If you love hi-fi gear, you really aren’t going to love what you’re about to see…

Welcome to Liquid Audio’s Hall of Shame, possibly the only page in the world dedicated to outing bad repair work done on hi-fi equipment.

With my focus on the details, I’m critical of my own work, let alone the horrors you see here. Many owners have absolutely no idea of what’s lurking inside their equipment, so this was part of my motivation for creating this page.

‘Dirty’ Harry

We are all good at something and it’s worth pursuing those things, assuming they are legal. Pursuing something you are not good at, however, makes very little sense. I mean, do you really want an inept plumber trying to fix your toilet? Indeed, as ‘Dirty’ Harry Callahan observed in the incredible Magnum Force:

“A man’s gotta know his limitations…”

Somewhat paradoxically, the most incompetent folks seem to know the least about their incompetence, or maybe it’s denial. Take this page, for example. Everything you see in the Hall of Shame was done by people who seem to lack any awareness of how bad their work is.

“But Mike, why do you care? If these pieces work, so what if the repairs look this bad?”

I hate seeing awful work, people ripped off and equipment destroyed. For the record, nothing on this page worked correctly and I firmly believe that if you cannot work carefully, neatly and precisely, then you shouldn’t be doing it at all. You most definitely shouldn’t be working on other peoples equipment!

You may be wondering if anyone featured in the Hall of Shame has ‘reached out’? Trevor Lees, who arranged the work featured in the beautiful Krell KSA-150 in case number 6, threatened me with legal action if I didn’t take down my video about the case. He admitted to authorising the cheap repair and misrepresenting the condition of the equipment and his technician contacted me to confirm this.

Disclaimer

Images and evidence on this page are unaltered and come from my observations and those of my colleagues. I’ve avoided using real names and take no pleasure in showing this terrible work, but it needs to be shown.

Hall of Shame Case Files

Click on a case to be taken to the details.

7 – MAS Solitaire power amplifier
6 – Krell KSA-150 power amplifier
5 – Marantz CD85 CD Player
4 – Krell KRC Preamplifier
3 – Harman/Kardon PM-655 Integrated Amp
2 – Perreaux PMF 3150 Power Amplifier
1 – Kenwood KA-5700 Integrated Amplifier

Case 7 – MAS (Metaxas) Solitaire Power Amplifier

Sadly, we have another case butchered by a technician back in the heyday of hi-fi retail. Given my updated knowledge of the pedigree of this amplifier and its partner, the work appears to have been done either by Vince Ross’s old technician or by Robert Regal, another diabolical repairer from back in the day.

This amplifier came to me for repair, but my first look told me everything I needed to know about my chances of success on this otherwise stunning amplifier, designed by the legendary Kostas Metaxas.

The MAS Solitaire is an extraordinary amplifier. With a claimed slew rate of 1000V/uS and outrageous styling for the time, this is a super-fast, wide-bandwidth amplifier, with power, stunning looks and premium parts. People rave on about ME, but ME gear has real back-yard build quality compared to this beauty.

BUT, when you repair a MAS Solitaire using crappy tools, crappier parts and zero care, this is the inevitable result. The mainboard is too badly damaged and too many crappy parts have been installed to make working on this one viable. Someone might like to try, but not me. It’s a real shame, a sad end to this otherwise lovely unit.

Luckily, the owner has another MAS Solitaire, and it is now with me for service. Let’s see what a good one should look like, stay tuned.

Case 6 – Krell KSA-150 Power Amplifier

This classic case fully warrants its place in the Hall of Shame. I bought this amplifier many years ago from a hi-fi dealer in Australia called Trevor Lees. Trevor is unhappy about being featured in the Hall of Shame but you reap what you sow as they say.

Over the years, I’ve been contacted by numerous people in relation to this case, telling me their own stories of woe about Trevor Lees. Incredibly, the technician who did this awful work contacted me directly to apologise. I felt bad for him because he explained that he was always pushed to repair things on the cheap. That’s definitely evident here.

Case 5 – Marantz CD85 CD Player

Check out this modification abomination that rendered a wonderful old Marantz CD player unserviceable, cementing its place in the Hall of Shame.

The obvious question here is why? It’s hard to know, but I’d suggest the perpetrator read about improving the clock on a forum and failed to understand that the way you do something is actually more important than what you do. Equipment can often be improved, but not like this.

Case 4 – Krell KRC Preamplifier

This one hurts the most and is the single worst case here and the one most deserving of its place here in the Hall of Shame. My good friend Jason @ The Turntable Doctor shared this case with me and we’ve talked about the need to get the story out. Read on, because you won’t believe this one.

There’s a repairer on the east coast of Australia we’ll call William ‘Frampton’. No offence to the great Peter Frampton, but change one letter and you have this guy’s last name. Anyway, ‘Frampton’ supposedly improves hi-fi equipment, so a Perth local sent his cherished KRC-HR over to him. Here’s what happened.

