I was going to cite my own example from last week but you beat me to it. I will add that until I noticed the missing Master/Slave jumper, I was in quite a state of panic as to whether I had goofed something more serious up during my HD installation. I was mentally preparing myself for sending my Empeg back to the UK and paying some hefty cheese to fix it.

I have installed many a component in desktop systems, and that, along with my other electronics experience, made me feel perfectly competent to do the install, but I also knew the risk was that my warranty is gone. It's only a year warranty anyway, which is what most electronics get nowadays.

I don't feel Empeg should be responsible to PAY for the repairs once the cover's been taken off, because you know people out there are going to take advantage of it, and open it up without knowing what they're doing (possibly without reading this BBS, lord help them.)

Now, if SonicBlue endorsed user upgrades of the hard drive on the RioCar, then you've got a different ballgame. I'm not sure how likely that is... I mean really there's not a terrible risk of breaking anything inside unless you bash the display or the larger capacitors with the shock mount cradle. Everything else about the install is roughly equivalent to installing in a desktop system. But for them to actually endorse it means they are probably going to have to be more lenient about installation-related damages to the product.

Larger component manufacturers usually have a much more flexible interpretation of "neglect." Chances are if you put a screwdriver through your hard drives at home, you can probably get a new one shipped next day if you RMA it. When you're dealing with a company the size of Empeg, and a market as small as they're working with, I think that would be suicide.



-Tony
MkII #554