Gawd damn Egnater!!! Jeeezus, dang, friggin..... AHRGGHHHHHH

[digi2t]

WARNING.... VENTING AHEAD....

OK... I'm steamed!!

Egnater is my new dirty 7 letter word. Here's the story.

Bought a non-working Tourmaster on EBay. Managed to win it at a very low price (compared to what a new one is worth). My initial research revealed that for the most part, the power transfo's were the weakness, so I figured what the hell, I'll get a new transfo, if that's the case. Got some new tubes, and it should make a decent addition to the stable. Now begins the nightmare...

Tested the transfo, and sure enough, dead shorts in the secondary. Same as Terry's D-Lab Youtube video. Everything else inside the amp looks pristine. OK. Contacted Egnater for a new transfo. They have them. Perfect. They need an address. Here you go. Payment? Credit card, or Paypal. No problem.

Then they reply;

Dino



Sorry but I am not allowed to ship a transformer to residential addresses …it needs to be to a electronics repair shop

WTF!!

OK, I call them. I'm told that they can't take the chance on electrocuting myself, so they only ship to an electronics shop. I tell them that I'll sign a waiver. They say no. Besides, I tell them, if I do kill myself, they need not worry, I won't be around to complain. No dice. So, I send them a new address, the company I work for, c/o of the electrical department.

Know what? They Googled the address! New reply from Egnater....

Dino



Sorry but they don’t want to ship to anything that is not an electronic shop as we Google mapped the address you send and it’s just an empty parking lot …

In the eloquent words of The Champ, I lost it.... I snapped! My reply....

B***,

The address I sent to you is the company that I work for, which is located inside the Port of Valleyfield. As you may well know, Google Maps is limited to public roadways, and as such, the image you see is only the entrance to the port. The port itself is restricted Federal property, so street view will not reveal our location.

I've attached a picture of the satellite Google Earth view, showing our actual location. The red Google marker is the point where street view ends (the parking lot outside the port gates). The black arrow is our shop location inside the port (Bureau 400 is the office, arrow precisely, our electrical workshop). The red line delineates the port property.

In all honesty, do you folks really think that I would send you an address that would send the transformer to an empty parking lot? Seriously!

This is getting ridiculous. I need a transformer. How many hoops do I have to jump through? I'm beginning to truly regret that I ever bought this amp. Seriously. Besides what the amp cost me, if I can't get the transfo, I'm also out $300 for the complete tube set I bought for it.

I'm VERY frustrated. If I had known that it would have been such BS to get a simple part, I wouldn't have touched this amp with a 10 foot barge pole.

"Don't be the guy digging ditches. Be the guy making the shovels" (Bruce Egnater quote). Sure. But if you break the handle, we're terribly sorry... we only sell those to licenced carpenters.

If I can't get a transfo, I guess I could always sell the tubes. At a loss of course. The amp? Right now I have an old Univox U-1050 on my bench that needs parts, but quite frankly, I wouldn't even dream of parting out the Tourmaster to repair the Univox. I wouldn't even spend any time, or money, getting a Mercury Magnetics replacement transfo. No sir. If I can't get an original transfo for it, I'll tell you what I would do with the Tourmaster...

We have a training fire pit at the fire house. Gasoline and a match will take care of that. Yes... besides my close to 25 years experience as an electro-mechanical technician, I'm also a trained fire fighter. Not only will it will be useful for training the new guys on fire extinguisher use, but will teach me a VERY valuable lesson; never to touch Egnater products ever again! That alone will be worth what I paid for the amp. A sound investment indeed (no pun intended).

Sincerely,
Dino

Egnater... yeah... right! Fooled me once. Lesson learned.

Now, I'm off to the Electro-sonic web site to order a Hammond transformer for my old Univox. They ship, and right to my doorstep to boot!

[CyaNitrate]

Dude that's ridiculous. I needed a reverb transformer for my Vibrolux Reverb, and I went through antique electronics, and no questions asked. They, and I'm sure Mercury Magnetics, probably has a disclaimer on their website that sufices.

