Volume Electronics LLC — Local services in Reading

I would really like to say I had a positive experience because the land of electronics repair is rapidly diminishing. Unfortunately, I cannot. Brought my amp into the store for a intermittent channel issue. I was told I was told I would receive a call as soon as they know something. 2 full weeks go by and I had not heard anything back from them. When I called the store I was told I had two other Amps in front of me but he would put a rush on mine. Another week and a half goes by and still no call even to say "we are backed up/ sorry for the long wait/ we appreciate u being patient" or anything like that. I called back again to check on the status to be told "you where on my list to call today". The service guy explained he had to completely rebuild a channel and that it would be 200-300 dollars. I then then asked about the retention of sound quality. He then told me it was going to be even more expensive and take even longer I wanted factory parts (if they could even get them) and proceeded to try to fast talk me off the phone telling me that he would call me when it was done. Something didn't feel right- I called back. Got the same guy and asked a few more questions. One of them was what was wrong with the amp to which I got "there some stuff in there that needs to be replaced like caps, ect..." I then said that is fine what I would like to do is collect my amp and a parts list of what all needs to be replaced so that I possibly bring it back at a less "busy" time. The fast talking man explained that he couldn't give me a list of parts that needed replacement because he didn't know exactly what it needed...ok ?? Stange, I thought to myself, being in the automotive field yeah, there are some unforeseeable expenses but they should be able give a ballpark. Accepting I wasn't going to get an estimate on what parts would need to be replaced I told to guy I was going pick up the amplifier. He responded with it would have to be in a few hours as he needed to put it back together. After retrieving the amp I decided to take a look for myself and see what exactly components had popped or perhaps see where the "smoke" had let out. Much to my shock I discovered about 9 years of perfectly undisturbed dust all over the internals. The only dust that was disturbed was where MY fingertips brushed it off when I lifted the lid off. Pretty unusual to say the least for an amp that had been "inspected" and "put back together" ... All in all this company may do good work. I'll never know. Hopefully my experience was an isolated case of the ball being dropped several times and they attempted to cover their butts. Or they simply couldn't repeat my problem on the bench. (I performed a function test and it seems to be working just how it should just with less load). Just buyer beware, especially if u need to get something repaired in a...

I really wanted to give a great review since not many shops like this are around anymore but I had a pretty rough experience. Brought my amp into the shop at the beginning of September to get it repaired, I told the techs burnt tubes weren't the issue (I replaced every tube in the amp myself). When I picked up the amp after the 1st time, I saw the charged me for a new power tube completely disregarding what I had said. Either way, if the amp worked I'd be happy and move on.

After 30 minutes of use, the amp starts having the same issue I brought it into the shop for. So I bring it back again hoping to mitigate the issue, the amp then sat in their shop for about 4 months in total. When I picked up the amp after it was 'fixed' last week the problem happened AGAIN. So as of now, the amp is still broken after about 5 months in their shop.

The only plus I can really give here is the women working there and the owner were generally nice, however I'm about $250 deep in this place for an amp that is still non-functional after roughly being in their shop for 4-5 months. Just completely unacceptable, I'll have to bring it to another shop who can hopefully fix the issue digging an even deeper hole in my wallet. I really just want a refund since the amp was never 'repaired' but it seems like that's a trend of this shop, or at least with amps.

Be weary of this place for valve amp repairs.

Update: I brought the said amp above to a friend who builds amps and he was shocked when he opened the amp for repair. He suggested I sell the amp because of the mess they made inside the board trying to fix the problem. He however, fixed the amp in a week (for half the price of this store) and it’s been working for 2 months straight no issues. DO NOT BRING YOUR...

I’ll sum up the review before I tell the details: If you want your musical gear repaired, they will repair it well at a reasonable enough price. If you need your musical gear to be repaired within any sort of time frame, you may want to explore your options.

I’m going to be as fair and honest as I can be here. I have a Sunn 1200s bass head (the rack-mounted 1990s hybrid model, not the all-tube 1960s guitar amp of the same name) which I have loved for around 20 years. It blew up in late August 2019 and I brought it in on September 4 and paid for the expedited service. I got my estimate September 13, found the price and the repair time acceptable and approved the repairs. The repair time was stretched out for weeks, typically blaming the wait on parts delivery.

On October 30, after having the amp for well beyond the quoted repair time, they called to amend the estimate, increasing it by $130. I honestly felt I was being scammed. I went to the store and talked to the tech directly, not being shy about my suspicions. He was completely cool and assured me that it was not the case and explained exactly the cause for the change (apparently it was incompletely troubleshot the first time around… understandable, they’re only human). I believed him (and still do). I weighed my options for a week, then approved the repairs.

I finally got the call that my amp was repaired on December 9. I have zero complaints about the quality of the repair or the professionalism of the staff. I did have to suffer through playing a live-broadcast internet show using an inferior substitute amp… embarrassing to me, but who else would notice?

I will use them again on things for which I have a backup or are not...