way acceptable. Yea, I was told by Josh at Egnater they would honor the 3 year warranty, but it would have to go to a authorized repair facility. I know all about these repair facilities, and I can tell you for sure they do not perform the quality workmanship a working musician deserves. I have the amp apart, and I have to put it all back together broken so some jackleg can tear it down again.
End of rant.
 
Welcome to "Egnater in Wonderland ".
Actually. Q/C issues go across entire product line.

An amp is only as strong as its weakest part, go on pick one!
 
I'm not going to stick up for Egnater here, I'll leave that to Bruce himself....I think when your not overseeing your own manufacturing and it's done over in China your going to have Q/C problems. If you go over to the Blackstar forum they have the same sort of issues. Looking at how many Egnater amps have been sold i think that there are not that many problems on this forum, BUT....I have to admit my Renegade "dieing" is always in the back of my mind. I have a friend that's looking at a Fender Deluxe and the new made in Mexico ones don't sound as good as my old one and the new ones have a problem with those stupid small ribbon hook up wires breaking....The one thing that Egnater does need to do is replace "Nate"....does he even exist, is he a euphemism for something else....everybody seems to have a "Nate" issue....lol

This is a quote from the Detroit Metro Times....

"Dan Russell of Blitz Amps in St. Clair Shores is well-known to Detroit musicians, but he spends most of his time repairing gear. Modification used to be in demand, but no more. Russell says, "Now you can go to Guitar Center and get a $35 piece of Korean crap with distortion."

Specialists like Egnater co-exist peacefully alongside music megastores. A newbie musician can get a rig at Guitar Center for a couple hundred bucks. Give them five or 10 years and those guitarists will walk into Egnater's shop, ready to drop between $2,000 and $5,000 on a boutique amp."

"never a truer word said in jest....me thinks"

As long as a problem gets fixed then it's just one of those things, I'm surprised that Egnater didn't just send you a transformer to fit, they have done that before on this forum, but if his/her amp was still under warranty then they should be dealing with a authorized repair facility or is the amp on its second owner, if so then I think Egnater have been cool about it and the amp is getting sorted so not really a problem anymore. If I was your customer and you said to me that the Egnater transformers are crap then I'd be letting you fit a better one and maybe I would end up with an even better sounding amp. 2½ years and then it craps out is not Q/C....2½ months and it craps out is Q/C....people drop down dead all the time and then the postmortem finds that they had been walking around with a hole in the heart for 50 years....it's just one of those things. and at the end of the day....thank F**k for 3 year warranties, you used to get 1 and if your amp crapped out after 1 year and 1 week....tuff. Personally I think your customer needs a slap....getting you to look at it and then having it fix under warranty somewhere else....how to piss off your nice local amp repair guy should have been the title of your post. k.j.
 
Thanks Keith for your reply. I can say this amp was bought new at GC in Atlanta by my customer 2½ years ago. It definitely has not been abused. There is not one scratch anywhere on it. And one more thing, the Egnater logo on the amp cover is upside down. I guess Egnater wanted people to stand on their heads to read it! I know almost absolutely, when the customer goes to pick up his amp after the warranty fix, he will be billed for something. I will post here what charges he encounters so everyone can see how it really is. I do not do that kind of crap. I fix it and charge only for what work really needs to be done. I just hate to see people get ripped off. Mercury Magnetics has a drop-in power transformer for $190 plus shipping, which is ,I'm sure, a lot better quality than the stock one. However, I can not blame the customer for not going that route since it is still in warranty. I bet I will see him again down the road after the warranty runs out. Cheers.
 
As I posted elsewhere I have 2 Tourmaster 4212s and both of them had problems while the amps were less than two years old. It seems to me there are multiple issues involved.

I got mine at Guitar Center. The second Amp purchase took three tries before I could take one home. The first box they wheeled out from back had the sound of broken glass as they took it off the dolly. When they opened the box for me, pieces of tube fell out all over the floor. Second try: I had them open the box in the store again, and that time the speaker grill had been knocked loose from the front of the Amp. The third try had no obvious damage but was one of the two Amps that had to be repaired before it was two years old.

So at least one of the issues with my Amps may have been GC's shipping. It's clear that some of their stuff gets beat up pretty bad in transit.

Another issue may be a sign of the times we live in. With the economy like it is, independent businesses don't always have an easy go of it. It would be great, and I wish I could expect it, if Egnator could build their own Amps or have them built somewhere where quality control is on the radar, but maybe that's hoping for too much. I just know that two for two in breakdowns isn't exactly a record I'd be proud of.

