Anyone got strong opinions (either way, of course) regarding buying a refurbished receiver from web retailers such as Ecost? I'm about to purchase some M80s and need a good 4 ohm receiver to power them. I've thought about Denon's from Ecost--that are "re-conditioned", as they call them. Any thoughts? Experience?

Also, anyone disagree with a DENON 3803 or the like for the M80s?

Thanks!

TKHanson
Denver

I believe Denons will work fine with the 80s.

Several of us here have purchased refurbed units from eCOST. There is always the possibility of getting a bad unit, but the consensus seems to be that your chances of getting a lemon are no greater with a refurb than they are if you buy a new unit. Perhaps even less, since any problems have been addressed and corrected.

eCOST is an authorized Denon dealer, so you do get a 90 day warranty. You might also check Dakmart.com. They are also an authorized Denon Dealer, and have the black 3803 for $619.98, with a one year warranty, and the silver 3803 for $694.98 with one year warranty.

Thanks, Jack! I'll have a bit more faith in them now. I've just got to settle with buying a Denon or H/K, when all along I was thinking about NAD. Trouble is, I'm not sure if NAD is worth the cost.

Denon is perfect for M80's, I have the low end, low cost 1602 driving them

the 3803 will be perfect

not too sure if NAD will do 4ohm, last I heard, they often don't.

I believe E-Cost has the Denon AVR-1083(exactly the the same as the 3803, rebranded for less high end stores) for just under $500 (you have to add it to your cart on the site to see the sale price).

80 watts and got it for 399.00 open box. It has won numerous awards since they re-vamped the first model. Go to their website. It is paired with a Rotel CD player, Pioneer 563 combo, and M60's. It is a set up that has blown me away. Mainly because of the good people on the website.....
Todd

I bought a refurbished Denon receiver without a problem from ecost after a horrible experience with Dakmart. Dakmart is a terrible company, dishonest with 0 customer service. I found after my experience with Dakmart that they had a .23 out of 10 customer satisfaction rating as compared to ecost's 5.5 rating. I am still trying to get my money back from the credit card company after Dakmart lied to them in writing about the transaction. They were also 40% more expensive than ecost after the shipping costs. I'd hate to see anyone else have the kind of experience I did.

Jeez Mark, I don't doubt, for a minute, that you had the problem you related, and I'm very sorry you had that go through that.

I can only go by the one experience I had with Dakmart. I ordered a refurbed 3805, but had to cancel my order after they had already dunned my credit card. I was concerned about this because I had a bad experience with Markertek, who hit my credit card TWICE for a purchase I had to cancel, and it took me months of fighting, with the help of my credit card company, to get BOTH charges refunded.

Surprisingly, the very afternoon I canceled my order with Dakmart, the refund was credited to my credit card account. So, I have no complaints with the service I received. You just can't be sure what's gonna happen with some of these companies. I've heard stories similar to yours with eCOST. But, I've never had a problem with them either. Go figure.

I ordered a brand new AVR-3803 from ecost back in October. It never materialized but in the 2 months I waited they never charged my credit card. My experience with them leads me trust them as far as maliciously charges are considered. A rule I have learned is that when ordering from them ignore anything with a truck icon, only order things with the sun sign.

I use a factory reconditioned Denon AVR-485S (essentially a 1705) to power my M3s and VP100, and I can't find a single thing wrong with it. I paid $180 at ecost.com as opposed to $300 MSRP. I've always had wonderful success with refurbished items regardless of where I purchased them from.

