LiteOn 5002

I was looking round for a reasonable ‘second’ unit for the bedroom (I have a Panasonic E55 Recorder for the Lounge, along with a Toshiba 220E player). I noted that the 5002 had many features that I wanted including Progressive scan, Component connections, Video-Plus etc. I don’t know the brand, but as it was only for minimal use, decided to try it. I wish I hadn’t !
1/ I immediately saw a difference in quality when I fired it up. The first thing that I noticed was the noise from the spindle/motor. You can’t hear either of my other machines running (nor any other machine that I have seen !) The whirring from the 5002 is loud enough to hear over a program,,,,, & even more so when it is recording whilst the TV is off ! My wife says that it makes her head ache !
2/ The machine often fails to record. This occurs both when using PDC & none PDC programming. Sometimes it will record for a few minutes, then for no reason that I can see, just stops !
I returned it to LiteOn, who said that they can’t hear the whirring (!!!) so I assume that it is a standard noise with their stuff, & that their ears automatically switch off to.
They ‘say’ that they replaced the motor & returned it to me. Maybe I was expecting a bit too much as I re fired it up. The noise was, and is, still as bad. Not only that, it still miss records.
3/ I have e-mailed them asking for the address of MD/CEO so that I can complain – but after asking 3 times at least, they have still not replied.
Whilst I do expect things to go wrong,,, I also expect them to get fixed !
I know that this is a cheap item, but it really ought to be useable for the purpose for which it was sold – at any price !
I was a little doubtful of buying the cheaper stuff – I have now learned a lesson – Don’t !