L & M Electronics Service Co.

I brought my McIntosh DVD player for a intermittent power supply issue. The held on to my unit for 3 weeks and didn’t even open look a the board. They stated that they were unable to replicate the issue. Also, communication was horrible and every time I spoke to Wolfgang he sounded as if I was inconveniencing him by having brought in my unit. AWFUL costumer service.
A week after I recovered my unit I brought it in to Champlifier in Alameda. Champlifier replicated the problem and fixed the unit in under one week. Champlifier’s services are reasonably priced, they are very enthusiastic, extremely knowledgeable and excellent about communicating.
Bring your unit to Alameda — L&M are dishonest and put no care or concern for costumer.

L & M have been nothing but straight forward with me. They’ve fixed a couple of 70’s era stereo components for me and I’ve been satisfied. In a disposable electronics world of 2015 they’re the go to business.

very pricey
trash quality work
never again
zero stars
astonishing zero care concern toward quality for customer

So strange to read such widely varying reviews …
I had a great experience. After much hunting for a qualified shop to fix my beloved 20 year old Conrad Johnson Premier 11A tube amp, I was directed to L and M. Pierre took my amp, called the following week with a quote and 1.5 weeks later I had my baby back home glowing and sounding fantastic. The price was very reasonable (about the same as if I would have had to ship it to Virginia to CJ) and it was done locally. Very happy customer.

I bought a used Teac open-​reel deck from a hi-​fi outfit in San Mateo that, fortunately, no longer exists. Although they assured me that their technicians had given the unit a thorough checking-​over, I found that the unit ran audibly fast in both transport directions. Kind of like playing an LP at 45 rpm! The San Mateo folks said, «Sorry, but no implied warranties on used equipment.» I figured the unit was a $ 350 waste of money, but on a hunch I turned it over to the guys at L&M. They found the source of the problem and fixed it within a week or so. Happy Day!

The shop been around for decades, and they seem competent and knowledgeable.
Customer service, however, leaves something to be desired, and their rates are somewhat unclear — I guess they just charge whatever they want.

I recently brought in my Tascam 688 analog 8 track. It was having some issues with grounding noise, and after 2 months in the shop and at least 1 false claim that it was fixed, it still couldn’t be sorted out. So I sent it in to Tascam, who immediately told me that the plug/​power supply was not standard issue (it had a 3 prong power supply on it, instead of the 2 prong, which was causing hum). So solving that the noise issue went away. They also replaced the idler assembly and belt cap. Unit works flawlessly now.
When I look at L&M’s invoice it says that they «aligned and set electrical adjustments, resoldered bad circuit board connections»… but yet despite claiming to have worked on many of these units, somehow missed that the power supply wasn’t standard and in fact wrong. Also, when I brought it to their attention the first time that the unit wasn’t fixed after bringing it home, the person at the front desk on the phone (French guy, very brash and seemed possibly hung over) was extremely rude and hostile and got into an argument with me. So overall, I’m out 180 bucks, 2 months time working in my studio, when I should have just sent it to Tascam. Maybe these guys are good at some things but not others. But a basic electrical issue such as this should (I think) have been discovered by a company that has both the words «electrical» and «service» in the name.

I blew out a BeoLab 4000 speaker. Green light, no sound. Repaired under warranty. They did such a good job I have no idea where they opened it up!
Any kind of B&O repair, they know their stuff. An authorized repair center from vintage B&O to the new stuff. I saw a BeoSound 9000 smashed to bits that Wolfgang (the tech) put back together. It looked new as if anything happened to it.
Great work on vintage turntables too. Beogram 4002, Dual 1229. Yaaaay

Had two pair of vintage studio monitors refoamed by L&M. Here’s a few things you should know.
–The speaker repair isn’t done in house, so you’re basically dropping equipment off at a middle man that ships it out to a qualified repair facility.
–The guy that runs the place is friendly in person but extremely adversarial on the phone. Be prepared to argue if you have ANY questions after you’ve dropped your gear off.
–If you must do a refoam here make sure you remove the drivers from the cabinets beforehand. If you don’t be prepared to shell over an extra $ 100 per pair. (They didn’t mention this before I dropped them off. A pricey rookie mistake.)
They did the work I wanted done but I won’t be going back with because of the poor customer relations, the higher than quoted price (with non-​refundable «inspection» fee), and they fact they didn’t do the work themselves.

These guys came to my rescue. My flat screen TV (Samsung) would take 3 minutes to start. Finally I did some research to see what the problem was and it was the capacitors on the main board. I showed it to them and they replaced them all in about a week. It works great now. Thanks again.

I highly recommend L & M Electronics. Not only did they do a fantastic job on my unit which was in dire need of repair, their customer service was also outstanding. I found them knowledgeable, friendly and courteous.

