I bought some Ring doorbells that were refurbished. I was not happy with the quality of the devices I received. So, I initiated a return on Amazon and was able to print a return label to return them for no cost. I was able to order new ones and they were shipped and received the next day. Those cost substantially less than the money I paid for my Nucleus.
Only after several days of back and forth did someone say they would pay to ship the old power supply back. At least I think it was for the power supply. They never made it clear whether I had to ship the whole thing back or just the power supply. They should have explained the process up front instead of me waiting days to find that out.
Instead, I chose to just buy a new power supply to short circuit the endless waiting and back and forths. How many days would it take them to get it? How many days would it take them to test it? How many days would it take them to send me a replacement. Sounds like I’d be lucky to get this resolved in a couple weeks. Meanwhile, I would be without the ability to listen to my music if I didn’t have a backup Roon ROCk device.
I also hate their policy on shipping from the Roon store. There are 2 options: 1) free, which takes a long time, and 2) $180 to ship it over night. Well, I don’t need it overnight, and I’m not about to pay $180. They don’t have a 2 day option for a reasonable price? I ordered my power supply in the middle of the day on Thursday. Today is Friday, and it has not yet shipped. So, it will be interesting to see how long this takes to arrive.
If they were truly interested in customer service, they would have sent me a replacement immediately and then waited for me to send in the bad one. We are not talking about a repair, here. We are talking about an inexpensive part that just needs to be replaced.
I’m glad you find Roon’s policy acceptable. This doesn’t meet my experience or expectations buying high end audio gear. The worst part was the delay in getting responses and information. Then, I get a surly response from customer service explaining that if I had provided all of the information they asked for, for which I didn’t see the request, they would THEN have told me it would cost me nothing to send back the faulty unit. I provided my order # early in the process, which should have given them all of the information they needed. But still nothing about the delays involved.
The bottom line is this: the Nucleus is really not better than just building a server from a NUC on Amazon. The case is too big and mostly empty. Most of those cooling fins are a waste since only a very small area of the computer touches the case. They are trying to make it look like a premium device, when it really isn’t. Further, I didn’t get a premium experience purchasing it or getting support when it had a problem.
You pays your money and you takes your chances.