Please post just the name of a brand that you have had the most trouble with.

Pace
Sony
Panasonic
Goodmans/Alba/Bush/Pacific/MOS/Vestel/Lodos/Proline/Matsui/Techwood
Sanyo
LG
Echostar
Grundig/Thomson/Ferguson
Pioneer
Philips
Toshiba
Samsung
Humax

Moderators, could you please put the above options into a poll?

Members, please post any brands missing

Regards,

Dan

It isn't really fair to lump all of the 'cloned' brands together, as we should be looking at this on a 'badge-by-badge' basis. It could be that the Goodmans badged version of a box is more reliable or seems better screwed togther than the same box in a different case badged by Bush (or whatever).

The major ones (in terms of STBs at least) need their own entry IMHO

Sony is the only one I have a problem with out of those - two dead hifis aint no coincidence!

Philips DVD player, just gone for its 4th repair. Had it for 3 years.

That's the most ridiculously biased poll I've ever seen. If you put 10 different names as one option then it stands to reason that whatever result they actually get is multiplied by 10, and thus would "prove" your supposedly informed point that Goodmans etc. boxes are rubbish.

You're not giving anyone a fair chance to justify their liking for those brands if you lump them as one option - it's got to be brand by brand in order to get a fair result.

i'd say that if you add some more names to that list, you'll be left with nothing else to choose from

the overall quality of products in the last decade or so has gone down in my opinion. Just think about it, which manufacturer wants to build some low-end consumer product that lasts for 10-20 years? By cutting down on quality (and quality assurance), they make sure the customer is always available to buy something new within 2-3 years....

"why repair something when it's cheaper to buy another?"

how many times have we heard this phrase? makes me wonder....

So true, I think this is the case with most electrical things these days. The cost of repairing my TV would be about the same amount as buying a new one. When I went to buy ink for my printer, I saw my printer for sale at £25 (cartridges included) so I just bought another printer as the carts on their own would have cost about £40.

The manufacturing quality has certainly degraded, look at the casing on a reasonably priced VCR these days and compare it to something made 20 years ago (before my time but I think this is the case... get it, case?).

True enough, but you also have to compare the cost of the average VCR 20 years ago (around £600 - equivalent to around £1000 now allowing for inflation) with the cost of the average VCR now (around £120 and it will be NICAM stereo and have lots more facilities).

I don't think the quality of internal components has deteriorated that much, and new manufacturing technologies mean that it is now possible to make things that were impossible to make several years ago and/or at much lower cost (hence the disposable aspect of most consumer electronics). Inkjet printers are a loss leader; they make a loss on the printers, but make a profit on the ink and paper.

Companies have also diversified or specialised into consumer vs professional equipment too. My old VCR was built like a tank (die cast everything etc.) and could have been use professionally, but my new lightweight DVD/VCR combo thing is designed with light use in mind. If consumers expect their consumer equipment to put up with several hours of intensive use every day, then they are going to disappointed...

As for unreliability...

I had a Sony LCD PC monitor that failed after four weeks of use, but I put that down to bad luck; if you really want to know which brands are the most unreliable (i.e. number of lemons per thousand etc.), then you'll have to consult the manufacturers.

Aiwa are the worse in my experience. 2 Dead hi-fi's and a VCR that was dead as soon as I plugged it in. I've not had great experiences with Thomson equipment either.

On the other hand I find Panasonic and Matsui products very reliable. We're still using products from them 10+ years old and see no need to change them!

I have a Matsui Hifi at my dads (an MHF808R if my memory serves me correctly) that I use when I go down to stay, it used to be my main hifi but I wanted more from my music so got an Aiwa NSX707 (still going after 5/6 years).
Technically speaking on the Matsui, the play button on tape deck A has broken but the system still works fine, I modified the speaker coneectors to accept bare wire instead of phono connectors but thats the only thing I've modified. I wouldn't say the quality of the system was too good but it has lasted 7/8 years so far (actually, it could have been as early as 1993 when I got it for Christmas, I got Now 29 a couple of months later).

Not really entertainment equipment, but I had a Sony CDRW drive die on me after two weeks (the door got stuck in and wouldn't eject) recently (and no, I wasn't constantly ejecting the door for the fun of it )

Also I had a Sony radio that went back and forth from the repair place as it kept on packing up about 10 years ago. When my CDRW drive packed up, I thought I had bought another lemon from Sony!


Indeed. In the lounge we have a really old Panasonic TV (when I mean old, it has a wood-effect cabinet!), although it is starting to show its age now. Any ideas as to how old this TV is?

I don't like the way now everything is manufactured so that it is disposable rather than economical to fix. I'd rather have something that can last me rather than having to change it every so often.

