are refurbished amps a bad idea?

[blackbonnie 5,000+ posts]

brand names dont mean anything, well it does, but there are names out there that are not very popular that make great quality products

 

[Lakota 5,000+ posts]

refurbs are hit or miss, imo.

 

[danp129 10+ year member]

I've had good luck with my refurb sx1250.1 for about 10 months... then it got stolen. My cousin and his brother-in-law have had their refurb 750.1's for about 9 months. I just bought a refurb zx1500.1 a few weeks ago. Never had any problems with any of them. I'd rather have a refurb with a 90 day warranty than a used one off e-bay with a 7 day return policy.

 

[amedeuce 10+ year member]

I've had good luck with my refurb sx1250.1 for about 10 months... then it got stolen. My cousin and his brother-in-law have had their refurb 750.1's for about 9 months. I just bought a refurb zx1500.1 a few weeks ago. Never had any problems with any of them. I'd rather have a refurb with a 90 day warranty than a used one off e-bay with a 7 day return policy.

Personally I would buy referb kicker amps again any day of the week.

I have a referb kicker zx1000.1 and a kicker zx850.4 that I got off of eghey from a seller that people have had lots of problems with hifisoundconnections or whatever it is. But they are an authorized internet dealer for kicker and the amps are referbed by kicker so.....

I had zero problems with shipping or the products. They look brand new, you would have a hard time telling them from brand new ones side by side.

But I guess I got lucky.

 

[danp129 10+ year member]

Yeah you got lucky if yours looked new but we got ours from hifi as well. I did see a lot of negative comments about getting in contact with them if something actually goes wrong with the order, but after like 5 orders I've never had problems. If the amp actually went bad or something I'd most likely send it to kicker instead of trying to get in touch with Hifi.

 

[Betrayer00GT 10+ year member]

I can't believe there isn't more love for the refurbs.

I have a refurb home theater receiver. Half new retail, and it's been flawless running 4ohm loads across the front stage (half the usual home audio load) for >3 years, now.

It had a 1yr mfg warranty, however.

I also have 4 refurb Profile California series amps from http://www.profilecaraudio.com/amplifiers.htm They were all in perfect working order when they arrived, and each and every one of them sounded flawless running my Dynaudio home audio bookshelf speakers full range when I originally received them.

They each also have a 1yr mfg warranty, just like the HT receiver.

In short, if you can get a refurb that the mfg will back...

Well, they built it from scratch in the first place, so they can fix them to new if they want. Clearly Onkyo (home theater receiver) and Profile (CA200 x2, CA800, 400SX) both want to.

BTW, my CA200 amps were $39/ea, and they are flawless/bulletproof. Even my 600w RMS X1 CA800 was only $76, though.

All five of the above refurb products have (or had) a 1yr mfg-backed warranty, and all have been bullet proof. You can't blame "refurbs" if you get some random product off the internet from some random guy and maybe it doesn't work out. That is just being a bad consumer.