I'm never buying a guitar online again!!

Mr. Moon

Mr. Moon

Force of Naked
OK. I will make this quick and to the point. Long story short, I will never ever ever buy another guitar/bass without being able to play it first!! ...I know, you're all saying "DUH!!", but up until now I have purchased a couple of low-buck guitars without incident. However, with what I have been through in the past 2 weeks, I have had enough and will not even look at any instrument ads whatsoever... :rolleyes: (yeah, right....)

Guitar/bass number:

1. Epiphone Iommi SG: Purchased new from Music123 after reading really good reviews, I received the guitar and it seemed to be in good shape. I took it to my local luthier and he informed me that the nut had been replaced and showed me the damage to the headstock and offset nut which were the result. The guitar also sounded really "flat" compared to my 1992 Gibson LP Studio as well as my others. Guitar sent back.

2. ESP B-255 bass: I decided to get a bass instead, as I have enough guitars and could use a bass for recording. I purchased this from American Musical Supply. It arrived in damaged/defective shape with chips and cracks in the finish and the strings and fretboard looked like they had been played extensively. I tried to exchange for another bass, same model, but they were all out, go figure. Bass returned for refund.

3. Another ESP b-255 bass: This time from Musicians Fiend, and this one looked like it had been used as a paddle and as a scrub brush, as there was gunk all over the strings and fretboard and chips in the finish along the neck and on the body. It definitely looked "used" so I decided to ship it back. After several candid and honest emails with MF, I called one of their managers and he wanted to know what they could do to make me a happy customer, so they sent me a...

4. Ibanez SR505 bass, for the same price as the ESP went for, which was like a $150.00 price cut. So I get the bass home today and guess what? One of the mounting screws for the battery cover was stripped ...well, not so much stripped, but the metal sleeve that was inserted into the wood for the screw to screw into was stripped and the battery cover could not be opened. Not to mention that the truss rod buzzed when I played a "C" note on the "A" string or played any note above the 11th fret on the same string.

I just got off the phone with MF and they offered to send out another sr505, but I declined, due to the fact that I believe that I'm not supposed to have another guitar or bass for the time being, or something.

So, after 4 attempts, I'm surrendering to the fact that online instrument purchases are not my "thing" as it were... I should point out that all the companies were good to work with for the returns and didn't make it difficult or anything ...except, of course, for the crappy quality of the gear that they sent me, well, so I guess it does boil down to the fact that they should have sent me NEW instruments in "NEW" condition, when I purchased NEW instruments! Whatever... :mad:

Well, YMMV with online instrument purchases, so all I'm really doing is trying to blow off some steam.

-mr moon
 
Sirnothingness said:
You know what they say, 'fuck me four times shame on me, fuck me five times, shame on you'.

Or something like that.
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Hell, I would have been happy with a simple reach-around!

:D


-mr moon
 
Sirnothingness said:
You know what they say, 'fuck me four times shame on me, fuck me five times, shame on you'.

Or something like that.
Click to expand...

Actually, its:

"Fool me once...shame on...shame on you. If fooled...you can't get fooled again."
 
I tried 6 different SGs (4 Standards, 1 Epiphone, 1 '61 Reissue) at a GuitarCenter. One Standard (my preferred style) was maybe worth taking home for a 30-day honeymoon, but I declined. The neck had a hint of roller coaster near the bottom frets. And I wanted to take my time and make a good choice. The main prob was that my preferred color was not available anywhere, except on direct order. That was my quandary. It wasn't suprised to see that all of the SGs I tried were taken out of their cases and put on the stands without one moments consideration about tuning or setting them up. Since that alone can make or break the decision, I decided that I needed the instrument in my studio to reach a fair conclusion. I just plain wanted to see my preferred color anyway with my own eyes.

Life's problems should always be so difficult! 14 months interest-free financing with MF and free shipping (to me) made the whole shebang a no-brainer. I could play and play and wouldn't have to pay unless I found one worth keeping. That's what I did....

I calculated the cost at about $20 to ship back any of the duds and take another shot again. I figured that if I had to try 3 or 4 to get a winner, it would actually be worth it. The nearest batch of SGs worth trying in my area were all an hour's drive or longer. My gas savings alone paid to order one or two at a time for review. I got my own way with each beast - to tweak it and adjust the action if need be.

I ended up ordering 7 (SEVEN), always keeping two to compare against one and the other, and keeping the best of both and sending the other back. The one I ended up with is excellent. I sent SIX back over this period to MF and they ended up receiving six superbly set-up SGs compliments of me. Only one had a severe defect - a bad volume pot.

I'd do this again to have the pleasure of auditioning in my studio. I took advantage of MF the way they take mass-marketing advantage of everyone else. I probably wasted $100 in return shipping, but that's a small price to pay for auditioning a half dozen $1300 guitars over a three month period.

I'll do this again when it's time for a new Rickenbacker bass.
 
Y'know, that's a good way of going about it, if you don't mind the return shipping costs. :)
 
Just an FYI

Arranger said:
I'll do this again when it's time for a new Rickenbacker bass.
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Most places won't accept returns on Rics, just like they won't advertise a price for a Ric. It's part of Ric's contract with them. I think all returns have to go through Ric, and that's for defects only.
 
I think you can buy a fender or similar online. A good setup can recover from an awful lot of slop with that kind of construction. Set necks are different I think, If they're fuct, they're fuct, aren't they?
 
cephus said:
Set necks are different I think, If they're fuct, they're fuct, aren't they?
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yeah, pretty much. you can tweak the truss rod, but that's about it. but once you're past that, you're pretty much done.

you can do a neck reset on a set-neck guitar, but depending on the glue and construction used, it may require being cut out. if so, the luthier/repair bills may be far more than they guitar is worth and you might be best off pawning the guitar and going and getting a new one. :p


cheers,
wade
 
Mr. Moon said:
...I will never ever ever buy another guitar/bass without being able to play it first!!

-mr moon
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I will preface this post by saying that I am a liar ...well, not so much a liar as much as someone who was pretty pissed off and had to rant a bit. That said, I ended up giving MF another chance to try to send out a new-condition bass because I didn't want to pass up on the deal they gave me, as I doubt I'd ever be able to get a price as low on this bass as they were willing to give me due to the situation.

So I had MF send me out another Ibanez SR505, which arrived late last week. They shipped it out to me free 2-day express, and also paid for the return of the previous one. This bass arrived in GREAT shape, with only one minor cosmetic flaw in the cable channel, which is no big deal. This thing plays like a dream!! Great neck, great feel, and great tone ...and I was able to get them to knock off another 5% due to the cosmetic flaw.

The bottom line: It's a keeper!! :)

However, I don't know if I'm too keen on making another online guitar/bass purchase any time soon, but if I do, it will be with a dealer that allows returns!! ;)

:D

-mr moon
 
I tried to buy a Guitar (Ibanez Universe) from Samash but I cancelled my order because they were taking so long to send it. I don't think they have anything In-stock over there. So I found my guitar on Ebay. I took a gamble on it but I got what I wanted. It had a few minor stratches, but this is rock N' rock. Who cares?
 
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