Musical Instrument Services Center

Avoid at all costs if you need electronics repairs. Let me begin by saying I am a young medical student with very little money. I was given an old Pioneer SX-770 receiver by my grandfather who passed, which had a static noise sounding like scratching in the left channel. I brought it here for service to fix it so that I could enjoy my grandfather's vintage stereo. After nearly 6 weeks of Tony holding the receiver in his shop, I heard nothing, so I called asking for an update. A young person answered the phone and told me that they were "busy" and that a tech would examine it the next day. Well, to no surprise I did not receive a call the next day. Two weeks later I called again, this time I was told the receiver had a "thermal issue" and they needed to do more bench testing, so I agreed, although they could not tell me anything else other than that it had a "thermal issue". I did not hear anything from them for 2 months, at which point I called again. This time the person that answered the phone immediately began to discuss the value of these vintage receivers instead of my repair, telling me my unit was worth "$700-800" and that a repair of this magnitude would be "$350-400+", even though I did not ask about my receiver's value, I asked for an estimate of when it would be done. At this point I told them I would refrain from such a costly repair as it sounded suspicious to me - I know the components to repair such a receiver are between $0.50-$5 a each and that they were banking on my naivete to charge me 10x or more what it would cost them. When I picked up the receiver after months of the shop holding it, I was charged $55 for their "diagnostic" fee, even though they couldn't tell me what was wrong with it beyond a "thermal issue" LOL. How can they even call themselves a repair shop? After my first year of medical school wrapped up, I downloaded the Pioneer SX 770 schematic off Hifi audio, bought all the capacitors, transistors, and resistors for $80 shipped, and taught myself how to repair it with a $15 soldering iron in the span of 1 week. The issue was a failed driver transistor (right before the output transistor) on the left channel in the amplifier board. My receiver now sounds incredible, after a year of this nonsense, and I was able to teach myself how to diagnose the problem and perform the repair with no formal electronics training nor owning an oscilloscope in just 7 days when these guys couldn't in over 4 months who supposedly have repaired many electronics devices. Oh, and bringing up the value of my receiver is completely unprofessional. They were also wrong. These receivers are worth between $2-300 fully restored. Not only do they take their sweet time but they don't know what they're doing! Be cautious! They prey on naive folks who do not know electronics. You are much better going to Tech Hifi or Holt Hill Audio for electronics repairs for amplifiers, preamplifiers, receivers, tuners, and speakers. Peace