For example I'm really having a hard time finding a printer that has a reasonable cost for cartridges as I'll be printing quite a bit - most cost in the region of £20 upwards a time to swap out the cartridges (even with suppliers like Choice Stationery) because they use seperate tanks (who the hell prints all of their output in cyan, magenta and yellow seperately to justify having seperate tanks?!), have those stupid chips or because the manufacturers don't allow manufacturers to produce compatibles for a cheaper price (e.g. HP/Lexmark)?

Compare that to my 2000 model Epson which the cartridges only cost £5 a change for the compatibles for both black and white - I paid £100 for the printer itself, so I think I got a pretty good deal!

Having separate tanks means that you don't have to replace the entire catridge group when one colour/type of ink runs out; black is usually the first to run out, whereas non-photo inks will run out before photo inks if you are doing a lot of non-photo printing (and vice versa).

I have a HP printer with one black cart. and one Magenta/Cyan/Yellow cart. (which is basically three separate carts. welded together). If one of the colours runs out before the others, then I'll have to replace the whole thing...

I think you are better off using a laser printer for black & white stuff, and a professional mail order outfit for any digital photos that you must have prints of.

As for AV equipment that lasts forever, you won't find it in any manufacturer's consumer line; however, don't expect a professional VCR to cost less than a grand...

I do quite a bit of colour and black and white printing (not many photographs) and so run out all of the inks in the colour catridge at more or less the same time as each other, although the black cartridge is usually the 1st to die when I replace the whole lot at the same time.

I'd rather have one colour and one black cartridge rather than 4 or 6 seperate colour ones because it would cost more to change them all at once.

As for laser printers, they seem really expensive, especially the cartridges and running costs.

Sorry but the system will not allow that many options, you'll just have to have it as a thread.

Beth.

If you look on the back of the set, it should give you a model number - let me know that and I'll try and find out.

As you imply, you can buy professional VCRs to that quality today but why would anyone want to spend £700+ when they could have a nice one for £100 which does the job due to modern manufacturing techniques and cheap labour. Blame customers for poor quality products.


Pah. PhpBB allows loads of options .

It's a TC 2203.

But when you think about the good points to the consumer for it being disposable. If the thing breaks, you can almost guarantee that there will be some sort of new technology available that will be intgrated rather than an add-on. The price is lower than it was years ago.

On the manufacturers side, they'll be able to make sure there will be some good sales (if you know what I mean). Although the person that bought the 'thing' may think that as the 'thing' has not lasted that the manufacturer is crap (thats normally about right in my experience, most things I buy last for years).

I agree though, I don't like the way that everything is slapped together and thrown on the shelves. Of course, if more checks were carried out on the manufacturers side, the price would go up but the product would me more reliable.

SONY, i've never had a reliable Sony product in my life

My parents went through 3 Sony VCRs in 13 months....

I've been through 3 Sony Walkmans in 2 years (my Aiwa (Sony's budget brand) lasted 5 years before it fell down the bog an was bulit better and far more reliable)

My Sony mobile phone (J70) decided to die after 6 months because it got damp during a summer down poor.

My Sony Erricsson Mobile (T68i) used to die every 2 - 3 months - last week T-Mobile admitted to me (i was on Orange with the T68i) that the phone had faulty firmeware which Sony have finally fixed now it's been discontinued)

My housemates Sony TV had a power button that fell off after a few weeks and keeps giving you static shocks, the DVD Player lasted a year before it started skipping and being generally unable to play discs

My Sony battery powered radio has Trent FM splattering across the band, and the aerial constantly falls down - my older (and far cheaper) morphy richards set had neither problems and is only unuseds as it's bashed to bits (hardley surprising the beatings its taken - fell out my first floor window about 10 times, been dunked in a bucket of water, covered in paint and tar, left out over night during a rain storm - all thats wrong with it is that the aerial snapped off on one of the trips to the ground - i still use it back home due to the strong signals from Winter Hill, Blackpool Tower, and Llagollen meaning the aerial is surples to requirements. - oh i only kept it as the Winter Hill signals manage to overload one another!)

Hitachi are a very good make.

We have two of their VCR's from 1986. Both run perfectly.

I've not really had any problems with A/V equipment. My philips midi system broke though... the sound goes off and the front panel stops responding after a while. Now onto a classier sony system

I'm not impressed with Thomson/Ferguson TV's... they suffer the most stupidest problems! Colour blobs on each side of the tube if a static image is left for more than 2 mins.

I've had 4 Pace satellite receiver over the years, and have always been happy with them, I sold two to neighbours when I upgraded, and my Uncle has my MS1000, all have been good and the Ms1000 is still working, don't know about the others have moved since but they were still working.

I have a Aiwa Nicam VCR thats 7 years OLD, a Philips W/S TV 6 years, JVC hifi 5 years, and other equipment younger.