Elemental Designs amp failures

Seems that Ed is having problems sourcing amps. The LT-1300 has been back ordered for quite a while. From a business perspective it seems that shortages do arise for various reasons and cause unfortunates delays to customers and potential customers.

It may in fact be the quest for quality amps that is causing some of the delay. You don't want to run into the kind of nightmare that customers of AV123 did with the amps in its MFW-15.

It is hard to be patient. No matter what brand or model you buy, you expect the company to have replacement parts on hand immediately.

Since your unit failed within the warranty period (1 year unless you paid with a credit card that adds another year to the warranty), and now you have been waiting all these weeks, I would respectfully ask Alex, the big boss, if Ed will extend your warranty the length of time it takes Ed to replace your amp. Waiting sucks.

Well, not in a year, but in a year and a half..My A3-250's amp died after just 18 months. This was a while ago, but I remember talking to someone at ED about having the amp replaced, as I thought it was still under warranty.

I thought there was a 5 year warranty on their subs, but I found out that the driver is what's actually covered for 5 years - the amp is only covered for up to a year..I was told that I could get the amp serviced, for what I think is was, $100 plus shipping - or I could just buy a new amp at a discount, which I think was about $200 plus shipping..I didn't think it was worth it to replace the amp, considering that I think I only paid $350 for the sub. I figured I'd rather just buy a new sub, so I ended up giving the A3-250 to a friend who wanted to mess with it.

Being that the sub was only 18 months old, I think ED should have replaced the amp. Now I totally understand that the amp was not covered under warranty at that point, and they did offer to service it, so I didn't complain, but I was upset. Needless to say, I won't purchase anything from ED again, but I did like the sub, but I also like my subs to last more than a couple of years.

-Jeff

5 weeks? I wouldn't wait 5 weeks to receive a brand new sub, not to mention a warranty repair. They need to do something ASAP, that is really unacceptable, IMO.

I am sorry that you felt blown off in the situation. I am sorry for that sir, and was in no way our intention.

Lead time on any LT.500 repair was originally due to a critical IC not being in stock. Once in stock and replaced, we found out that other components had been damaged on the board and was not able to be replaced by our in house tech. We have since found a technician out of house with the availability to repair the amplifiers in a very timely manner. We unfortunately had been out of stock on new LT.500 amplifier to simply replace with a new unit.

I have emailed you specifics on your return sir, and am sorry for the delays.

But I can say in confidence that any LT.500 repair issues have been corrected and your replacement should be out very soon.

JDF1384,

I am sorry as well for the communication error. Was this an LT.300 or LT/350 amplifier. The discounted new amplifier would have been $100 plus shipping, or repairing of the unit is well under $100. If your friend still has the subwoofer and is looking to have the amplifier repaired. Please have him call and ask for me directly. I will he able to assist with any of his needs.

The warranty on the amp is exactly why I passed up eD and bought two subs (with a five year warranty) from another manufacturer. A one year period doesn't exactly inspire confidence in their product.

Crazy that people have to post publically to get the treatment they should have deserved from day 1.

When it's time for me to get a new sub, stories like this make me think I'm sticking with HSU and SVS.

10 months on my LT-1300. So far no issues and it has seen a ton of play time for the time frame. Alot of 12-16 hour days of constant running.

LT-1300, November will make 2 years for me with no problems.

I was thinking about purchasing from Elemental Designs a couple of weeks ago and now I am glad I didn't. One of the main reasons which kept me from purchasing a sub through them was when I called, they made me feel like I was bothering them. Sorry ED but your subs aren't that good. I can think of about 5 other ID companies who's subs are on the same level, if not better. I had also heard from someone over in the Audioholics forums who had a bad experience when dealing with them.

The two recent company's I have had to deal with in the past month have been Vanns and Emotiva and both of them have probably the best customer service I've ever experienced. With Emotiva, I wanted to upgrade my X-Ref 10 to a X-Ref 12 and they let me pay the difference plus shipped me the 12 with a packing slip for the 10 so I wouldn't be charged shipping it back to them. With Vanns, one of my CF-70's had a little nick on the vinyl in the back and they gave me the option of sending me another one or giving me my next speaker purchase AT COST. I took my next purchase at cost and saved about $150.

