Well, like most people, I understand that cheap rarely equates to good.

Cheap builders, cheap Chinese motorcycles, cheap hi-fi gear, cheap professionals and technical personnel – adages like “the poor man pays twice” exist for a reason. Growing up, my Dad always used to tell me:

You get what you pay for, Mike.

AJ Fitzpatrick

Dad was right and those wise words have stayed with me, influencing my decisions to this day and embedded in the way I run Liquid Audio.

A much better question to ask is: 

Do you want a job done cheaply or do you want it done well?

You certainly don’t have to pay a fortune or seek out the most expensive repairer, for example, to ensure work is done well, but seeking out the cheapest ones almost guarantees that it won’t be. That’s the takeaway.

False Economy

Cutting costs means cutting corners and cutting quality. The people who think corner-cutting is OK are neither the customers I serve nor the people you want doing mission-critical work on cherished hi-fi equipment, someone’s brain, legal documents, aircraft or a Rolex watch. It is that simple.

We see this play out with dodgy builders, mechanics and botched cosmetic surgery; it’s everywhere and always produces the same results. People looking for the cheapest way to do something inevitably realise that the cheapest way is usually the worst and most expensive way to do something.

This premise is well-understood, yet the temptation of blind quotes and the lowest price often sucks people in, without any critical thinking around what they might actually mean. Blame must, unfortunately, be apportioned not only on the perpetrators but also on those driving this ‘lowest price’ mentality.

Real Value

Equipment like the AU-317 above that visits the cheapest repairers usually needs to visit others for rectification. Seemingly cheap repairs deliver predictable results: shortcuts, BS and poor workmanship, ‘Swell-Long’ capacitors (I’m serious), devalued, damaged, or destroyed equipment and sometimes even court cases. Thankfully, none for me in 15 years, and there’s a reason for that.

All this is amusing, maybe, until you or someone you know falls fall victim. Worst of all, it’s always more costly than simply having the work done properly in the first place. The bad reviews, crazed responses, changing business names and court records tell the story. It’s all out there. Buyer beware.

Quality, professionalism and results are things most customers remember long after they’ve forgotten the cost of a repair. This constitutes real value. My approach is often copied because even the worst corner-cutters eventually learn the value of a quality-focused approach and most grow to hate the court cases..!