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Review 1 of 35
Price Paid:
$1150.00
from Audiogon Summary:
In a nutshell, this Melos SHA Gold Reference is like NFL quarterback Drew Bledose: It is superb as long as it works, but it barely works, and you need to care it like God to protect it from failing.
Only idiot like me would pay over $1100 for it. I got it within 10 months of Melos Restoration Service. Within a month, the balance control is gone. Then the headphone jack died on me. Then 3 months later, volume control is gone too. I just felt like I invested in some dot.com stock.
What a piece of junk. Read the Melos website before buying even an cheap one. They even admit that the original parts and designs were messed up, so they would encourage the current owners to upgrade so to "address" the shortcomings.
I finally traded it in and took a major loss. This is the 2nd Melos product I used (the 1st one was an Melos 111 or something like that preamp - it died after one week). I swore to God and all of civialized universe that I WILL NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER subject myself to the Melos treatment ever again in my life.
So the sound is superbly sweet. So what? Would you like to marry a wife who'd frustrate you 95% of the time and give you joy only 5% of the time?
Stereophile Class A rated tells you how meaningless Stereophile's rating is. Whoever says great reliability from this unit must be the people who try to sell it soon. Strengths:
Very sweet sound. Vocal and strings are outstanding. Remote control is very vanilla but works well for couch potato like me. Weaknesses:
Reliability. Super expensive service at Melos Restoration, where bad parts are replaced by unreliable new parts which breaks down in a few months. The basic design appears to be so flawed, swapping parts just won't do. Donate your excess disposal income to your local charity instead. Similar Products Used:
Sonic Frontiers Line 3, Counterpoint SA5000, Mcintosh C22.
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