su6oxone said:
"But you're really planning on sending it in and paying almost the cost of the unit to have them maybe diagnose and fix the clock issue? AFAIK, the clock issue has been annoying to people but hasn't interfered in anyway really with the recordings that people have made. "
I agree. If it were out of warranty I would certainly not bother.
The initial 90 day warranty is "repair or replace", including parts and labor, after that, the small print says they cover parts, but not labor for the rest of the warranty year. I had not realized that, or I would have jumped on this sooner, since my unit did malfunction within the 90 day period. The tech rep I spoke to was not able to tell me if I would be charged or not. "I understand where you're coming from" was his reply to my statement that if they intend to charge me bench rates, it would be uneconomical to fix it. He suggested I email the Service department directly and ask.
I would be.....ummmmmm......seriously disappointed in Sony if they want to charge me for fixing an issue that should have been debugged before release. I have an email into Sony LA Service right now, which they have read, but not yet replied to.
I mentioned in my email this thread (with URL), and the fact that multiple users have had the problem, but nobody has yet sent in a unit, so of course they have not had a chance to deal with it in any practical way. If they know anything about making friends with high quality after market service, and the meaning of 'professional', they should treat us right. If not, the net makes it easy for others to become aware of the issue, so they can decide for themselves how important it is in their choice of gear.
I'm quite happy with the recording quality of the unit for my purposes. It won't record (i.e. initiate a file) unless the clock is set, so it seems unlikely one would 'miss' a recording due to unset clock. Nobody has yet reported loss of clock while the unit is actually recording. That's why I won't bother repairing it if they intend to charge me for within-warranty repair. It's a relatively minor functional issue, but the way Sony handles it will determine if I am likely ever to buy another Sony product. Many years ago when I was in the audio biz, I sold a lot of Sony gear. In those days it was well made, well designed, and well supported. We now have an opportunity to see if this is still the case.
TG