These are two examples of how customers should be treated and with today's internet, I have no idea why companies think they can continue to mistreat their customers without hurting their business.

I can promise you two things. 1) Elemental designs just lost thousands of dollars for blowing off one customer and 2) I will never purchase anything from Elemental Designs

More than 3 years on both my LT1300's with nary a peep.

I have never received anything less than outstanding customer service from ED. Alex has always been very kind and helpful. I cant believe that if there was ever a problem with one of their products that it would not be resolved in a timely manner. I have never sensed that they feel distracted or bothered when I call with questions.

i second that. it's why i've placed almost two dozen orders with them.


i selected 'no' in the poll because the one failure i had was caused by a lightning strike, rather than quality or abuse. i'd like to note that it was replaced as soon as they re-stocked parts, which was about a week and a half. i knew that ahead of time, too, because i had called in to say i'd be sending them one for repair and was informed that they were waiting for the next shipment to arrive. the torroidal and most parts were fine- just one board needed to be swapped. two years later the amp still works fine everyday.

I can 3rd that.

I ordered a sub from ed and due to home repairs could not immediately install it. I was so busy that I just opened the box to see if it was in there and pushed it to the side.

When I did get a chance to install it I noticed that it had some minor shipping damage and called ed about it.

They then said they would replace the sub but I would be liable for the shipping back of the sub; not for the shipping of the replacement sub which I thought was more than fair, since I waited so long before reporting the damage.

Sorry I know this thread is about amp failures and I don't want to come off as a fan boy but just wanted to be informative for anyone else who's on the fence and may read a few bad posts.

Just remember they are a small internet company and yes they still have things I think need improving... (possible long wait times on delivery of product - my biggest peeve). For the price point I'm not sure you can do far better and the level of customize options are staggering (they will even offer for non ed products).

I have run a small business for 21 years. This is DEATH to many small businesses. The owner works his a$$ off to build a business, then some yahoo answering the phone screws it all up.

I don't care what the problem is, nobody should have to wait for a reply on a warranty issue.

+1 People say the same about Epik. it's somewhat skewed because people who have valid issues will always vent on the boards. Most owners who are happy don't have an incentive to relate their satisfaction, especially in a poll. Maybe this site need a Product Review section Still, that doesn't make it any less frustrating if you have a non-working sub.

When I got my X-Ref 12 from Emotiva it had some shipping damage as well. I called them to let them know and they had asked me to take some pictures of the sub and box for them. Right after I emailed them the pictures, they called me right back and told me they were over nighting me a new X-Ref 12 and the Fed Ex guy delivering it would just pick up the damaged sub.

Now that my friend is customer service. My grandfather who owned multiple company's once told me, "Those who are willing to lose money in order to satisfy a customer will out last those who are not".

I have had nothing but excellent service from eD or other ID companies, like HSU...this poll could be the dumbest I have seen...lord knows how many who vote who may of never even had the product. In fact any poll similar to this with other companies is completely ridiculous and should be taken with a grain of salt...and it even can go the opposite way...people vote no problems and also never had the product.

I voted "NO", I have owned an LT/1300 amp for 5 years.

+1 in this , Alex has always treated me right, and listened to me. I have had great customer service

I voted No because I've never owned an ED product so I haven't had an ED amp fail in past year. Did I do something wrong?

I haven't been on the forums for a little while until my SECOND LT500 just got the Orange Light of Death and I came here to find this thread at the top. My first amp kicked the bucket after the third month, brand new, this one just died (same orange light) last week which would be month 9. What's even worse, is in between these two amp deaths, the Driver ALSO died in a separate occasion.

Is it something in my setup causing these issues, you ask? Possibly, some mysterious issue, but I will say this: The SVS PB12 NSD sub that was previously in the exact spot in my system for a year had NO ISSUES WHATSOEVER! I can honestly say that this A5-350 is the worst piece of electronic gear I have ever owned. This sub has been out of order almost as long as it has been in working order. I have had to replace every working piece on it in the 9 months I've owned it. Furthermore, we are having a party for Halloween that I will have no sub for the music. Try explaining THAT to the wife you begged and pleaded to get this sub based on how "awesome" it supposedly was!

