One of the biggest mistakes I have ever made!

Let me begin by saying that I really want to be fair when I am reviewing an item. It is very rare that I ever purchase anything that I find myself regretting, especially after only one year. But, in the interest of being fair I feel that I should share this review with others debating on making a $1300 purchase. That's a lot of money for me and I am sure it is for a lot of others as well.

On 5/17/2007 I purchased the Marantz SR7001 from my local authorized Marantz dealer. Being a DM Professional dealer I felt that it would be a rock solid performer that would last as many years as my previous Pioneer Elite that I purchased back in 1993. What a mistake!

Two weeks after I purchased the unit I starting having issues with the unit going in to protect mode and shutting down. Only after removing the power plug and then plugging it back in would the unit operate again. After checking all of my connections to verify no shorts I concluded that it was just a defective unit. I contacted the dealer where I purchased the product and was told that I could bring it in and they would have to duplicate the problem before they would return it for repair. This was my first mistake because I should have received a replacement for a unit that was less than one month old. I was told that replacement was not an option. About a week later I receive a call confirming that they had in fact duplicated my issues and that they were returning it for service. All I had to do was pay for return shipping.

Two weeks later I receive a call stating my receiver was back from repair. According to the sheet a faulty connection between two circuit boards was repaired and the idle current adjusted. "Cold solder joint." I took the unit home and for about two months had no issues. Then one morning my wife wakes me up to tell me the unit had shut off again. I reset the unit and it powered back on. Once again in December I had an issue where it cut off twice. I contacted the dealer and they said it was probably poor wall current or a spike which I know was not the case because I have a UPS power conditioner on the system that maintains steady voltage.

Last week I once again started having issues with this unit going in to protect mode. Except this time it is very difficult to get the unit to turn back on. I finally gave up on Saturday and on Sunday morning I managed to get the unit to turn back on. Three times on Sunday it shut off and I decided that I should contact Marantz support to see if there was something that could be done.

To make a long story short, it does not matter when or what the the problem might be. All they will do is repair the unit again and again until it is fixed. At the cost of $25.00 for shipping each time there is a problem I now have more than retail cost in this component. At the very least the company could have offered to send a call tag to cover the shipping considering this was the second time in less than a year for the same issue.

As I said, I should have demanded a new unit the first time I had a problem. At least during that two week period I could have used my credit card company as leverage by threatening to have them charge back the dealer and just returning the defective unit. But because I am an electronics dealer myself, I felt that I should respect the other companies policies and did not do it.

In closing I have to recommend you look else where for a receiver. I can not recommend a product that cost as much as the SR7001 when you factor in the quality and service of the product as well as the companies attitude towards customer satisfaction.