I am not buying any more Sony products...

Hi Ho

Hi Ho

Audioholic Samurai
Removing Sony's CD 'rootkit' kills Windows

This is absolutely rediculous! I have never been a fan of Sony due to their insistance on forcing consumers to use their proprietory, and more expensive technologies (such as MemoryStick, UMD, etc.). This is the last straw. What they are doing is installing spyware on people's PC's, spyware that will render the PC useless if removal is attempted.

The only Sony product I own is a Discman portable CD player. It has been a great player but it will be my last Sony product.
 
furrycute

furrycute

Banned
Boycott Sony software. But I still like to buy Sony hardware (they make some decent stuff).
 
mike c

mike c

Audioholic Warlord
IMO sony is still the brand to beat for televisions
 
T

t3031999

Audioholic
Sony also makes some nice low-budget speakers. But I agree about the forcing to use proprietary stuff, it's just not right for any company to do that.
 
Mr. Lamb Fries

Mr. Lamb Fries

Full Audioholic
A number of years ago I bought a Sony DVD player for my parents for about $500 (it was when they first came out). About two years later, it started to not recognise disks in the trays. Not all the time but about 50%. The warranty I had with the unit expired. I did not want to add another peice to the basement "electronics graveyard". You know...in some unseen part of the house filled with old TV's, speakers, computer stuff, radios, etc...

At the time, you could get a comperable DVD player for about $200. So I was thinking I could get it serviced for a few bucks. I called a number or repair shops and they all said they wouldnt even work on it. I tried sonys service center and they told me it would be $175 just to look at it, plus the cost of the repair, plus shipping:mad: . This This made me furious because...why not just buy a new one for $200!!! Until that time I had bought a number of sony products and was happy with most of them. I mentioned that the the service rep hoping to get some kind of customer loyalty discount, trade in/up option, product cost from manufacturer, or something to recognise brand loyalty. The service rep just gave me a chuckle and told me it was not cost effective to repair the product and I should buy a new one.

I am sure that was sony's policy and It wasn't cost effective to repair. I know most companies have similar policies. I also know the unit would have cost less than $30 to fix. It just really pi$$ed m off that I had to conceed and purchase a new peice of equipment when this one could have been fixed for pennies on the dollar. But what REALLY CHAPPED MY A$$...The condesending tone the service rep gave me. It made me feel like i was being crazy to even think i could save a few bucks and have something fixed.

Its not the end of the world and I got a new one...Samsung. In the corporate game...they won that battle...and I lost:( I will say, That is the last time I bought ANYTHING sony!

I know my personal boycot wont even show up as a fart on their bottom line.....but it makes me feel better!

Have a good day, Sony...you are hated!
 
furrycute

furrycute

Banned
I haven't purchased much Sony stuff lately. But I do wonder about the quality of Sony's recent television sets (well, not so recent really).

My family has 2 TV sets, one is a 20inch from way back (like early 90's). Another 32inch from like 8 years ago. Guess what, the 32inch died about a year ago, after 7 years of use. The 20inch is still going strong, after almost 15 years of use.

Now that I think about it, in the old apartment, we still have an 18inch Sony from the mid 80's, and that one STILL works after over 20 years of service.

Well, we were not about to send that monstrous 32inch in for repair (we could have purchased a brand new TV set with that shipping charge alone).

Haven't decided what other TV set to purchase as of yet, at least not until this whole HDTV standard really becomes a standard, and when plasmas drop to sub one thousand. So we are making do with that 20inch.
 
E

Emusica

Audioholic
I have a Sony ES receiver that has to be fixed because it powered down on me one time. It has only done it once, but I'm taking no chances. I already had to send it in before because the DTS 96/24 was not working properly. Luckily it is still under warranty but it is still a hassle to pack it up and send it off and have to wait 2 weeks to get it back.....
 
Hi Ho

Hi Ho

Audioholic Samurai
A friend of mine owns an electronics shop. He has worked on thousands of TV's. According to him Sony is far and away the worst when it comes to reliability. They used to be excellent but have steadily declined over the years. Sanyo is the best in his experience beating out all the other brands by a large margin.

Sony is riding on their past reputation of making good quality stuff. I think it's really a perceived level of quality similar to Bose.
 
j_garcia

j_garcia

Audioholic Jedi
I really don't plan on ever buying a Sony receiver again. I was never really impressed with them. The ES line though at least has the great warranty. A buddy of mine had a 50ES go bad at the 7yr mark and it was still covered under it's original factory warranty.

I've been very happy with my Sony TVs. I've also owned Panasonic TVs though, and they are every bit as good and have better PQ, IMO. Currently using a Sony in the main system though.

Not interested in their DVD players either, but their SACD players are good stuff.
 
C

chicagomd

Audioholic Intern
If you don't like the Sony software I suggest you stay away from Kodak as well. You put the CD in and I swear after it is done you have the Kodak logo on the side of your house.

