[Ryan Berry]

Hi RLF,

I wanted to let you know that I'm personally involved in this one and have been working with the service department to try and get a quick solution for you. I can't say what happened to the unit before you received it, as it was a demo unit that seemed to work perfectly in the past, so my hope was that the knobs somehow came out of alignment and just needed to be realigned. Inside the KX-R, there is a stop pin that keeps the unit from going from volume 0 to maximum volume if the switch somehow gets out of sync with what the unit believes the volume is set to. By going to max and min, that causes the physical switch to get held in place while the switch gets back into alignment. From what you describe, it sounds like you're hearing that stop pin get hit at volume position 1, but if they were out of alignment, you'd hear more a change in sound as it repeatedly was pushed against that stop pin until the two were back in alignment. To be honest, it's very rare for them to get out of alignment like that anyway, but it was worth a shot as it is easy to test.

You're correct that we were waiting on parts to be made for us. Even before the tarriffs, significant delays have been happening with all electronic components as mobile phone companies and auto manufacturers have been buying almost the entire world's stock on common parts the past two years in their current economic boom, setting the factories way behind on fulfilling the rest of their orders. Because these companies now have million+ dollar orders to work on, our specialized, harder to make parts get put on the back burner by these companies. In the KX-R, we use a resistor that's used in only a small handful of applications anywhere in the world (mostly military), but nothing else sounds nearly as good. Because of our size, of course, the delivery was delayed by 14 months...not something easy to deal with since there's no other substite anywhere in the world. Coincidentally, this is the same type of resistor used in the MX-R, which was the delay Bar81 mentioned for another value of resistor. We keep trying to find another option, but so far have turned up empty without sacrificing sound quality.

We do have the parts now and are making the boards, but it still takes some time to have the boards made, send the boards to North Carolina to get the switches installed into the boards, receive the switches back in Colorado, and then actually build the units. The KX-R, as you well know, uses a very complex method to control the volume that most other companies simply wouldn't deal with...but then that's why nothing really compares to the KX-R. It makes manufacturing the product a chore, but the final product in our opinion is worth it.

With that said, it's actually likely better we look at the unit itself in most cases. We know that the unit had been working as a demo piece for some time, so the unit shouldn't have a problem beyond a single component failure somewhere. Finding that fault and fixing it is almost always a better and faster option than building an entirely new unit that contains a completely new set of potential solder joints, etc. that can have a fault. We obviously test things at Ayre to ensure they work, including placing each unit in a 24 hour burn-in environment to reduce the chance that a cold solder joint can be missed in our first round of testing, but nothing is full-proof for any electronics manufacturer.

I can also say with certainty that as soon as the unit arrives, we can get someone on it right away. In most cases, the repair can be completed the same day or a day later, meaning that the unit will be ready to ship out in 2-3 days after arrival since it needs to go into burn-in again. It will also give us a chance to see what failed to be sure it was something internal in the KX-R or if something outside of the unit may have caused it, which can allow us to give you a few things to look out for. I'm very sorry that your unit had issues. It's certainly not our intention to have you receive a unit you can't enjoy. I can say that we'll work hard to get the unit fixed for you quickly so that you can have it back as soon as possible. If you have any questions, please feel free to give me a call or send us an email.