Bob Herndon's (quadbob) alleged restoration of my Sansui 9001

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jefe1

2K Club - QQ Super Nova
Joined
Dec 14, 2004
Messages
4,426
Location
Los Angeles
It pains me to post this public complaint and admit that I was cheated. I met quadbob, trusted him, gave him my money and additional business. From soon after I first got my 9001 back from him I started having problems with it, mainly right channel dropout. At first I would notice the right front or back was silent. I would boost the volume and it would pop back in, but this would not last. Bob would tell me to keep working the dolby switch back and forth and this would sort it out. But it never did. For a long time I was living with it this way because usually I could make it work and didn't notice the problem too much. In the meantime I brought quadbob a sansui au 999 to recap which he did while I was there, so I could see it done. I also bought from him and had him recap an audionics space and image composer which he told me had bad chips. I was able to obtain a Tate, and had him transer the chips from it to the audionics unit. My choice, but I beleived him when he told me it was a superior SQ decoder, and damm! I loved that red led directional display. I guess bright lights and the big city easily fool me. It did sound smoother to me than the Tate, but Disclord has educated me about the distinctions between the decoders and what the Tate brought to the table that the space and image decoder did not. There was also a quad scope and another sansui decoder he recapped/restored for me.

Bear in mind, everytime a unit was done by quadbob, it was money paid for replacement of all the parts and I would be presented with a plastic bag labled and full of all the capacitors, resistors etc that he said he had replaced. That was the deal for the 9001. I understood I was paying for a full restoration and was presented with that plastic bag full of used parts when I got it.

Time goes on and I bring the sansui back to him for a "tuneup". He puts in LED lights, adjusts things, and reverses the contacts in the power switch for longer life. I was charged $100. At this time he of course has the cabinet off and the unit open so he can see his own restoration work. His assistant Axel was also there , who appeared to be doing most of the grunt work on quadbobs jobs.

Things got worse , and now my Sansui is only putting out sound from the left speakers. While I was living with three channel quad for a long time, now I was forced to do something.
I emailed Jim at qrxrestore after reading how he had fixed Quad Girls qb restored 9001. I sent him about 15 digital pics of the boards inside my unit.

Here is his response:

Sorry Jeff,

Boy, this pains me to talk about this, but when I look at your pictures, it looks to me like very little was done to your 9001. Now, of course, it's hard to tell with pictures and I could be wrong or wrong in some areas and right in others. I see a whole bunch of original caps on lots of the various boards. They are easy to spot because of their brand and color. See the small orange ones, and the light blue ones? all original. I also see some polypropylene caps that he added on the quad decoder boards (those big dark red ones), which I guess means you paid extra for them.

On the all important four channel board with the pass throughs, it does not look to me like it had the solder taken off and new pins were put through and soldered to both sides. Looks like he may have added some more solder, maybe. Also, on that same 4 ch board, the 2634 board, there is a small board mounted on the tops of the push button switches. It is the topmost board you see when you look down in that area. After you take the front panel apart, that board has to be removed from the 2634 board so you can work on the pass throughs. Because the color of the solder is exactly the same, I would say that board was never removed. Take a look at the disassembled 9001 front panel on my site, and you can see what I am talking about.

It really saddens me to say all this. It is exactly what I saw on Quad Girl's output driver boards. Very little was done. It's almost like I feel embarrassed for what another tech person has done to you and others. I have been cheated and taken advantage of in the past, so I know what it feels like. It shakes my faith in humanity, to have read many of quadbob's postings, where he talks about how much he loves quad and how much he says he does this complete and thorough job and makes such a big deal out of what he is doing for people. jeeez When my son Justin shows up today, I'm gonna show him the pictures to see what he says.

I don't know what to say, or recommend. I'm so sorry that this was done to you.
End of Jims email.

So fellow QQ members, what conclusion would you reach? I am not a tech guy and could barely tell a resistor from a capacitor. I trusted this guy, and kept giving him business. Perhaps he only ripped me off on the extremely complex Sansui, and did the other jobs alright. Perhaps he felt too embarassed or ashamed to admit he did what is politely called a subpar job for me. I would talk with him and felt like I was getting an education in quad and vintage components. There are items I picked up based on his reccomendations. Was he wrong about everything?

But how do you look someone in the face and talk with him,knowing that you cheated him bigtime? He could have suggested I return the 9001 to him to observe, and then quietly do all the restoration work he should have done in the frst place. But he didn't.
You know, I even defended him to a few people who emailed me and complained they were still waiting for their units to be returned. I now feel embarassed that I defended quadbob.

Bob, if you read this you should really look in the mirror and decide if you like yourself. I would so like to be wrong about this. Please tell me how I and many others are wrong about you.

On a good note, I will be sending my sansui to Jim for a full restoration. Nothing like paying twice for the same thing..... However, thanks to a QQ member selling me a working Marantz I am now experiancing quad bliss with all four channels working. Yes this old, unrestored marantz with lesser decoding is doing what quadbobs restored 9001 could not: making me enjoy quad.

As they say caveat emptor....
 
I feel it's necessarry to post a follow up to this. I have Jeff's 9001 in my shop and we have gone through it. QB did recap it. He used new caps that were the same color as the ones replaced, either just by chance, or he picked those caps for that reason. We could tell, because they were a different brand, and the solder pads on the back are shiny, the original pads are much duller. All the other QB boards I have seen up til we received Jeff's unit were not so lucky. Most had no caps changed out, or just a couple.

We changed out some of Jeff's caps, adding the newer audio grade caps in the signal path. We also changed out the fusible resistors that had not been changed on the output boards. Jeff's main problem was that the double sided, 4 ch board was not repinned properly. All the pass through joints had a piece of wire sticking straight through the hole, but not bent over on each side and soldered to the trace. I tried doing it this way myself, on my very first 9001 I restored for myself. I had to take it apart and redo the board within a year.

I'm sure Jeff will have a lot to say about his 9001 when he gets it back, so we are doing our absolute best work on it. LOL If you can satisfy the most critical guy around the place, then you know you are doing good. I love doing work for people who really care and really listen and can tell the difference.

If you have a QB 9001 and want to check to see if he indeed recapped your unit, do the following. Look at the characteristic orange and light blue caps. If they are Xicon brand, and the solder pads on the back are brighter than the others, then the caps were changed.

I want to be fair, and my earlier opinions that Jeff posted here are quite a serious charge. I think you get where I am now on this issue. I'm sure that as we get more QB boards and units into our shop to work on, it will become more clear.

Today, I'm feeling really good about having found and figured out the 2X power issue with these 9001s. See my other thread about it.
 
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