Ruark Audio Reviews 103

Great customer service, Staff very helpful if you have a problem, fast efficient turn around

I have just received my R4 back from being repaired. The repair was carried out and cleaned to my complete satisfaction and at a reasonable price so thankyou Terry and the team. I was pleasently surprised that Ruark were still willing to repair my R4 as it is now 13 years old so that is testament to the quality of service from this company. I now look foreward to at least another 13 years of high quality sound.

Ruark products are enjoyed by many members of my family and we all value their quality and reliability.
They also have a very impressive and efficient after sales service. My unit was serviced and given a software upgrade and returned very quickly within a few days.

Fantastic aftersales service. Excellent and timely communication. Fixed the issue rapidly. Friendly and helpful.

I have had a R1 mk1 radio since 2006 and it has become a real fixture. It developed a fault after a series of rapid pwere outages in our house and I got in touch to see if could be repaired. Terry couldn't have been more helpful, for a clear fixed fee promised to try to repair it and if that were not possible would recycle with no charge (I hoped against hope it wouldn't come to that!). Two days after they received it, it is now all fixed and on its way back to me for I hope another 18 years service! Thank you Ruark for great service and lovely, reliable devices.

Excellent and simple explanation as to what to do with my R4 to get it repaired. Easy to sort and great customer service. Well done.

My daughter treated me to an R2 Mk.4 radio just over a year ago and it has been in daily use ever since. I am very pleased with its looks and the sound quality is excellent. Disappointed that it was made in the far east but what isn't these days!
However, the remote control unit is a disaster. For one thing it is just too small and frequently gets mislaid. But, more seriously, it stopped working about ten months after purchase and as the radio is sited at a distance it became a nuisance controlling the unit. I changed the battery to no effect but ,on inspection, it became clear that the battery was not making good contact inside the unit due to a poor design.
I contacted Ruark but they ignored my letter - at the time it was some weeks beyond the guarantee period.
So to me the radio, costing several hundred pounds and one of the most expensive radios on the UK market, is completely let down by the cheap and nasty remote control unit probably costing no more than a few pounds. A poor show Ruark!

I got my R410 this year in February everything perfect in fact blown away, then added a turntable and i had a slight buzz from the phono stage spoken to Terry and he suggested some ground wire from the unit to any metal plate and this fixed it, they respond to emails very quicky and Terry even called me back, same happened when i purchased their CD player was getting clicks when selecting next track a email was sent immediately and was advised that a software update is being tested and will fix this , this company care about its service and its products , I also enquired about why Tidal connect was only High quality and not Max and guess what the October software update fixed this

We bought our R4 Radio CD with Bluetooth in 2016 and have loved everything about it : sound quality, functionality and style. It has been in constant use and working perfectly till very recently, when the volume control went, and it then began to splutter…
We talked to Terry at Customer Services, filled in an online form and sent it back for a fixed fee repair.
Today (just one week later), we are delighted to have it back, working perfectly.
Thank you Ruark !

Just over three years ago I invested in a Ruark R1 --E Dab FM Radio. On their website
ruarkaudio.com
they state:
'Ruark - Award-Winning DAB Radios and Sound Systems
Family-owned British company passionate about sound! Discover Ruark online for award-winning DAB radios, speakers and sound' and thats exactly what they are, but PLUS exemplary customer service. Despite my radio being JUST out of Warranty when I emailed Terry O'Brien with an issue, he replied almost immediately and confirmed that I should post it in for repairs. A postage label was emailed, and on the 13th/11/224 I packaged up my beloved and stylish Ruark radio in its original box. My radio arrived back by 26/11/24, beautifully packaged, serviced, fixed, gleaming and with updated software and a very polite covering letter.. and no charge. Absolutely delighted that I will now experience many more hours of listening pleasure, and to have initially made the decision to invest and 'buy British', especially in todays throwaway society. Top Marks Ruark Audio..

A huge thank you to Terry, David and all techies at Ruark. We received our R4 (early Vita Audio) back today all repaired and as good as new. The unit is far too nice to throw away despite it's age. Sound and performance has always been brilliant.
So pleased that it was repairable, we are looking forward to many more years of superb sound.
We received excellent advice before deciding to go ahead, Terry pointed out all the possible issues with an older unit together with the costs involved. It was definitely the right decision to send our R4 back to Ruark.
Full details of work done were enclosed when the unit was returned and payment processing was painless too.
Very pleased with the excellent service and attitude and so happy to have our sounds back.
Many thanks once again.