First Signs of Trouble

When the customer eventually got his preamp back, neither the preamp nor the Krell remote control worked properly. He found a cheap Chinese remote control included in the package and when pressed, Frampton informed the owner that he had ‘upgraded’ the volume control and included an ‘improved’ $6 Chinese remote control to replace the clunky old machined and anodised aluminium Krell remote… Classy.

Oh boy, try to stop me writing the rest of this…

The Krell KRC is a superb preamp. If you want to see more, check out my KRC-HR restoration. Costing over $10,000 AUD in the mid-1990s, there aren’t many improvements you can make to a preamp like this and any real repairer would know enough not to try anything silly.

The KRC and KRC-HR use logic-controlled stepped resistive attenuators for volume control. This the best way to control volume. The attenuator uses an array of 0.1% precision laser-trimmed resistors, an optical encoder, CPU and switches. The signal is routed through expensive nitrogen-filled relays.

Let me be clear – you cannot upgrade this volume control – period. Krell did the engineering and it’s for us to try to learn something from it. It’s outrageous and foolish to think that you could improve the volume control implementation in this preamp.

Wanna see some REALLY bad repairs? Let’s go.

A Normal Krell KRC

This is what a Krell KRC preamp looks like. Check out this article where I completely restored one of these beauties.

The Frampton Krell KRC…

Let’s take a look at the ‘improved’ KRC, after some bad repairs by Mr Frampton. We’ll start with the preamp and then look at the power supply.

Frampton probably destroyed the precision Krell volume control board by accident. Nobody of sound mind would assume they could ‘upgrade’ it, let alone try to.

When asked how he could possibly have produced work of this standard, Mr Frampton cheerfully replied that he “taught this stuff”. Yes, he said that. I’d ask for a different teacher, kids.

The Power Supply

Let’s take a look at bad repairs in the KRC power supply.

Mr Frampton likely blew up the power supply by shorting something in the preamp. Here’s more evidence.

Follow-Up

After the unit was assessed here in Perth, the owner contacted Mr Frampton. Frampton was unapologetic, explaining that he ‘improved’ the volume control (yes, he said that). Helpfully, he explained that the attenuator board ‘broke’. He also explained that parts were no longer available from Krell (they were, we checked).

I guess that by saying the volume board ‘broke’, he meant like when you spill petrol on your hot lawnmower and it ignites, ‘breaking’ it. Perhaps it’s like when you drive your car into a wall because you are looking at your phone and ‘break’ the car…

Anyway, Frampton offered to fix the preamp (it cannot be fixed). Against the strongest advice, the owner sent it back. He’s not seen it since. The moral of the story, don’t EVER take hi-fi equipment to this repairer.

Case 3 – Harman/Kardon PM-655 Integrated Amplifier

This case of bad repairs came to me in February 2018. My customer bought this new from Vince Ross Audio, back in the day.  It worked well for years until it developed a fault.

Vince used a repairer called Klaus, you may know of him. He worked on a lot of gear, sometimes successfully, other times not. This case falls into the not category. I should point out that Vince is a lovely guy and used this repairer in good faith. This repairer likely did good work at some point, I don’t know how it came to this.

Anyway, this repairer destroyed several boards in his attempt to repair a volume control. He used the lowest quality Jaycar volume pot and ribbon cable and destroyed traces associated with the front panel controls, many of which no longer work. I found horrible flux residue everywhere due the lowest-quality solder and failure to clean up. Needless to say, the volume control never worked properly after this.

It does now, I had a look and did my best to rectify this appalling mess and make the amp reliable for my customer. I serviced the unit and fixed the volume problem. Needless to say, the owner was horrified to see these images. He confirmed for me that it had only ever been to Klaus.

Bad Repairs…

Case 2 – Perreaux PMF 3150 Power Amplifier

This addition to the Hall of Shame is another case from my friend Jason (Speaker Doctor and Turntable Doctor).

This amplifier came to Jason for repair. The owner bought it for $900, from a guy who ‘upgraded’ it. You be the judge on whether these are upgrades…

Bad Repairs

Case 1 – Kenwood KA-5700 Integrated Amplifier

This lovely little amplifier came to me via a very nice customer. She’d taken this otherwise good amp to a local repairer. You can see from the images below that the repairer has ‘upgraded’ this circuit board to include a special short-circuit that prevented the amp from working properly.

My customer took the amplifier back to Mr Radio Waves. He had the audacity to say that the unit is too old and damaged to be repaired! But he did the damage!!

Thankfully, this lovely customer brought the unit into me and I’ve repaired it. The KA-5700 is now working perfectly, though a little worse for wear after its near-death experience at the hands of Mr Radio Waves.

Bad Repairs…