thoughts on refurbed equipment (1 Viewer)

[Chun Lam]

Just curious, what are your thoughts on factory authorized refurbished equipment? I've never purchased a HT component that was refurbished, but after buying some refurbished computer hardware, my preference is to buy new, whenever possible.

Thoughts?

 

[John S]

Even with computers, I have found factory refurbished to be better than new, I seem to have much less issues with factory refurbed stuff in general.

 

[Ed Moxley]

In refurbed pieces, the bugs and problems have been fixed. So, actually, should be better than new. As long as it's an authorized dealer, you should still get the good warranty.........

 

[MarkStash]

Chun:

I've had the same issue with computer equipment (ie. Dell refurbed CPU). However, I've had nothing but good luck with refurbed audio equipment. I plan to continue buying if it saves me a respectable amount of money. I suppose the "risk" vs. reward for me would be about a 20% savings factor or above.

Mark

 

[Dustin Harrison]

Buying refurbed equipment is just a roll of the dice. I've read both good and bad experience on the TH forums I visit. It seems like the people who do have problems never seem to get it fixed the first or fourth time. Sure it's great if it comes with the manufactures warranty, but if you have to keep sending it out what good is that?

If you're a gambler, then go for it. Myself, I'd rather pay the extra amount for the peace of mind. Most of the time it's not very much extra.

 

[TimMc]

Chun -

I don't exactly have vast personal experience w/ either category refurb'd, so knowing that consider the source for the rest of this drivel...

I've built more 'puter stuff than I can count, and I'll never, ever buy refurb there. I know, never say never and never is a long time, but that's pretty much a commodity market so the huge savings are rare and not worth the gamble. And I'll never buy Dell refurb :p) .

Refurb HT is a little different animal in my most-limited experience. It's not all that commodity (or at least I haven't bought into that viewpoint yet) and from the limited samples I have to date, if you can get a factory refurb w/ full warranty at a good price then you probably have one heck of a good deal. New may be theoretically better 'cause it (supposedly) passed the tests and had zero failures, but the tests aren't always done, they don't catch all and stuff happens.

I might have bought something like an HK AVR-7200 refurb'd 'cause it's full factory warranty (well, at least until OneCall started unloading them for even less). I have a friend who did just that & has nothing but smiles and savings to show for the experience. I'd probably feel less comfortable with a CD or DVD player, just because they're more mechanical and I have an opinion that once-failed mechanicals might be overall more likely to gag again. Purely opinion and relatively unsubstantiated, but it works for me today. (All this from someone whose Amurican-made "true minivan" blew an engine at 851 miles. They wouldn't replace it as a lemon, insisted on rebuilding the engine, and now it only has 140K miles on that rebuild w/ no real oil loss, etc. The tranny barfed last month, but that was also a hopefully limited mechanical incident. That all partly explains the mechanical refurb avoidance syndrome).