John Nowak

I love my Ruark R2 but after many years of daily use, it was starting to show its age and the display finally give out. I contacted Ruark and was delighted to hear that they offered a repair service. They quoted me a price which included return carriage and provided instructions on the best way to return to them. The courier picked up my Ruark on the Monday and by Friday it was repaired and arrived back to me on Saturday, with a new display and fully serviced.
In these times where a lot of things are made cheaply and are considered disposable, I really appreciate the quality of Ruark and their ethos of repairing their product even when they are many years old. As I write this review, my R2 is belting out music from Radio Caroline and I feel confident that it will continue to do so for many years to come, still sounding as great as the day I bought it.

What a pleasure to receive great service from a company who know their products inside out. I've needed to contact the company on a number of occasions due to my oldish & temperamental cd/radio. I absolutely love the mellow sound & this great looking piece of 'furniture' & have had nothing but helpful advice from this company's knowledgeable staff. I really rate the repair service which is an extremely straightforward process. Special shout out to Terry too - Keep up the great work all at Ruark!

After spending many weeks researching various options, I ordered a R410 Integrated Music System directly from Ruark a month ago.

It arrived and I was immediately impressed by the build quality. Then I switched it on and played the first track I'd specifically chosen to test the device. To say I was impressed would be an understatement - I was absolutely delighted with my purchase.

However, a few days later I turned the unit on and no matter what input I selected, the only sound to come out of the speakers was a constant whirring noise. I phoned Ruark and they suggested a factory re-set. This wasn't ideal as I'd spent a few hours carefully collating and storing dozens of internet and DAB stations in the memory.

I re-set the unit, going through the set-up process again and, for at least twenty-four hours, it worked perfectly... until the same issue cropped up.

Ruark arranged for the unit to be collected and a new one delivered, and that's where cracks started to appear in the customer service. I had to chase them up to get confirmation of a delivery time, and in that communication, I received a rather curt reply, like I was an inconvenience.

The new unit arrived and I went through the set-up process for a third time. Once I was able to hear the unit again, that went some way to dampening the slightly negative experience I'd had.

Twenty-four hours later, the unit suffered the same fault as the previous one.

By this point, I'd lost all confidence in both the product and Ruark. Don't get me wrong - Ruark did what they had to legally do, but no more. There was never any sense of apology or effort to address the inconvenience I suffered through no fault of my own. I'm self-employed and I reckon I've lost 5-6 hours of my time/income packing and unpacking units, not to mention the troubleshooting and set-up.

What is frustrating is that I'm fairly sure that if Ruark had actually tried to win my confidence back, they'd have had a customer for life. However, I just got the feeling that they didn't much care.

In conclusion, when the unit worked, it was a five-star product. However, the sense of disappointment in both the reliability and Ruark's attitude towards customer service (and retention) is closer to two stars.

That's a shame.

Fantastic customer service. Couldn't be happier with our Ruark

The staff at Ruark were excellent & went beyond what was necessary to assist. My radio developed a fault after the 3 year warranty had expired but Ruark obligingly repaired it for free & sent it back by courier a week later. Now I have a radio that works perfectly & is like new. I like Ruark products as they have a quality in both their build & sound. Overall a stress free & pleasant experience.

Update from my previous review. I was offered a 10% compensation discount from Ruark on a new replacement for the poor quality unit that I originally purchased. I can get 10% off from some suppliers anyway.
The Chinese made Ruark products are over priced in the first place and I ended up spending a bit more and purchased a Japanese brand (not made in China.) Will never buy Ruark again. BTW my faulty Ruark make a great door stop!! Following on from Ruark's reply of 11/10/2024 they forgot to mention that they have already repaired the CD mechanism at great cost to me! So the CD mechanism is not 10 years old! I have made enquiries about fixing the fault from third party repairers and they will not touch Ruark products plus even if they did obtaining parts for this brand even if only a few years old is nigh on impossible.

In conclusion yes Ruark is a nice product with great sound when NEW but they are not built to last (as confirmed by other reviewers. I have other much cheaper CD players that are still going strong and are older than my Ruark. I have already explained why I didn't take you offer up of 10 percent on a new unit. Plus on an email you did offer to have a look at the unit again but you said parts are probably unobtainable. If you had repaired it again (like the last repair) I doubt whether the repair would last that long. Anyway as I said before I have purchased a non Chinese made product this time.

Remote control packed up. Answer - use it manually we noblonger service this equipment. Why buy equipment if it cannot be serviced after only 6 years or so. I won't touch anything of their again.

I am fan of Ruark products, Have R2 Mk3 & mk4 R5, MRX R1S and R410 products.
Beside the fact that the latest product are no longer multiroom via undok, I met the same problem with the displays of the R5 and R2 mk2, after 2 years, they became less brighter, and with screen burnin making the menus totally illegible. For the price of the units it's not acceptable. I understand why the new products use a different display.