I love guitar center thread

  • Thread starter Thread starter Sanjanjoseph
  • Start date Start date

Love/hate gc

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Like I stated in the hater thread, I bought things from them, just not guitars. I found out through a friend of mine who worked there that they get flawed guitars so they can sell them cheaper.
Plus, as I said, they don't offer a very wide selection of lefties.
 
i agree, and most of the gc's ive been in only have about 100< guitars in them

come on, if its guitar center then theres gotta be more.
but if you think about it...buying more is a bit unreasonable ya know...
i simply hate guitar searching and buying
part of it is that im picky.....


but yeah, still not much of a fan...they were all tryin to rush me into buying... but any store would do that...either that or pretend your not there
 
Sanjanjoseph said:
...they were all tryin to rush me into buying... but any store would do that...either that or pretend your not there
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Just start playing "Stairway To Heaven", they won't pretend you're not there anymore! :D
 
Both of the GC in my area have a suck ass bass dept. Every bass I played was poorly set up and had dead strings on them. How can you know if you want to buy a bass when you go to try it out and it plays like shit. I played a Bongo bass that had action so high you could drive a truck between the strings and the neck. I would rather take my chances buying online and returning it if I don't like.
 
EdWonbass said:
Both of the GC in my area have a suck ass bass dept. Every bass I played was poorly set up and had dead strings on them. How can you know if you want to buy a bass when you go to try it out and it plays like shit. I played a Bongo bass that had action so high you could drive a truck between the strings and the neck. I would rather take my chances buying online and returning it if I don't like.
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See my last post in the hater thread.... ;)
 
The thing I can't believe is that they play music loudly at the guitar center. You are trying to test out instruments and they have their stereo going. Does this only happen at my guitar center or does this happen at all of them?
 
Rokket said:
Just start playing "Stairway To Heaven", they won't pretend you're not there anymore! :D
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:D :D :D :D
There is a music store in in this area that has a huge sign that reads:

Songs Not Allowed To Be Played In This Store:


1. Stairway To Heaven

2. Sweet Home Alabama

3. (etc. etc.)
 
snipeguy said:
:D :D :D :D
There is a music store in in this area that has a huge sign that reads:

Songs Not Allowed To Be Played In This Store:


1. Stairway To Heaven

2. Sweet Home Alabama

3. (etc. etc.)
Click to expand...
There is the exact same sign in a store around here.
 
That's why I suggested playing it. You will get someone's attention...
 
Rokket said:
I found out through a friend of mine who worked there that they get flawed guitars so they can sell them cheaper.
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That's total BS.

If you think about it for a minute, you can see why it's not only false, but impossible.
 
bongolation said:
That's total BS.

If you think about it for a minute, you can see why it's not only false, but impossible.
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I am only telling what he told me. Actually the word he used was "imperfections".
 
Rokket said:
I am only telling what he told me. Actually the word he used was "imperfections".
Click to expand...
It's still impossible. Think about it: It's the largest retailer in the country and sells an immense percentage of the total output of the companies whose gear they carry, in some cases virtually all. You simply can't produce that many "seconds" on demand for a single buyer of that capacity.

The only part of this that may be true is that I know that GC doesn't seem to ever send back bad product, they just keep it around and eventually sell it off below cost at a blowout sale. But that's not quite the same thing.

GC does have somewhat unusual arrangements with the manufacturers to get lower wholesale prices, but specifically selling "factory seconds" isn't one of them.

I've discussed this persistent rumor before with a production manager from one of the "giants" and he told me that it's impossible as in most cases there is absolutely no way of telling where their instruments will eventually be going when they leave the factory, though they do special runs of items with distinctive features for certain chains.
 
bongolation said:
It's still impossible. Think about it: It's the largest retailer in the country and sells an immense percentage of the total output of the companies whose gear they carry, in some cases virtually all. You simply can't produce that many "seconds" on demand for a single buyer of that capacity.

