This week’s quarterly report mentions opening new stores in key metropolitan areas of North America. Hopefully that will include the Chicago area. I recently contacted B and O via their Facebook page through messenger with a service question as the Chicago area service center has closed and they were very helpful and the service issue I have is being taken care of. (The known random loud noise problem in BL20s)

Just verified from out-of-area, calls to 847-590-4900 (and all -49xx numbers, for any individual you once knew there) are busy signals.

(*Where* is your service issue being taken care of?  Say, maybe NA distribution has "sought sanctuary" in Canada!-)

trackbeo wrote:

Just verified from out-of-area, calls to link (and all -49xx numbers, for any individual you once knew there) are busy signals.

(*Where* is your service issue being taken care of?  Say, maybe NA distribution has "sought sanctuary" in Canada!-)

Theyre doing like they do on Halloween...lock the doors, turn the lights out, draw the curtains, take the phones off the hook, and hide behind the couch hoping everyone will think they’re not home and just go away. 

It also amazes me that no matter how bad something about B&O is, everything is fine. Whistling past the graveyard. B&O did have a dealer network, until they euthanized them. They are like a kid who kills his parents then throws himself on the mercy of the court because he’s an orphan. The ex dealers I know were both very customer oriented, offered great service and attention to detail, were enthusiastic about the brand, and both were treated very poorly by BOA as a reward for their efforts. 

But then perhaps B&O are so Eurocentric they don’t care about the US market, viewing is all as backwards colonials. 

Indeed. It's become horrible in the U.S. There is no longer any technical support. Emailing BeoCare gives one the feeling that they treat American customers like the "redheaded stepchildren."

There is still a great B&O store in Cincinnati. Ask for Per. He'll treat you well.

I'm surprised that the Chicago area repair service is gone. They were always very good. I seem to recall them being in Arlington Heights maybe? There is someone authorized for B&O repairs in West Chester, Ohio. His name is Ben at BEC Audio Video Repair. I've been going to him for years.

trackbeo wrote:

(*Where* is your service issue being taken care of?

B and O is coming to my home to do the BL20 service.

beojeff wrote:

I'm surprised that the Chicago area repair service is gone. They were always very good. I seem to recall them being in Arlington Heights maybe?

First my dealer, now my repair center 😉.  Having a local, trustworthy repair center always made buying B&O (new and used) a lot easier.  I think it's going to be very challenging for me to buy any major B&O without a store or a repair center that I can easily drive to.  I guess I've been lucky relative to the rest of the US.  They did a lot of work for me last year - fixed my Bs5, BS9000 and BV8 after a lightening strike.  The Arlington Heights location closed a few years ago, but one of the principals opened a much smaller space in Evanston (Hermit Labs).  It was always very quiet there so I wondered how he survived.  I guess he didn't 🙁

I thought I read a while ago that they moved the HQ of BOA to NY or somewhere on the east coast.  Odd story - we recently reconnected with an old friend of my wife's from high school.  Turns out his sister worked at BOA in the early 80s.  Odd because I'm probably one of the few people still around with a house full of B&O.  She thought they had gone out of business.

Razlaw wrote:

trackbeo wrote:

 

 

(*Where* is your service issue being taken care of?

 

 

B and O is coming to my home to do the BL20 service.

 

Do you know where "B and O" is coming from?

What he (& I above) *meant* to say was, "It would be most kind of you, if you could query your service tech how his dispatches work and from whom/where.  Oh, and whether all service is done by truck-roll or if there is a depot for walk-in/delivery service?  Thank you."  (We meant to say, "thank you.") 

Vaguely OT: Service for my Asko brand clothes washer (Swedish, but not anymore) was done by a third party service firm; they rep several brands which chose not to employ their own staff in the states.  Accordingly, **every** repair is a 2-trip process: the service tech comes out, disassembles & diagnoses the unit, then views a parts diagram while on-site and talks to a central station.  He verifies or collects payment for the first visit, and completely reassembles the unit.  Later there is a phone call where you approve parts cost (and maybe labor, I forget?).  After the parts have been ordered and arrived, another phone call to schedule.  On the second visit, they disassemble again and repair.  Only the most generic stuff is carried in their vans.  This is the opposite of what some people described for in-home B&O technicians, where they arrive with an expected boards complement for your model, which when swapped are sent back in the same service-set box, for rework or destruction, and the service-set is repopulated (as necessary) to be sent out again.

i've spoken w hermit through email but never stopped in. bo carefully selects their authorized service centers and those locations basically get a"monopoly" on that region's potential service dollars. so it's a mystery why one would close. and with no outlined replacement, even stranger.