Your favorite/least favorite on-line gear supplier?

[jeffree]

After reading some recent threads, I thought I'd throw out a query related to the best and worst of on-line shopping.

Anyone care to share the names of your favorites/least favorites based on your own shopping experience?

Thanks, J.

[Sennheiser]

Best: E-bay

Worst: E-bay

[sjjohnston]

Worst:
Freeport Music (aka musicalinstruments.com)

Bad:
zZounds

Good:
Full Compass
Markertek
Music123
Jacks Music Store
Just Strings
Freds

I actually liked Musician's Friend's retail stores. They're not nearly as nice since they turned into Guitar Centers.

[Sennheiser]

I should have included MarkerTek. I've never spent a lot of money on an order with them, but they treat me as good as a major studio and the shipping is fast.

[Treeline]

Great:

www.guitarsam.com (Guitar Sam / aka Play It Again Sam)

Great:

www.elderly.com (Elderly Instruments)

Good:

Musician's Friend
(Good results with a justified return after the deadline)

Haven't bought from anyone else... and haven't had any bad experiences.

[subtractor]

www.pssl.com is good

They (and a couple others) give 30 or 45 days price match guarantee. That's good piece of mind. You know you're getting the best price. And they were very helpful!

Sweetwater is really good too. Just DAMNED expensive.

[DigitalDon]

Worst (in my experience) - Samash. They seem to change salespeople every other week. Went through 3 salespeople (they all quit in succession) in 1 month while waiting on my Aardvark Q10.

Best - American Musical Supply and Musicians Friend

DD

[Klaatu]

I've had great results with Bayview Pro Audio, 8th Street Music, MacMidi Music and Humbucker Music.

American Musical Supply is pretty good and Elderly Muisc was fine, but I only ordered from them once.

Musician's Friend is the worst. I ordered from there only before I knew there were so many other places to order from. They rarely have stuff in stock I want, they lie about when orders are shipped, and their staff ranks right up there with the sales dudes in Guitar Center (which I guess should be expected). I've never ordered from Sam Ash, but that's because enough people have complained about them that I figured why try when there are so many other options.

Just my own personal experiences.

[littledog]

I get annoyed with Sweetwater, mostly because they call me up every few months and try and twist my arm for my business. The they'll send me some "secret offer - only sent to the privileged elite" that supposedly has "once-in-a-lifetime, never-to-be repeated" prices. So I'll call the "sales engineer" (love that technical talk) and get a list of prices on items I'm vaguely considering for the future. Then I'll call my local pro dealer, and without telling him about Sweetwater or mentioning their prices, I'll ask him for a list of prices on the same items.

Gosh darn if on almost every item, my dealer's "regular" friendly discounts are anywhere from 10-20% lower than Sweetwater's "once in a lifetime" deals.

I actually have no objection if a dealer wants to charge a premium based on some extra value that they perceive they are offering (although I'm not sure what that would be in this case.)

Just don't yank my chain about "best deals in the universe" when they aren't even close to being competetive to what I get as regular pricing, and then come to me whining about why i don't give them more business.

We won't even get into the other areas where they fall way short of my local dealer, like:

•lending me gear just cause I need something for a session.
•sending me collections of particular pieces to do free comparison testing for a week.
•giving me advice i can trust (not based on which manufacturers they have sweetheart deals with. Remember the fabulous Oram line?)

[ghetto3jon]

sweetwater.com and zzounds.com get my vote.

[pipelineaudio]

Best Soundchaser.com

worst : sweetwater/sam ash

[dirtdog]

Best prices I have found were at BPMusic Express........ordered several items with no problems at all.........
Also had good luck with Musician's Friend, AMS, and zzounds.
Comments above regarding Sweetwater and the "telemarketer" approach they take are true....have had the same experience with them....

[Beezoboy]

I can't believe no one mentioned www.8thstreet.com.

Well I just did. They are great!

Beezoboy

[rushfan33]

I've used MF many times and haven't had a problem with them. They usually ship fast. I ordered from Sam Ash for the first time the other day and it took them 3 days to prepare the item for shipping. It was a microphone! 3 frickin days to pull it off the shelf!

Another great one to buy from is markertek. They also shipped super fast without a hitch!

RF

[VOXVENDOR]

Music 123

[porphyrous]

I second the great/awful vote for eBay. You just have to be careful.

I've bought a few high-priced things from Kraft Music http://www.kraftmusic.com

I was always very happy with everything I got from there and the service was good, and the prices were very competitive.

---
David Vesel -- electro recording artist
The current single is "Numb" from the album Calliope
On Ampcast / Situation Records
http://www.ampcast.com/davidvesel
davidvesel@pobox.com

[Scriabin]

Best: Atlas Pro Audio
Mercenary

Worst: Scam Cash

[Titanship]

Jeffree,
Hey, found your thread- thanks. Interesting how one person's favorite, is on the shi*-list of another...

Also interesting how no one mentionded FULL COMPASS in this thread, but it got high marks in my thread.

titan,
PEACE

[jeffree]

I agree, Titan... one's treasure can be another's curse, depending on just an order or two. By the way, I received my Yama 16G in questionable circumstances yesterday (from MF), so I've sent them a message asking about their *standard packaging procedures" before I decide whether to seek a remedy. I've had good luck with them in the past, but now I'm wondering...

[Titanship]

Jeff,
I don't know if you have seen some of my old posts, but I got an ADAT from MF. It was USED! In fact, I was able to check via the internal counter and it had clocked 18 hours of use.

Musicians Friend is no friend of mine.
Titan,
PEACE

[jeffree]

Nasty stuff, Titan--such stories make my blood boil. Do you happen to know of any way I can check my DAW (Yama aw16g) for past use? It looks new, and I don't see any past songs saved, but is there any other obvious way to check--as you did for our ADAT? I suppose I can check for any saved effects patches, or ?

J.

[Titanship]

Originally posted by jeffree
Do you happen to know of any way I can check my DAW (Yama aw16g) for past use? It looks new, and I don't see any past songs saved, but is there any other obvious way to check--as you did for our ADAT? I suppose I can check for any saved effects patches, or ?

J.

No Jeff, I'm not familiar with those units. It's a nice feature of the ADAT's- to log time used, but it caught MF red-handed! Of course, the small nick right on top of the ADAT, and the fact that it wasn't wrapped in the customary plastic, was the only thing that alerted me. Had I not been paying attention, I might have never known. Then, I saw the ORIGINAL CUSTOMER'S NAME right there on the box! They had left HER return Fed Ex label on the same box they sent me! I bet somebody got fired for that. Nah.

Good luck with yours. Hopefully, my situation is rare.

titan,
PEACE

[jeffree]

Thanks, Titan. A closing thought before I shut down the computer and actually record some music... I just called Yamaha and spoke with a wonderful (techie) guy there about the arrival condition of my Yama 16g. In short, he was shocked, and urged me to have MF ship me another, wrapped with a bow, at no extra cost. In his words, there's no telling what happened to such an open box during UPS transit. Thus, my next call is to MF for a new unit. Shit.

Thanks again for you help, Titan, and sorry (other folks) if this thread became too self-involved between two of us.

J.

[Cyrokk]

Best: Cyberpowerpc.com. Relatively decent pricing, excellent warranty and great customer service. They called us a day after we submitted a custom job to make a configuration correction.

Shaky: SamAsh. Anyone who puts a table of contents in the middle of a catalog is either illiterate or still has issues of being born Siserian.

Cy

[Slackmaster2K]

Good: 8thstreet

Bad: sam ash!

Slackmaster 2000