Seriously some of the most aggressive, propritary software I have ever put on my computer.
 
Buckeyefan 1

Buckeyefan 1

Audioholic Ninja
Mr. Lamb Fries said:
A number of years ago I bought a Sony DVD player for my parents for about $500 (it was when they first came out). About two years later, it started to not recognise disks in the trays. Not all the time but about 50%. The warranty I had with the unit expired. I did not want to add another peice to the basement "electronics graveyard". You know...in some unseen part of the house filled with old TV's, speakers, computer stuff, radios, etc...

At the time, you could get a comperable DVD player for about $200. So I was thinking I could get it serviced for a few bucks. I called a number or repair shops and they all said they wouldnt even work on it. I tried sonys service center and they told me it would be $175 just to look at it, plus the cost of the repair, plus shipping:mad: . This This made me furious because...why not just buy a new one for $200!!! Until that time I had bought a number of sony products and was happy with most of them. I mentioned that the the service rep hoping to get some kind of customer loyalty discount, trade in/up option, product cost from manufacturer, or something to recognise brand loyalty. The service rep just gave me a chuckle and told me it was not cost effective to repair the product and I should buy a new one.

I am sure that was sony's policy and It wasn't cost effective to repair. I know most companies have similar policies. I also know the unit would have cost less than $30 to fix. It just really pi$$ed m off that I had to conceed and purchase a new peice of equipment when this one could have been fixed for pennies on the dollar. But what REALLY CHAPPED MY A$$...The condesending tone the service rep gave me. It made me feel like i was being crazy to even think i could save a few bucks and have something fixed.

Its not the end of the world and I got a new one...Samsung. In the corporate game...they won that battle...and I lost:( I will say, That is the last time I bought ANYTHING sony!

I know my personal boycot wont even show up as a fart on their bottom line.....but it makes me feel better!

Have a good day, Sony...you are hated!
Great story.

I recall my buddy buying a Sony cd player in the mid 80's, and it going bad after 4 months when the warranty ran out. Cost him over $150 to fix. I bought a really inexpensive Teac CD player at the time. I still use it in my basement system.

Live and learn. ;)
 
M

mustang_steve

Senior Audioholic
You do know that Sony plans to halt CRT production soon as a cost cuting measure, right?

BTW, Samsung makes very nice TVs, for less than Sony.

I had my support issues years ago, when my 1st gen discman died...they wanted to chage me $400 to replace the laser assy, or I could do it myself for $190. Why the laser assy? The little donut that holds the disc in no longer gripped the motor spindle, which was part of the laser assy according to them.

I ended up spending my money on an emerson CD player instead...it wasn't near as nice, but I wasn't going to accept the answer they gave me.

Also look at the many generations of original playstation, each one was made to not be as servicable as the last, as well as requiring different cables for some functions.....that was pure crap.

I did end up getting a Sony discman again....family got it for me one year for my birthday....however when it dies, I'm buying a kenwood (if they still make them at that time).

Sony/BMG are the guys behind this latest DRM garbage....if you don't want to deal with DRM, it's easy to get around. Which leads to: why are they doing this? It's obviously not going to stop pirates, nor the computer-savvy...so are they actually penalizing their own customers here?

I don't mind an attempt to keep their rights intact, but it should be done through an upcoming standard....audio DVD formats, and phase out CDs, so eventually everyone is DRM...so long as they allow a mechanism for transferring files to ALL portable music players ,then all is well.

....however what I have seen is Sony's DRM is made so that you cannot rip to an iPod....conflict of interest?

My only gripe with Sony is their blatant disregard for the customer. And everything I have griped about of theirs stems from this.
 
furrycute

furrycute

Banned
Talking about obnoxious software.

That AOL installer disc is about the most obnoxious software I've ever come across. Why does a damned simple dialer program need to take up 700mb of hard disc space!!?????
 
Nomo

Nomo

Audioholic Samurai
Sony is riding on their past reputation of making good quality stuff. I think it's really a perceived level of quality similar to Bose.
I would go so far as to compare Sony with Bose. When I bought my TV Sony was on my short list of finalists. I actually went with a Toshiba, but I do agree that Sony still makes a quality Television. That's about it, but they do make a good TV.
 
Hi Ho

Hi Ho

Audioholic Samurai
I would go so far as to compare Sony with Bose. When I bought my TV Sony was on my short list of finalists. I actually went with a Toshiba, but I do agree that Sony still makes a quality Television. That's about it, but they do make a good TV.
Well, I was talking about how bad the Sony (tube) TV's have become lately so I don't see how you could agree with me. :) The friend that owns the elctronics shop says the Sony TV's are so unecassarily complicated that when one thing goes out it causes a chain reaction. He hasn't sold Sony TV's for years because of the high return rate. The Sony return rate was almost as high as RCA.

Now, if you say Sony makes a quality TV in terms of picture quality, I couldn't argue. They have damn good pictures. However, I value build quality an reliability just as much.
 

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