[gaussgunn]

I hope that you`ll got karma compensation with getting matamp head for 10 bucks on ebay

[waltdogg]

If the original Egnater x-former was an issue, why go with a factory replacement anyways? If they couldn't be arsed to make the amp right ofc they're not going to have savvy tech and customer service departments.

[digi2t]

If the original Egnater x-former was an issue, why go with a factory replacement anyways? If they couldn't be arsed to make the amp right ofc they're not going to have savvy tech and customer service departments.

My research has revealed that the transfo problem in the early Tourmaster's was corrected. I would prefer to repair the amp with an OEM part. Sure... I could go with a Merc Mag. At the extreme I could use several transfo's to accomplish the job, but that's a moot point now.

This defies CDF. That's a Canadian military acronym for "Common Dog Fuck". A situation, or solution so simple, even dogs understand it. Dogs aren't taught to fuck, they just know how. This situation should be CDF. Unfortunately, some of that CDF is missing over at Egnater.

[D.o.S.]

[goroth]

Can't wait to see if and what they reply...

[Faldoe]

What a bunch of dicks. That was a great reply, digi2t. I'm eager to see if they respond.

[Hyphen Nation]

Hate the customer service experience you are having. Sorry to hear about that. I'd be tempted to email Mercury about a replacement transformer to the specs you need. Nice chunk of Iron is nice.

[Gone Fission]

Uh, doesn't Bruce Egnater routinely teach amp-building classes that put noobie builders at risk of electrocuting themselves? Baffling contradiction.

[hbombgraphics]

dude, that is insane, so weird that they won't just ship you the part that you need.

I guarantee if that customer service person went up the ladder far enough with your request, someone would have helped you out. One person in the company has to have some common sense.

Can't wait to see how they respond.

[lordgalvar]

I actually read about this exact same situation with Egnater about a year ago...same thing, except they wouldn't ship it to anyone that wasn't a dealer with a repair shop (don't remember where it was...I was doing research for something else and jsut ran across it randomly...might have actually been looking into Egnater).

What a shitty company with terrible customer service.

What is funny is they wouldn't ship it to Ed Sanner who used to be my go to guy for amp servicing (and worked for Mosrite, Fender, Gretsch, Rosac and others as an electronics designer) because his shop is in a house...Just stupid that they google the address anyway...maybe somebody works from home? haha, they can't possibly know what ever lot in America is zoned for or if their map is actually accurate.

Just lame...they just want to drive up prices selling it to a shop.

[hbombgraphics]

not sure where you want it shipped, but if they still won't ship to you you can have em send it to my company and I will ship it to you.

I may take specs off it and let an engineer look at it but you know...all for science


also: Why don't you just get the existing transformer re-wound?

[frigid midget]

That type of bullshit is one of the main reasons why I stay away from brands like Egnater and gladly spend a little more on something that's not such a pita to work on or to get parts for.
What sort of company looks up an address on fucking google maps before they ship something? I'm sure they can afford to be so paranoid and retarted, their cheap amps probably sell like hotcakes so they think they don't need to give a shit about customer service

Btw, I think rewinding a transformer costs almost as much as a brand new one, if not more. Right?

[digi2t]

UPDATE!!!!

Received a phone call from the CSR at Egnater tonight, and the issue has been resolved. As expected, this entire drama was a result of corporate machination getting out of control. It's not to say that others will not face this type of frustration with Egnater in the future, but for my part, the agreement reached between them and myself seems to have culminated in a satisfactory conclusion.

May I also add, Bruce Egnater himself was kind enough to drop me a note advising me that he would look into the matter. Needless to say that I was somewhat surprised, but pleased nonetheless.

I wish to thank everybody here, not only for enduring my gripe session, but especially those kind enough to reach out to me with help where getting the transfo for me was concerned. I'm truly grateful to all. Pretty powerful, this internet thingy. Never ceases to amaze me.

To all those expecting the next Hen's Tooth Café episode to feature an amp burning, I'm truly sorry. Looks like it won't be happening. Yet.....