Yamaha, it's unacceptable
No probs,
Now my problem i am having . . . and sadly i personally think it reflects very badly on Yamaha!
Hi,
I bought the Z9 nearly three months ago and i have been having great problems with it and MORE SO, with Yamaha. You may find it interesting. (i also posted at Audioholics and possible elswhere to)
Firstly i want to say the Z9 sound GREAT, my issue is not with that. It's the Video processing that's causing major problems!!!
It's been nearly three months now and in that time Yamaha have had to send out THREE units.
We bought the Z9 partly for the Faroudja DCDi processing as it caught our eye from Yamaha's BIG advertising about this feature and other peoples positive views.
The first Unit we got was a dud it terms of video, it didn't even pass the signal through, not Component GUI, nothing. I think that unit was a Pre release on or something like that (who knows, maybe just faulty). We took it to where we bought it (they were a good help), confirmed it there and they sent for a new one for us.
About a week or two later! We finally hear something about a new one coming for us. It eventually arrives. This one seems ok on first appearances, the Component output worker, the GUI was displayed via it, the Processor would turn on and video was displayed. BUT. on closer inspection we saw that what was being outputted was completely unacceptable. Colour bleeding, artefacts, skewed top 20 or so lines, serious flickering etc.
Without going into major detail we tried everything, three different DVD players, and many DVD's (seeing as that's all were concerned with at the momvent, DVD
s, nothing else). We contacted Yamaha Immediately with the help of the purchase store. It took about a week to get ANY reply and all we got then was told that it is our problem, something to do with our TV and sync problems. This was of course to us outrageous (again, i won't write an essay, but we eliminated that it was our TV as i will show further on), eventually again, about a week and a half later of us constantly contacting them trying to get something done we get told that Yamaha have released a Firmware update that will fix all our Problems and that they will send someone to install it.
Well, this was a complete joke in itself! The guy came (very nice bloke), and the first thing he told us was that he'd never done this sort of thing before, and that he had just joined Yamaha and been with them for four weeks!!!!!!!! already the alarm bells were ringing. It got worse, the guy, no offence to him, didn't seem to know how to use a computer, he was on the phone non-stop to a techi in another state asking and getting instructions on how to Un-zip a file!!!! eventually i couldn't stand it and offered my help here and there.
Three hours later (it was meant to take half an hour) even he gave up because he couldn't get the third update to work (there were three separate files to upload). So, ok, we turned on the Z9, put in a DVD and sure enough, as we told Yamaha a week earlier, it didn't Work, in fact it seemed a bit worse to Yamaha's embaressment, the guy saw for himself.
He went away and promised to contact us the following day. Nothing, we had to ring them, and then Two days later we hear something. They tell us it is our TV and it's not being able to handle the signal and we’d have to live with it. If i went through the details, you'd see how 'illogical' this was. So we sent a rather long email to them, completely showing our case and showing that we're not that silly (available to all if wanted). But not only that, other things they were telling us, supposedly explaining the problem was just plain WRONG, contradicted by reviews, Faroudja (like upconverting ALL interlaced signals to 720p regadless of copyright) etc. (Update, they've now correctlyt old us this isn't the case). Yet no matter how much we showed them (from our point of view that it was the Z9 they always were telling us it wasn't. So finally we said we'd take it to the Store, us the equipment and staff there and test it.
So unplugging the z9 (NOT FUN), lugging it around for the fiftieth time (NOT FUN) we set it up at the store and sure enough, the problem came right along with the Z9! It wasn’t our TV as we said. So the store, who had been Extremely helpful over this time, they even contacted Yamaha.
We didn't hear much from anyone after that (just the store, to our appreciation) only got info a few days later that a new Z9 was shipping.
We get the THIRD Z9 a few days ago. This one we didn't bother taking home, we set it up in the store, with a Denon 2200 DVD player (the one we have at home) and a high end Fujitsu Plasma screen. I think it may have worked for about five minutes, then DIED, back to the same problems as we've had for three months!!! or maybe we were so bent on getting a working one we fooled ourselves
Is this normal. This is Yamaha's FLAGSHIP model, and we still haven't got a fully working unit to date as far as we're concerned. Not only that we and the store have had to spend ridicules amounts of time, effort, money and lots of panadols trying to fix this problem because it’s the worst support i've had!
ok, fair enough for their cheap $100 model, but this thing cost $10 000! and for that, over a time span of three months we get told basically it's our problem.
I SHOULD NOT have to prove i am right like I did
I SHOULD NOT have to argue with Yamaha
I SHOULD NOT have to waste my time and money to fix something that Yamaha should, or at least each and correct and Show me!
What happened to the Customer is always right!
I was wondering if anyone else has had problems, and if this is what i am expect from Yamaha (though it’s not like they are a small company and comprised of armatures and they do have a fairly good reputation, even with us originally), and is there anyway or anything i can do to get them to do something and not take three months to do it.
I think I shall also contact the Board of Fair Trading, and see what they say about all this.
If there is any help you guys could give, or any suggestions, I would be most appreciative. There are obviously working Z9’s out there, as the recent Review and other happy buyers have confirmed, all I ask Yamaha is that I get one of those or that the problem be shown, and then corrected in a quick and friendly manner, not a pile of rubbish in the Product and in the Service.
Thanks
If there are any details you need I am most happy to give them. Who know maybe it is our problem (though in my mind, i'm convinced otherwise) but in anycase Yamaha should be helping, not hindering! No?
