Gawd damn Egnater!!! Jeeezus, dang, friggin..... AHRGGHHHHHH
Posted: Wed Nov 11, 2015 10:10 pm
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;
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....
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!
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;
WTF!!Dino
Sorry but I am not allowed to ship a transformer to residential addresses …it needs to be to a electronics repair shop
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....
In the eloquent words of The Champ, I lost it.... I snapped! My reply....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 …
Egnater... yeah... right! Fooled me once. Lesson learned.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
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!
