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TheMonkeyKing
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Anyone buy Home Audio & Video Protection Plans for their stereo?

Tue Nov 06, 2018 3:11 pm

So I am going to go ahead and pull the trigger on a last year model AV receiver Yamaha RX-V683BL to replace my still very good Pioneer VSX-1120-K. Yeah, sure, I could get a lot better fidelity and power but can you find these things for under $350? And the only reason I am changing to another AV is that the current does not support 4K or the more modern codecs, including home automation, Atmos, and HDR.

The Yamaha is on clearance. So I can get it now for under $300.

Y'all can comment on the specs of the Yamaha if you want, I can always cancel the order if I hear horror stories about this one, but my question here is anyone buy protection plans for their audio equipment?

I am thinking this is a $35 gamble for a so-called 4 year protection plan that will fix or refund purchase price. This one on Amazon is from Asurion. I wouldn't do it for a brand new one, since I would have the manufacturer and Amazon warranties. But this is last year's model even though new in box.

Anyway, comments are always appreciated.
 
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Re: Anyone buy Home Audio & Video Protection Plans for their stereo?

Tue Nov 06, 2018 3:33 pm

I've never tossed a receiver because it died, only because it became obsolete. :shrug:
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Re: Anyone buy Home Audio & Video Protection Plans for their stereo?

Tue Nov 06, 2018 3:40 pm

Extended warranties for electronics are generally a bad deal.
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videobits
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Re: Anyone buy Home Audio & Video Protection Plans for their stereo?

Tue Nov 06, 2018 4:37 pm

In general, extended warranties are never a good deal for the consumer. But they are a profitable add-on for retailers.

Here's what you do: DON'T BUY THEM EVER. Now maybe once and a while you will have a piece of gear fail. But, if you have skipped purchasing several of these warranties then you will be money ahead overall. Of course this will hurt if you have a failure on purchase number one. But over the long haul you will be better off. The places selling them have done the math and know they can pay to fix/replace whatever percentage of failures, pay for administration of the program, and still make a profit. So why don't you just pay for repairs as needed and pocket those admin fees and profits yourself?

And the mobile phone 'insurance' is a similar scam as well in case you need another place to save money.

And like the other person commented: I upgraded four receivers over the years because I wanted additional features; never due to failure. Currently around 8 years on a Yamaha unit now. There aren't any moving parts except maybe the volume knob; not much to go wrong.
 
continuum
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Re: Anyone buy Home Audio & Video Protection Plans for their stereo?

Tue Nov 06, 2018 4:38 pm

If it's an older model Onkyo with the known HDMI board failures, maybe. Otherwise, no.
 
K-L-Waster
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Re: Anyone buy Home Audio & Video Protection Plans for their stereo?

Tue Nov 06, 2018 4:50 pm

Another vote for don't buy the extended warranty.
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Re: Anyone buy Home Audio & Video Protection Plans for their stereo?

Tue Nov 06, 2018 6:44 pm

Agreed, don’t buy them. I would check out refurbished equipment though. Accessories4less is a good way to save some $$.
 
TheMonkeyKing
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Re: Anyone buy Home Audio & Video Protection Plans for their stereo?

Fri Nov 09, 2018 11:08 am

Thanks all. Maybe with all this money saved up, I could actually use it to go to one of the TechReport BBQs.

And yeah, thanks for the reminder on equipment. The only thing to go bad for me were the remotes.
 
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Re: Anyone buy Home Audio & Video Protection Plans for their stereo?

Fri Nov 09, 2018 11:14 am

TheMonkeyKing wrote:
The only thing to go bad for me were the remotes.

Don't let your dog use them as a chew toy. (I speak from experience...)
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
 
TheMonkeyKing
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Re: Anyone buy Home Audio & Video Protection Plans for their stereo?

Tue Nov 13, 2018 9:28 am

hahahahahahahaha...

So I get the receiver on Saturday, only to find that some bright person (either in freight - Amazon, or shipment - UPS) decided to strap it down. It crushed the box, the packing foam and the top of the case. <sigh>

Yes, I do know Amazon covers delivery and I would not have needed extra insurance. It's just funny that we all talked about having equipment that never breaks on us and here I have my new one shipped broken.
 
superjawes
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Re: Anyone buy Home Audio & Video Protection Plans for their stereo?

Tue Nov 13, 2018 9:57 am

Ouch! Hope they don't make that same mistake twice...

And I know y'all settled the extended warranty thing, but I wanted to add: if you buy anything that fails within a warranty period, you're probably better off replacing with a better brand. Beyond paying for repairs/whatever, just being able to buy something and have it work longer than you ever needed it to saves you money. Heck, if you're buying a "replacement" for newer, shinier features, you can probably sell the thing used and get some cash back.
On second thought, let's not go to TechReport. It's infested by crypto bull****.
 
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Re: Anyone buy Home Audio & Video Protection Plans for their stereo?

Tue Nov 13, 2018 11:00 am

Years ago, some bright bulb in our own shipping department sent a pile of bad HDDs back to the manufacturer for post-mortem failure analysis. They just put them in an oversized box with no packing/padding whatsover, rattling around loose. The manufacturer sent back a picture of the banged up drives sitting in the opened box, with an e-mail that basically said "This is how your drives arrived. We're not going to bother with that failure analysis."
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

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