Back in December, when I got my new (old) CD player, it didn’t come with either the remote or the owner’s manual. I could grab a copy of the horrificly scanned—and apparently only—PDF online, but I wanted a real, original, tangible manual. Fortunately, I located one seller who had a copy and I ordered it. A few days later the packet arrived, but he’d sent the Service Manual, an entirely different beast altogether. I emailed him and he wrote back, apologizing profusely and instructed me to instigate a return through eBay. I did as directed and got the return postage mailing label and my account was refunded.
I reached out to the seller a few days later and asked how I could pay for the manual since eBay had already refunded me. After several more days with no response I emailed him again. (This is a seller with a 99.5% positive feedback rating with whom I’ve done business before.) He wrote back and apologized again for the delay, telling me he was out of town and he would “try to find” the correct manual upon his return.
Another week passed and I heard nothing. So I wrote him again. He said he was having trouble locating it.
At this point I said fuck it, and told him not to worry about it. It was obvious he either didn’t have a clue where it was, or he was dealing with something personal that was preventing him from responding in a timely manner and to just forget about the whole thing.
No response. Of course.
Well, apparently this particular manual—much like the matching remote control for my unit—is rarer than proverbial hens’ teeth. I set a trigger on eBay to notify me if one ever showed up again and basically sulked off.
Today, I was attempting to locate the instructions in my desk folders for a CD Walkman I just put up for sale. And what should pop out?
My original instruction manual for the deck that I purchased in 1990!
There was obviously a reason the seller couldn’t find his copy.
Sometimes the universe smiles laughs at you.
In thanks, I’ve scanned this physical copy and upload it to the hifiengine.com repository so a good copy will be available to others.