Faulty speaker, is seller right?

Lexis200

Hi

My son bought a speaker in October last year for about £85. In July it stopped working - power goes on, nothing happens. Hubby works in It and tech and can't figure out what's happened, so I emailed the seller asking for repair/replacement.

The seller replied starting that they only offer a 6 month warranty so I need to contact the manufacturer.

Unfortunately we have been snowed under since then, so I only replied yesterday. I said in my reply that under the SOGA I thought it was their responsibility, not the manufacturers. I included a couple of paras from a BBC letter, one of which was the right to claim damages for up to six years (obviously I have no intention of doing that, but it was part of the letter and part of the SOGA so I thought it sensible to include it).

They have written back this morning to say that they don't offer a 6 year guarantee (they ignored the rest of the Soga stuff that was in the email!), and that their 6 month warranty had expired, so they don't accept returns.

Can they do this? The speaker only lasted a little more than 8 months, and I really thought that it was the seller who is responsible not the manufacturer.

Thanks for any advice!

Lomast

They are not quite right as it is possibly still their responsibility, however after 6 months it is your responsibility to prove that the problem is due to an inherant fault, one that was present at the time of sale but one that was not apparant.

To do this you will need to pay for an independent engineers report but if they state that the fault was inherant then you can claim the cost of this back from the seller.

Lexis200

Thanks very much for your reply.

I'm wondering if I would be better to go to the manufacturer under their year guarantee, or if I do this does that invalidate any obligation the seller has in the future?

Alternatively, do you have any idea on how to go about a) telling the retailer that I want it checked and b) how I actually get it checked? At the moment they seem to be completely unaware of any statutory rights and are stuck on quoting their 6m warranty.

Sorry for all the questions, but my 11yo son had been after this speaker for ages, and bought it with his birthday money so I'm gutted for him and don't want to muck any rights we have up.

atrixblue.-MFR-.

A speaker will usually fail under the users miss-use.

what speaker we talking here entertainment system speaker, headphone speaker, idock type speaker? what brand?
let me explain:


1.the rating of the speaker is one you need pay good attention to, if your system is rated 300 watts but the speaker rated at 100 your putting strain on the speaker in normal use, turn it up for few good songs and you further strain it thus damaging the coils by over extending the cone and snapping the positive and ground wires off.


2. Ohms if the Ohms don't match 2-2 4-4 8-8 then again the speaker is in trouble from normal use.






pre 6 months its the seller who has burden of proof after 6 months its the buyer who has burden of proof to provide evidence it was an inherent/manufacturers fault.


trying to prove a speaker was faulty at point of sale is almost impossible, you've had 8 months of use without reporting any fault, to test a speaker is broken you simply push it in and out whilst off and hear for scratching and lack of resistance, unfortunately to gain a detailed report the speaker need to be torn apart, thus damaging it, cone, voice coils, webbing, connectors and this costs just the same amount to buy new one to have rebuilt with new parts.


if it were me, I would not buy that brand again, and check that future ones are compatable with the system that im using and send the speaker back to manufacturer under their guarantee terms but expect a report back saying miss-use.

bris

Hi the seller does not offer a warranty the manufacturer does.

The seller is correct in what they are saying, as in before 6 months the fault is deemed inherent and the retailer has to prove otherwise, after 6 months it spins to the buyer needing to prove fault was not through misuse or normal wear and tear.

If the manufacture has a warranty use it, it does not take away your rights with the retailer later, because they are telling you to go to them.

Lomast

atrixblue has given a very good response however I suspect that there may be some confusion here over what we are talking about, when you say the power goes on im assuming you mean the speaker is more than just a loudspeaker as atrix is talking about and its maybe an active (powered) unit, one that has an amplifier built into it, in which case the actual speaker itself may be fine and the issue may be with the electronics.

Could you post the make model number up so we can have a look at exactly what we are talking about.

It would be up to you to find an engineer to write a report that you would then take to the seller for remedy or it might be worth looking at the warranty supplied by the manufacturer but let us have the make/model first and then we can advise you better

Lexis200

Hi there

The speaker is a Bayan Audio Bayan 3, and was bought purely to hook up to his electric drum kit. It hasn't been used for any other purpose. He's not left in the house on his own so I know it hasn't been used at excessive volume, it was literally working one day but not the next. It's also out of the way so would not have been subject to being knocked off that's a possible cause of problems.

He has had 8 months without reporting a fault, but as I mentioned it went from working fine to being kaput overnight. Unless a fault appears there isn't a problem so I'm not sure what could have been done differently there?

There is no sound at all so no scratching or anything can be heard (the volume is up, I'm not that batty :-)). The only indication that it's not completely dead is the power light.

I'll try the manufacturer and see what they say I guess. I know that it's not been misused, so I'll be rather miffed if they do say that.

I did read reviews before my son bought it and didn't see anything worrisome about the brand - have you seen anything particularly bad about them?

Thanks

Lexis200

Sorry, I missed the other two responses whilst I was typing - it's a Bayan Audio 3xl

Edit - I've just checked and the price has now dropped to about £60, so I think a report is going to be excessive in comparison, especially if it's hard to show it's an inherent fault. Would you agree?

Lomast

Hmm ok is this the product?
http://www.bayanaudio.com/Products/Bayan_3

If so im a little confused as this is a Ipod dock speaker i wouldnt be using it on an electric Drum kit, I believe an Ipod output is about half the voltage of a true Line out voltage that you are likely to be getting from the drum kit.

It may be worth seeing if Bayan can repair it but im afraid i think it may be user error due to the unit not being used for its intended purpose.
Although it is a little technical http://beavishifi.com/articles/headphonejack/ has a good description of the diferences.

My personal opinion as someone who spent 15 years as a Sound engineer is that unfortunatly you bought/were sold the wrong product for what you wanted to do and the unit has been struggling along for 8 months but has finally popped something.

I would suggest that you look at a small Gitar practice amplifier with LINE IN

marliepanda

Lexis200 wrote: »

Sorry, I missed the other two responses whilst I was typing - it's a Bayan Audio 3xl

Edit - I've just checked and the price has now dropped to about £60, so I think a report is going to be excessive in comparison, especially if it's hard to show it's an inherent fault. Would you agree?

For a £60 item probably. If it does find its inherent you will get that money back but it is about picking your battles.

In future be careful quoting the SOGA at companies, as you did get it quite wrong in the OP and that tends to send companies into 'lockdown' and gets their backs up.

The rest of the SOGA was probably ignored as no doubt it was incorrect. After 6 months all the onus is on you to prove it was faulty when you bought it.

Lomast

Disregard the product i linked it was a slightly different model but the rest of my post still stands