The only part of this that may be true is that I know that GC doesn't seem to ever send back bad product, they just keep it around and eventually sell it off below cost at a blowout sale. But that's not quite the same thing.

GC does have somewhat unusual arrangements with the manufacturers to get lower wholesale prices, but specifically selling "factory seconds" isn't one of them.

I've discussed this persistent rumor before with a production manager from one of the "giants" and he told me that it's impossible as in most cases there is absolutely no way of telling where their instruments will eventually be going when they leave the factory, though they do special runs of items with distinctive features for certain chains.
Click to expand...
I agree with you there, that it would be impossible for a company to know where their guitars are going, and I don't mean to imply that all the guitars at GC are imperfect, only that they do carry them. I was looking at a $1,400 PRS when he told me that. He told me that I could get a Jackson that had some imperfections in it for about $400, and noted that there were a lot of guitars in the store that had imperfections, and that's why they are cheap. He told me that a lot of music stores (he worked in quite a few, and was the resident guitar teacher at the one in San Diego at the time) turned away guitars with imperfections, but GC didn't. He also said that it was policy to let the customers know that the guitar they were buying had these imperfections, and a lot of them that I saw at the time had it on the tags.
Again, I wasn't implying that all the guitars there were flawed. Only that they did indeed carry guitars with imperfections.
 
Rokket said:
I agree with you there, that it would be impossible for a company to know where their guitars are going, and I don't mean to imply that all the guitars at GC are imperfect, only that they do carry them. [...]
Again, I wasn't implying that all the guitars there were flawed. Only that they did indeed carry guitars with imperfections.
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Yeah, like I say, they never seem to go back. They just blow 'em out.

Here's a good example: A "quality" single-store retailer's owner has told me that at least 30% of his Gibsons go back for gross defects. GC never has sent back one to my knowledge, even when one (a Les Paul "Special," as I remember) demonstrated that spontaneous head separation you always see discussed, which is about a gross a defect as I can imagine. They just tagged it for $99 and someone bought it for parts.

I believe they may get a certain amount of credit from some of the distributors for bad gear they don't return, but it never goes back.

I've gotten some fantastic deals on some stuff that needed a little work.
 
My local GC has turned into a total shit store. Crap selection in all departments.

And the kids (come on nothing against kids) that work there are worthless when it comes to help.

If I want any kind of selection I have to go to Vegas, hundreds of miles away.

http://www.edromanguitars.com/
 
Sanjanjoseph said:
i agree, and most of the gc's ive been in only have about 100< guitars in them

come on, if its guitar center then theres gotta be more.
but if you think about it...buying more is a bit unreasonable ya know...
i simply hate guitar searching and buying
part of it is that im picky.....


but yeah, still not much of a fan...they were all tryin to rush me into buying... but any store would do that...either that or pretend your not there
Click to expand...

the one here in town, and the one in sanfrancisco carries well over 300 guitars on the FLOOR, easily.
 
bongolation said:
Yeah, like I say, they never seem to go back. They just blow 'em out.

Here's a good example: A "quality" single-store retailer's owner has told me that at least 30% of his Gibsons go back for gross defects. GC never has sent back one to my knowledge, even when one (a Les Paul "Special," as I remember) demonstrated that spontaneous head separation you always see discussed, which is about a gross a defect as I can imagine. They just tagged it for $99 and someone bought it for parts.

I believe they may get a certain amount of credit from some of the distributors for bad gear they don't return, but it never goes back.

I've gotten some fantastic deals on some stuff that needed a little work.
Click to expand...
I got a Samick bass from another store for $50 because it fell on the floor and had a huge, ugly gouge out of it near the strap pin on the butt. Played just fine for a few years. I covered the scar up with electrical tape because I didn't want to put any real effort into a basically cheap guitar. No one really noticed it. I finally had to get rid of it when the pickups went out. That's when I went in search of the Dean and ran into Mr. Pimples at GC...
 
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