Hi

I'm sorry you have experienced a problem with your amp.  It's inevitable with any mass produced electronic equipment that out of all the many thousands of units produced that there may be a small number of failures, and whilst this is unfortunate, it is something that all manufacturing companies have to deal with.  The nature of SUPPORT forums like this one means that users with real or perceived problems will come here first requesting support and as such those requests may be answered by other users like me, or by Line 6 Technical Support staff.  In reality the number of users with real hardware problems is in the main a very tiny percentage of the total number of users with whatever the unit type in question happens to be.  Line 6 go through a very comprehensive testing and quality control procedure prior to their products coming to market for all their products.  Unfortunately though, some issues do not make themselves known immediately, and even when they do, the number of failed units is still very small, so if you happen to see ten users complaining of the same issue on this forum out of maybe 10,000 users then there is obviously a common issue to those ten users which may be due to a fault in a particular batch, the number of users with that particular issue is not that many.

OK.  Numbers and perceptions of what perhaps seems to you to be a lot of users with a particular issue aside, the thing about Line 6 and their Technical Support team is that the company has no motivation in giving its supporters (the buying public) a reason to be unhappy with their purchases.  In fact the company wants to make money to be able to continue, to give it's staff, board members, directors, shareholders or whoever a fair income, but in addition to that you need to understand that virtually every member of staff at Line 6 is incredibly passionate about the products they design, build, test and put out to market to the point of obsession - and if you look elsewhere on these forums, you will see lots of evidence of staff members spending a lot of their own time communicating with the end users (the Variax JTV is one prime example of a product's development with reference to this - but it's not only the Variax) - often into the early hours.   This company out of all the musical equipment manufacturers out there (well the more well known ones anyway) probably has the best after sales support ethos of any of them.

The way to go about getting a problem resolved is to post the problem with as much information as you can on these forums marked as a question and without becoming abusive or personal - it's unnecessary and you need to remember that sometimes cr*p happens - it's a fact of life-, where other users will see it as well as the Line 6 Technical Support team.  It may be that another user can provide you with the answer you need, or maybe you still need assistance from the Tech Support team, in which case one of the team members will usually reply accordingly depending on their workload.  The team's resources are limited to the number of people on the team and the number of queries that need answering, but you will get an answer to your post form someone.  Alternatively you can telephone Line 6 in the US or the UK and speak to a member of the Technical Support team.

Remaining calm and polite whilst you explain your problem is going to help you get the response to your problem that you want.  Whilst your equipment is still in warranty, Line 6 will repair the equipment or replace it if the cause of the fault is not due to the user abusing the equipment.  After the twelve month warranty period has expired, there is no obligation whatever for Line 6 to repair your faulty equipment for free, but as I said, this company wants their users to be happy with the product and that said I have seen instances on these forums where an end user has had their out of warranty product repaired free of charge - and this is in no small part attributable to the Technical Support staff bending over backwards to help a user with a genuine problem - because that's the way they are!  Every case like that would have to be taken on its own merits and it certainly isn't something that gets applied to every fault, but where there is a way to help out the will is there to do that.

OK - you have a problem with your Spider III.  Cr*p happens.  Your amp is broken and you need to get it fixed.   What steps did you actually take to find out how it could be fixed and whether Line 6 would be able to help you out with that?  Did you: a) contact the company politely and explain your problem? or; did you b) lose your temper and fire off a knee jerk posting to this forum spouting rubbish about how cr*p the amp is and how cr*p the company is and that you'll ensure no-one in your neighbourhood will ever buy from Line 6 again?

In all seriousness, which approach do you think is going to get you further with getting your problem resolved? A or B?

You chose option B I think.  However, all is not necessarily lost.  From what you say your amp is only just out of warranty.  although there is no obligation on Line 6's part, they may look on you kindly if you're lucky.  You could try again, but this time maybe choose option A and see how you fare.  I don't work for Line 6 and I therefore don't have the authority or knowledge to say that you will get exactly the response you want, but certainly you are more likely to get a lot further if you do go with option B in my humble opinion.

Good luck

Regards

Nick