If you’ve ever heard stories about the guy who took his car to the shop for an oil change but was told he needed a new transmission, battery and engine block, then you’ve met L&M Electronics. I brought my Denon Stereo in for repair and after charging me well over $ 150 for the repair, which the gentleman who owns the shop said was because of soderinging type work, I took the stereo home and amaazingly enough, it still didnt wor. I figured I must not know how to hook it up so I called Denon. They walked me through the set up and it was correct. They said there’s a problem with this model and that if any dust accumulates in the headphone socket that it could cause the machine to think there is a headset plugged in. Simple enough. Blow air into the socket and it clears up the problem. In my case there was something loose with that socket. I brought it back to L&M and they looked at it and said there were no problems. Fine. I took it back home and again, it still didn’t work. I brought it back to L&M and they charged me an additional $ 50 to do nothing. They said the sodering work was appropriate and that the machine works properly. I spent $ 200 fixing a $ 300 machine and it still isn’t right. If you plug something into that headset jack (outlet whatever you call it) you have to jimmy and giggle it to get the speakers to work properly. When I picked up the receiver for the third time, the owner said he would not refund my $ 50 as they had to open the stereo etc to determine there was nothing wrong with it. I am now working with Denon to get the machine fixed. It’s under warranty and I only brought it to L&M because I wanted it repaired more expediently than it could be done through the warranty process. So much for that. This process ran the course of 7 months from May through December 2010. I think shipping it out and getting it repaired under the warranty would have been much cheaper and quicker looking back on this whole ordeal now. They guy doesn’t stand by his work, is arrogant, and clearly understands the concept of bait and switch as it relates to his work and his clients. My suggestion… stay away from L&M Electronics. You’ll be glad you did I promise you.

I have a vintage Pioneer integrated amp and tuner that needed repair. They fixed the tuner nicely and repaired some problems with the amp but the amp is old and had a series of problems one after another. First the left channel buzzed, then the right faded out. I brought it back and each time they fixed it without any additional charge. I hated being without the amp [the SA-​9100 is awsome] but am very pleased it can be repaired by competent people.

I took my integrated amp for them to repair a problem where my right channel would cut out randomly. I called them and explained the problem and they said the the problem most likely was a bad solder joint based on the description. I took it in and they said they fixed it. Got the amp back, it worked for a couple days and problem resurfaced.
They have a warranty on repair work so I took it back. They say they could not get the problem to happen again. I brought it home and problem happened within a few hours. They told me to try and trouble shoot it myself and when I was able to make it happen to bring it back. The problem is completely random, and I have not been able to isolate it so the amp is still ‘broken’. I honestly don’t think they ever got the problem to happen the first time I brought it in and just assumed it was a bad solder joint and ‘fixed’ something that was not the problem.
I think these guys are competent if they can find the problem, but in my case I think they just took a guess and said it was done. Now I’m out a hundred bucks and still don’t have a consistently working right channel.

I wish I could say I’ve had the same wonderful experience that others have had, but so far I have not. I dropped my Onkyo receiver/​amplifier off on February 4 for a minor problem. The promise was «we’ll be back to you within a week.» One week goes by, no word. I call. «Oh sorry, haven’t had a chance to look at it… too busy. We’ll call you when we get a chance.» Another week goes by. I call. «Nope, the technician hasn’t looked at it yet. We’ll call you.» When I reminded the guy who answered my call that it’s already been two weeks, he told me not to raise my voice and then repeated «we’ll call you.» Great. Here I am sitting by the phone twiddling my thumbs…

The employees at L & M have a serious passion for Marantz receivers. I appreciate that and immediately felt very comfortable leaving my Marantz 2275 in their hands.
They did a wonderful job fixing my receiver, and it sounds spectacular once again. They took my receiver and $ 50 diagnostic fee and within the week called me to confirm how much the total of the repair. Upon approving they stated the repair would be completed that day at 2pm. They also subtract your diagnostic fee from the total cost of the repair!
Magnificent!
I want to give them 5 stars but I feel that they are a little pricey. Also I find sometimes Pierre (employee) can come across as a little cold/​rude. But overall I was very pleased and will be taking more equipment there in the future!

I’ve been taking stuff here for about 5 years now, and these guys are very knowledgeable about almost any and all audio equipment. There is a $ 50 diagnostic fee, so be forewarned.
Most of the time the repairs take a week or two to complete unless there is a special order part. My only complaint is that they don’t always communicate as to what is going on, so you have to ask a lot of questions. This place is good for high end audiophile gear that you might not want to trust to someone who does repairs out of the garage or something.
They also repair /​service multi-​track recorders, so if you are an analog kinda guy like myself, and want your tape machines serviced by professionals, this is your place.

I had an M&K subwoofer and an old McIntosh receiver repaired at L&M last summer. They had to do some searching to find the problems, but they found them and the gear works nicely. Sweet. I had had the subwoofer repaired three or four times over 25 years and the crossover never really worked right until now. Thanks L&M for fixing a problem that even some other pretty good shops couldn’t find.
Of course, that is what I expected from L&M. Good service, good communication and careful repairs of old classics. They delivered.

Wow, this place really proves the power of Unilocal!I had looked around for a service center for my Denon CD player (which I thought was about 8 years old and turns out to be a 20 year-​old gem!!). I found Jerky B.‘s review of L & M and decided to give them a chance. And I was thoroughly pleased. The staff there is extremely knowledgeable and passionate about audio equipment. They are very friendly, professional and unobtrusive — not in any way «sales» oriented for their services. They promised a diagnostic within a week and delivered with a couple of days to spare. They then told me that my machine, which required unique parts that they happened to have in stock, would be ready within 5 days. It was ready the next morning! The price was reasonable, the player sounds better than it has in years, and it was a pleasure working with the fellas at L & M. Highly recommended!
Follow-​up. The same problem re-​emerged after a couple of weeks. I took it back, and the guys at L&M very responsibly redid the job at no cost. A few weeks later, the same problem occurred yet again. I got tired of dealing with this 20 year player, however long and well it had served me, so I gave up and bought a new one. I guess either the guys at L&M missed something or there was a fatal flaw that could not be undone.