Should I Fix My Old…

We get the call every week. Or more! “I have a Hafler 200 power amp that’s failed. Can you fix it?”

You can substitute almost any name in there for Hafler (but not BRYSTON!) If the amp is over about 7 years old, the answer is almost always NO.

Why?!

First of all, while we’ve all heard the case of the fellow who got 30+ years out of his old amp, a Hafler in this case, the typical lifespan is more like 10-12. It’s true. We know. We sold piles of them in the 80s. Almost all have bitten the dust by now. People bring in old amps regularly for us to check out.

Now that your old Hafler has croaked, should you fix it? NO.

Any repair at this stage of the game is money poorly spent. It will run a minimum bench fee, hourly rate plus parts. You would be LUCKY to get any amp repaired for under $300-500. Further, even if you get it fixed, that repair is by parts that won’t match what’s in there- which erases the engineering design of the product. In 91 days you’re back where you began.

We have so many GREAT new electronic values these days, it’s sheer folly to try to fix gear that’s a couple decades or more old.

For openers, we have the magnificent Atoll power amps, made in France with a 3 year warranty, that sound better than virtually anything we had in the 80s. They are smoother and have outstanding muscle and headroom.

Just take a look at the professional build quality and guts of the Atoll AM100 vs the old dog Hafler. We’ve come a long way!

We have Atoll solid state and Rogue tube preamps, at very reasonable pricing. These products are better than what we sold for LOADS more, 30 years ago.