Buy BEFORE you try!

[desertsolace]

Anyone else here often buy before you try?
Necessity causes it (I try to tell myself):
I live in a city where what I can try is limited and usually not what I want (or really overpriced)
Guess what? I've NEVER had a bad experience nor have I been surprised with what I got.

Here's my guidelines:
1. Buy Used (can always sell it without much loss)
2. Find online comparisons from forums or youtube to gear that you ARE familiar with. (e.g. I wanted a 112 cab and though there were lots of comparisons against different 112's I started a thread comparing them to a cab I knew: xlt210 | found exactly what I wanted)
3. When in doubt buy the product where you can ask questions to the creators or engineers of the product (you know CS is great when you get answers from the source and they know you bought it used)

Though reviews are always subjective if you can find a point of reference with the reviewer you can learn substantially.

So anyone else often Buy Before You Try and enjoy the experience?

[C.Linton]

Same here, more or less, I am unable to try stuff out and have to depend on online purchases. What I try to do is do as much research as possible on the particular instrument that I am interested in, reading as many reviews, pro and user reviews alike, that I can find as well as postings on websites such as TB. (I read something like about 300 reviews and such researching the Squier VM Jazz I later bought) The trick is being able to read betwen the lines and weed out those reviews that have an obvious bias either for or against a particular instrument, as well as those that go into no more detail tahn "It sux/rox!!!". I aslo look for trends, such as consistently good overall reviews or those that seem to report a common problem with a particular model, like "Brand X basses have a tendency to have warped necks" and such.
Then after that, if I like what I read, I will buy the instrument from a website that I've either dealt with before that I trust, like Musician's Friend or one that has a good rep, like Sweetwater. Then after all that, I have to trust to luck a little. So far, my luck has held, in the past year and a half, I've gotten four basses and one guitar, and each one has been been teriffic.

[desertsolace]

+1 C.Linton
I love online reviews for good or ill. Sometimes what goes wrong with certain models can be what drives down prices but can be cheap fixes or if it is something you're planning on upgrading anyways it works out.

[Fassa Albrecht]

I bought my Yamaha on the advice of someone else in a worship band I was in. I'd played his, went into the shop and bought it there and then.

Result? It's possibly the sweetest instrument I've played and is possibly the best $400 I ever spent on a whim.

[desertsolace]

Ya, so far I've bought my MTD Beast, Villex Jazz Pickups, ATK 750ka, shuttle 6.0, neox 112t, sansamp pbd, dr low riders all based on researching other peoples' reviews. I'm very happy with all the results. I know some people start those "what should I buy' threads and people always say just go try it out but that isn't always a possibility.

[trunkshope6]

done that several times and never kicked myslef for doing it,most of the time intuition has it right

[tangentmusic]

I've bought Basses & other gear from Musicians Friend.
They have a good return policy. If they send you a stinker, they will refund your $ or send out another.