I bought a pair of Sennheiser headphones (refurbed) from ecost.When I got them and gave them a listen the left channel was cutting in and out.I called them up and talked to a rep about returning them.Well in the middle of them getting the info for a return I got disconnected.I called them back,while I was waiting for a rep to answer the the phone beeped (two way calling) and I answered it.Well it was the rep from ecost calling back.I thought that was pretty impressive.We got all the details worked out,I receieved the new ones in only a few days.They even waived the handling fee on both sets.I will do buissness with the again.Recommened.

along with ecost.com, macmall.com(a sister company to ecost) has great deals also. i got a refurb onkyo 701 receiver from them for $429.

and dont have any reservations about refurb equip. it is just as good, with maybe a dent or scratch.. well worth the savings if you ask me.

bigjohn

No doubt Dakmart suceeds in filling orders satisifactorily in most cases, when they don't though I think the customer can count on getting screwed. In my case the charged my credit card right away and shortly afterward they sent a tracking number. When I checked on shipment the tracking number had been voided. I emailed them twice over the next few cays about the order and never got any response. 10 days later I sent them an email canceling the order and made the same purchase from ecost where the reciever was 25% lower in price plus shipping free. The ecost receiver arrived and I thought that was the end of it.

About 30 hours after I sent the cancelation email to Dakmart they actually shipped the reciever which arrived after the ecost unit ordered 10 days later than the one from Dakmart. I refused delivery on the Dakmart unit and called Dakmart. No-one answered the phone and after several tries I finally got an aswering machine. No-one ever called back or responded to several messages. I put the charge into dispute with the credit card company and they credited my account for the full amount. Two months later Dakmart refunded my money minus a 20% restocking fee and shipping charges which totaled nearly 40% the cost of the unit. My credit card was then redebitted for the full purchase cost. The credit card company sent me notification of this with a written statement from Dakmart stating that they had shipped the unit within 24 hours and this was their standard policy for returned merchandise. I mailed copies of the actual tracking log showing that the Dakmart unit had not shipped until 11 days after the order, along with a hard copy of my cancelation email to Dakmart to both Dakmart the credit card company.

Finally three months after the saga began, Dakmart responded with an email stating sorry this is their policy. They absolutely refused to acknowledge any of the facts in the case: the actual ship date, the documented cancellation prior to shipping, or their false statement to the credit card company regarding their performace. They just kept repeated sorry we won't change our policy. That's when I went online to find out about customer satisfaction with Dakmart and found their .23 out of 10 rating.

I am being so long winded here because I just hate companies that treat people like this. Ebay and companies like Axiom, HSU, SVS and Outlaw have none a lot to foster a high level of service in internet commerce. Dakmart takes it down to a level below the worst brick and morter joints because you can't fight back except through the credit card companies. If I had an experience like this with a brick and morter store I have no problem taking it to court just to make a point about the cost of doing business like this. But accross state lines what can you do but spread the word where you can.

So I feel a duty to warn people off Dakmart whenever I can. I'm sure ecost has its problems too but they manage to attract a customer satifaction rating 25 times better than Dakmart. From the comments I read nobody who has a problem with Dakmart gets a satisfactory outcome.

MMD55: Geez, from that post alone, I'll avoid them like the plague.

I'm a successful business person who knows darn well such comments are damming to a business's success. The cliché, "what comes around goes around” is very true. If they continue to tell you, "…sorry, it's our policy" then I simply say, "Policy is arbitrary; change it! Do better business usualy equates into doing more business". What complete morons.

Yes, well it was clear to me that Dakmart's real policy is: Screw repeat business, as long as we make a little off every attemped transaction, even if we have to lie to get our money, there ais an endless suply of fresh customers available with the internet work for us.

I'm still waiting to hear back from my credit card company. If they don't make it good with a merchant that it has been documented lied to them, well they at least face stiff competition and I will be saying adios to them as well.

Thanks for the heads up. I'm not going to chance it with them.

I also had a bad experience buying an HK receiver from ECost. They sent out a faulty one-they aren't a licensed HK seller and it turned out to be a nightmare. They wouldn't authorize a return and basically stuck me with a high priced paperweight. Customer service was horrible and the people were incredibly rude. I had to turn everything over to my credit card company and they dealt with Ecost. I ended up buying a refurb HK630 from HK's Ebay store. I got it for $510 and couldn't be happier with HK's customer service or equipment.