My experience has left me with very mixed feelings about Egnator. I love what they do when it's done right, and I've had some experience talking with them and with that they are absolutely tops. It's too bad that the quality leaves some of us not feeling sure we can rely on what we've bought.
 
UPS is definitely horrible with the care of packages, and I blame them for a large amount of damage to new amps, especially tubes, and many other products. But, the Egnater transformer problems can't be blamed on UPS. Egnater transformers in their Chinese amps just plain suck.
 
Agreed. I don't know if this is about trying to stay in business by cutting corners, but it it's about something like that, it's unfortunate.
 
I knew what that meant once but forgot about it.What is OEM again?
 
If not for all the previous problem threads I would probably own a Renegade and an Armageddon by now. Bruce is an extremely nice guy and makes great-sounding amps, but the QC issue is, at this point, too big to ignore. (For me)
 
eddejager":2nniqnhx said:
Mine has Chuang Meei transformers,made in Taiwan
Click to expand...

So OEM transformers in the Egnaters (at least the Renegade) are sourced from Chuang Meei.
Perhaps these are high failure rate not well made transformers? They could choose just about any source for their OEM parts.

I really wanted to try a Renegade, but local stores don't have them. I got a fair price on one from GC online and it should arrive today.
I couldn't pull the trigger on a used one for even less because of hearing too many reliability horror stories. I figure I can return locally if needed and have the warranty for a few years coverage out of the gate if I really like the amps tones and want to keep it.

If these transformers turn out to be an issue for me it will become a question of how much I like the fundamental tone of the amp. If it is really good, there is the option to upgrade to MM PT and OT. Better quality, more reliability, and theoretically should be an upgrade to the tone/feel of the amp. I know it is an additional investment that shouldn't 'need' to be made, but myself along with countless others have upgraded at least OTs in many different amps across all the major brands. Total investment would still be well under the cost of most boutique amps.

Just my thoughts as of now. I am just about to embark on the road of reality with my first Egnater though so time will tell.
 
Peckhart, I really wish you the best of luck with your new Renegade. I hope it serves you well past the warranty period. If Mr. Egnater is the kind of person he appears to be, I think he will look into these quality and reliability problems and find a solution. I'm definitely not one of those "jackleg" repairmen I mentioned in my leading post. I know the meaning of quality in both components and service. I worked in the aircraft manufacturing arena for 47 years. Quality in both materials and workmanship was always the first consideration in all endeavors. The same is true in building or repairing amplifiers. No matter how good a amplifier sounds and feels right out of the box, it will always be an uncomfortable feeling knowing the quality may be lacking and may let you down at the moment you least expect.
 
I bought a used Renegade head and matching cab a few months ago and absolutely love the amp. Sorry to hear that some have had problems with their amp blowing out, Fingers crossed and hope I don't end up in the same boat.
@MariettaBob, Does a blown tranny cause more damage to other components in the amp?
or Is it better to wait for a tranny to blowout? (ain't broke don't fix it)
Or is it cheap insurance to replace a known weak link?
 
MariettaBob":t61emhct said:
Peckhart, I really wish you the best of luck with your new Renegade. I hope it serves you well past the warranty period. If Mr. Egnater is the kind of person he appears to be, I think he will look into these quality and reliability problems and find a solution. I'm definitely not one of those "jackleg" repairmen I mentioned in my leading post. I know the meaning of quality in both components and service. I worked in the aircraft manufacturing arena for 47 years. Quality in both materials and workmanship was always the first consideration in all endeavors. The same is true in building or repairing amplifiers. No matter how good a amplifier sounds and feels right out of the box, it will always be an uncomfortable feeling knowing the quality may be lacking and may let you down at the moment you least expect.
Click to expand...

I hear you. For me personally, I am less concerned these days because I no longer play in a band. Playing live with people will amount to getting together for some pickup jams. I am hoping to keep 2 amps plus some other practice rigs around so having any one go down needing repairs doesn't stop anything I want to do. Mid jam break downs still suck, but aren't the end of the world. Regardless of how compelling the clips and personal accounts from a few people I know that have had good luck are I probably would not be giving this a shot if I was still gigging. I would still have my Splawn Quick Rod if I were.
That said, probably 2 months into have my Splawn I lost it on a gig. Had to use our back up Crate Power Block the rest of the show.
I had a tube failure that was blowing a fuse on me. All the tubes 'looked' fine, but one wasn't.
We all know tubes go and it is the main reason it is preached to always have a back up when you gig. I extend that to the reality that all components can fail. Better quality components should be less prone to fail, but they are not immune.

My amp is here, but I will likely not get to play it much if at all today.
 
As my old pappy used to tell me,"You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him piss."
 
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