Customer service was horrible on each account. The first amp took about a month to arrive, and It only came after calling and nagging them repeatedly. Sure, they are friendly, but every time I would call I had to re-explain the situation and each time I was left with the impression that nothing was being done.

Before discovering the driver was bad, the sub wouldn't power on and had a blown fuse. Not only do they not include extra fuses in the original packaging like some other companies, but they charged me to send me out a new FUSE! (BTW, if your fuse blows, good luck finding that fuse ANYWHERE)

So after waiting a week for my new fuse to come, I installed it to find the Driver rattling awfully. It was blown apparently. I had to PAY for a new one, which was sent in a timely manner, but I was told to ship them the old broken one on my own dime and if THEY deemed it was faulty then they would refund the money I paid for the new driver. So rather than ship the old driver to them on my dime only to have them tell me it's my fault, I just kept the old broken driver and the new one I PAID for ($130ish), all for my BRAND NEW SUB!!! This is extremely frustrating for an $800 (plus $130 now) sub that I wanted to work so desperately. My energy has been drained from dealing with this and I just want it to stop. I don't want this sub anymore and I will never buy another ED product again. I would say it sounded good when it DID work, but I have forgotten what it sounds like!

There are those of you that may feel I'm "bashing" this company but I am merely stating MY experience with them and how completely dissatisfied they have left me. If you are a fan, then I am happy that you haven't had to endure what I have gone through and I hope you don't.

Ummm, to answer your question, yes. The survey is for owners of Ed subs/amps. Otherwise, thousands of non owners could answer No and the poll would be meaningless. Alex Lindeman, the head honcho at Ed voted No and he should have known better than to vote in this poll, as he has the greatest vested interest in seeing a more positive outcome. His voting in this poll is smarmy.

5yrs warranty on the driver why on earth would they charge you to take care of something under warranty? Yeah eD fell out of favor with the car audio crowd because of this, any bad driver seemed to always be the owners fault never eD. I guess you have to baby eD's drivers, cause if it goes bad good luck getting it replaced under warranty. Luckily I haven't had too much problems with my 13av.2 driver, except i've had to glue down the leads twice, and I'm really worried about the tissue paper spiders. Yes there are some that do stupid things with them but that doesn't give eD the right to just say anything that happens is not our fault.

IMO, eD has been around long enough that this kind of problems should be old news. You don't see polls like this about SVS, Axiom, or HSU. It seems a couple times a year or more someone has a gripe about eD's products falling apart and eD not wanting to help, untill the owner gets so fed up that post on here or other forums.

I was joking. I didn't vote.

You might want to tone it down. I don't appreciate your attack of the OP's poll and efforts to resolve his amp issues.

If you spend anytime at the Elemental Design Owner's thread, you'll see that there are a batch of LT 500 amps that have posed problems for the owners. Alex is working on resolutions for ppl and that seems to be what the OP is experiencing.

NO company is perfect, it's how the company handles problems that helps to measure their overall performance. That being said, I'm sure they'll live up to the reputation they've cultivated among the ED faithful.

Ron

I still count as a vote.

When first moving down 500 miles to work for Elemental Designs, I purchase a subwoofer for my parents as a christmas gift. It was a now discontinued unit. The A5-300. 500 watt 12" vented subwoofer. 5 years and the subwoofer is still working for them flawless.

I personally do not have a subwoofer at my residence due to space constraints, but have had many prototypes in for a period of time. Out of those prototypes, not one had an amplifier failure, nor have we had one in the demo room. Short of a dual opposed prototype we did 5 years ago. It featured two 10" woofers that we over drove, and sent a short back into the amplifier. This killed the amplifier after 4-5 seconds of dead shorts.

I have no objections to the thread and am in no way trying to change the outcome. I am glad you brought it up, as it allows me to explain my vote.

To the poster who stated that he felt we had been bothered by his phone calls. I am truly sorry you felt that way. Brett and I are both chatty Kathy's when it comes to talking audio. Im sure many can attest to having hour or longer conversations with either of us.

I know of some AVS customers that I have spent well over 10 hours on the phone with. You know who you are.

Regardless, you voting in the poll does not pass the sniff test. How about all the other employees of Ed, why not get them to vote as well?