Anyone Ever Get a McIntosh Lemon?

[Progfan2112]

....subtitled a rant I guess!!

I only have two pieces of Mc gear, but my C2300 has been such a problem for me, they will likely be my last. I bought a dealer demo version of the C2300 five years ago. For the first year, I was thrilled. But then the MC section of the phono stage developed a really strange problem in which a static discharge gave off a loud and consistent popping sound. After researching here, I found i was a known issue for certain models of the C2300. I drove my C2300 the two hours to my dealer and they sent it off to McIntosh and repaired it for free as it was still under warranty. No biggie, really.

Fast forward another year or so and then the middle display window would no longer light up so I couldn't see the "Tube Warmup" or the volume or input selected in the display. At this point, my unit was no longer under warranty so per McIntosh's instructions, I drove to my nearest service center (a 3 hour drive) and left it there for 6 months. They replaced a relay switch (or something to that effect) and it worked fine for a month or so. Then the display section stopped working again. This time, I decided not to mess around and got in touch with Audio Classics. Ryan fixed me up and the unit worked fine....for a couple of months. I turned it on this morning and once again, the display was out. I turned the unit off and back on again and the display lit up. But I know it's going to be out permanently again.

To make matters even worse, I seem to be having another issue with the phono stage. There's a real noticeable channel imbalance issue and the left channel is louder than the right. After a few weeks of experimenting and setting up my turntable all over again, I discovered the same issue to be true with the MM section of my phono stage. There is no such problem with the other inputs, it only appears to be happening with vinyl. So....very long, boring story short, it's looking more likely that I'm going to have to send the C2300 back to Audio Classics again for its fourth repair in five years. Not a good batting average, IMO. It's either that or throw it away and get something else. It's been very frustrating, because when the unit works, I've been very happy with it. But I'm getting tired of shipping this thing around only to have it break down again months later. Does anyone have any similar stories to share? Or am I just that deeply unlucky with my C2300?