Which companies are the most trustworthy to put out long-lasting products?
I'll start it off, from my experience:
Good: Phillips/Magnavox Panasonic
Bad: Emerson
Ugly: RCA
J. Vigne
Unregistered guest
Posted on
Dr. S. - You are in the mini system category. Ask any technician and they will tell you the entire market has moved to disposable products. You don't repair VCR's or mini systems any more. You just go buy new. To be slightly more specific to your question; every manufacturer designs and builds with a certain percentage of failue in their budget. And they all, at this price range, live with about the same number, about 1-2%. The problem has become companies do not build the individual pieces that go into their product. In a typical mini system the CD, Tape and tuner will all come from different companies. The amplifier output transitors and the DAC in the CD player will come from different companies. And so on, and so on. At this point the manufacturer you think you are buying is not much more than an assembler of small pieces, and, even that is probably shipped out to a company that makes basically the same product for several companies and just puts a different faceplate on the gear they build on Fridays. Are you trying to stay in a budget? If not go buy McIntosh, they have product still working from the '50's and '60's.
I had good luck with my Emerson 3-disc shelf system for four years now until recently the left speaker connection goes in and out at random. I know its not the speaker, any other speakers I plug into this jack do exactly the same.
I will concur that RCA is just plain ugly... I recently bought a 5-disc 160W shelf system and it plays most of my CDs just fine. Some it takes a long time to read them and then play them, and some it will not even read. I love the sound and would hate to get rid of it, but its frustrating you know.
I've had a Sony Discman for 6 years and have never had not one problem with it. I love it.