My Onkyo/Amazon Nightmare

[sholling]

Not quite a horror story - yet. Just before Christmas I purchased a shiny new TX-SR876 from Amazon.com. I buy way too much stuff from Amazon and have never had anything but great service from them. Well I got my new 876 all hooked on Christmas Eve and although the remote was a bit flaky I was really impressed. Besides my Harmony 880 worked great even if the factory remote was a bit flaky. Well on New Years Day the receiver stopped responding to either remote.

I got up this morning and fought my way through Onkyo's horrible voice routing system and after about 45 minutes finally got to a human being. Five minutes later the tech was convinced that the IR sensor was bad and said return it to the dealer for a replacement.

No problem I thought, I'm dealing with Amazon.com and because I'd paid for overnight shipping, per Amazon policy I should have my replacement tomorrow. I filled out the online return/exchange form. Well after waiting all day to hear that my replacement was on the way I finally got a cryptic email at 7:30 PM, saying that it would be 2-3 days before they could tell me when I would get a replacement. Well if you've ever dealt with Amazon's customer service you know that their phone numbers are a closer kept secret than the Air Force's ICBM launch codes. Anyway I finally got to speak to a human being and got the really bad news. The receiver is back ordered 2-3 months but if I don't mind waiting 2-4 weeks I can get a refund and buy it someplace else. Or if I like I can drive 2 hours each way to Onkyo's 3rd party warranty repair station and sometime in the distant future drive 2 hours each way to pick it up again and hope that they got it fixed right so that I don't have to do it all over again. Grrrrrrrrr!

 

[Adam]

Sorry to read about your aggravation. I feel for ya.

I also do a lot of business with Amazon, and have had good success so far. There was once (maybe twice) that I had to e-mail two or three times to get the result that I wanted, but it always worked out in the end. It's too bad that they don't have any more of them in stock. I'm sure that they'd send you one right away if they did. Sounds like they are trying to do the right thing. Perhaps they will arrive sooner than they expect. Once, I bought something from another store because Amazon had it listed as "ships in 1 to 2 months." The next day, Amazon had them in stock.

 

[sholling]

Thanks for the support. Amazon has always been good to me. I'm sitting here going over my budget trying to decide if I can afford to let them up sell me into a TX-NR906. If it really does decode FLAC that would be a cool thing. Amazon and other sites say it does but there is nothing in the manual except MP3, WMA, AAC and WAV. I have 200GB of legally purchased music in FLAC format.

Edit: I spoke with Amazon and if I agree to the up-sell at their full price I'll get a $30 gift card. Generous... Anyway I look at it - refund and repurchase, wait for the backorder, or repairs I'm down for a month.

 

[Adam]

You've got me interested. Onkyo lists FLAC as being available when connected to a USB device in their new product brochure for the 906, but like you said - no mention of it in the owner's manual. Hmmm.

 

[jamie2112]

I am sorry to hear of your Amazon woes. I hope they provide you with a speedy solution.....

 

[Adam]

Over at the AVS thread on the 906, I've found two posts so far that may be of interest. One person wrote that Onkyo support indicated that FLAC is not supported, while another person wrote that their European model played FLAC off of a USB device just fine.

 

[sholling]

I have a call into Onkyo support and they are researching the FLAC question. I downloaded the 2008/2009 catalog from Onkyo USA and it advertises FLAC compatibility, but it's not mentioned in the manual. I also brought up the question about European VS US models and Ethernet vs USB. They're researching it and will call me back in a couple of hours and I'll let you know what they say.

 

[GlocksRock]

Sorry to hear about your dillema, I've always been very happy with Amazon. I guess that's what happens when you get something thats likely to sell out quickly. I hope they get everything resolved for you right away.

 

[sholling]

I have to commend Onkyo's support people. They spent about 3 hours researching FLAC support and their conclusion is that the TX-NR906 does support FLAC, and it doesn't matter if it's via USB or Ethernet.

 

[mperfct]

does it have an IR receive port that you could plug something in to bridge the gap in the meantime?

 

[sholling]

Update: This has been an adventure. Speaking with someone here in the USA last night was moderately helpful. He was a nice guy but because it was late there were no decision makers handy. My next conversation was with a nice lady in the Philippines and she wasn't much help. I followed up this morning with a conversation with someone in India and that went nowhere so I very politely had him put me through to a supervisor. Bad idea - he transfered me to the place of eternal waiting, and after about 20 minutes I realized that I'd been had and hung up. Finally I got a hold of someone in America that could make a decision. Here were my options.

1. Wait 2-3 months for the replacement and hope it comes in sooner.
2. Return it for a refund in 3-4 weeks time and pay more elsewhere.
3. Get it repaired, but this would entail a minimum of 10 hours of back and forth driving, about $50 in gas, and an untold number of weeks waiting for repairs.
4. Buy another product out of pocket but at a nice discount and have it here tomorrow. And then return the defective unit for a full refund including the out of pocket cost of return shipping. Their system does not allow a pay the difference swap out w/upgrade.

I'm now officially too broke to pay attention. But I should have my TX-NR906 tomorrow, and in 3-4 weeks I should be able to eat again.

I keep telling myself that now with the 906 I can move the music server out of the family room and save myself cost of building another for the bedroom.

Thanks all!

 

[Vart]

does it have an IR receive port that you could plug something in to bridge the gap in the meantime?

It does have an IR jack, but I guess it is too late to try that!

 

[tundraSQ]

might be time to change the title of the thread... doesn't seem like a nightmare to me...sounds like an unfortunate situation with a great outcome.

 

[sholling]

might be time to change the title of the thread... doesn't seem like a nightmare to me...sounds like an unfortunate situation with a great outcome.

I had hoped to but it doesn't look like I have editing privileges for a day old post.

Edit: Mods if you wouldn't mind how about adding problem resolved and a thumbs up to the thread title.

 

[Adam]

I had hoped to but it doesn't look like I have editing privileges.

We don't...but the mods do. Ask them to do it (either in this thread or in a PM), and I bet that they'll be nice enough to do it.