By Patrick Market

COLUMBIA, 1/8/13 (Review)
-- I hook up the last component, plug in the rig, and sound floods the room.  Not tinny sound, not tooth-loosening bass, but a full, balanced audio aroma throughout the entire house.
 
After weeks assembling a $2,000 stereo system for under $200 using older components from Craigslist, Goodwill, and yard sales (a welcome challenge from an audiophile friend), I am treated to a honey-like sound I have not heard in my own home in nearly 30 years.

 
I revel, until…Snap.  The static-y crackle of a receiver channel gone bad. 

To say I'm crestfallen is an understatement.   Not so much because of the necessary repairs, but because of the ensuing wait to hear that luscious sound again.   For the repairs, I call David Regan at PioneerAV, where the average turnaround time is two days.   My 17-year-old stereo receiver needed special parts and took around a week to fix, but the wait was well worth it.

Regan started PioneerAV with Fred Doll in 1990, to service Missouri school district audio-visual equipment.   Though the company still works with schools, repairs now dominate their business.   Car remotes and circuit boards come in from time to time, but vintage audio components and newer televisions have become PioneerAV’s bread and butter.

"All TVs -- LCD, LED and even plasma -- are reasonably repairable so long as the screen isn’t broken," Regan says, adding that the big money in a modern flat-screen television is in the screen itself.   If it has spider-web cracks, then the TV is a total loss.

Screens aside, there’s "a good chance televisions are going to have other issues that can be addressed," Regan says.  He suspects too many people spend hundreds, even thousands, on new televisions when buying new isn’t necessary.  Bad circuits or circuit boards can often be fixed, and for a fraction of the cost.  

Regan should know.   Before opening PioneerAV, he studied electronics at DeVry University in Kansas City, interned in a Yamaha repair shop, and worked for National Audio.   He's as knowledgeable about old TVs and stereo components (like mine) as he is about today's digital devices.

Back home, I hook up my now-working stereo again.   The same amazing tone fills the room, static snap, crackle, and pop quieted permanently.   I have blown my self-imposed budget and my friend’s challenge (both $200), but only by $29.
 

PioneerAV
1414 Rangeline, Suite G
Columbia , Missouri 65201
Phone: 1-573-442-1080
Fax: 1-573-874-5239
E-Mail: dregan at socket.net
E-Mail: fdoll at socket.net