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Done with Sweetwater
- Thread starter minddrain
- Start date
Totally stole this from another thread....
Always had fantastic service from Sweetwater, having spent too many thou$and$. And when they did send me a dud bass, they sorted it out promptly.
Never had a cold call, and always had a friendly thank-you after every order.
Never had a cold call, and always had a friendly thank-you after every order.
am I late to the Sweetwater bash party here at TB?
never mind I don't care
I have 100% complete satisfaction with my Sweetwater experiences
VERY professional
Thank you Sweetwater
never mind I don't care
I have 100% complete satisfaction with my Sweetwater experiences
VERY professional
Thank you Sweetwater
Sweetwater has never been great, lots of ads. they have use used car psychology to get you to pay for the mediocrity they can do. Never a great price an Indiana false ethics and lip when you talk to them. You smelled when you bought. Now you taste it. The dont provide truly fair pricing , and truly expect fair service?
I maybe one of the few who haven't done online shopping with SW or MF. Maybe brass and woodwind. We had a local outfit called Grandma's and matched SW and MF prices.
Instruments always local and in person, except for keys and consumables- I got from AMZ and the string shops.
Instruments always local and in person, except for keys and consumables- I got from AMZ and the string shops.
I found them amusing. It's kinda like....oh, so you're my latest sales rep. Truly when I call to order, I almost never ask for the guy I'm assigned to I just place the order with the first rep available.
gregbackstrom
These aren't stock curves--things move around!
I just found that on the GC website. I guess I wasn’t paying much attention to either of them before that!
Are you a disgruntled ex-employee? If you’ve been a customer you must’ve had an even worse experience [that you won’t make clear] than the OP ... or anyone else. I’ve never before heard “used car psychology” WRT Sweetwater nor can I suss out what “the mediocrity they can do” even means. Prices on most good brands are determined by the manufacturer/dealer agreement they have to comply with so they won’t (can’t) discount unless you buy a bundle of goods. I wonder what you consider to be “truly fair pricing” and “fair service.” Never mind; I don’t wonder.
Thanks. The information is very helpful. I have read repeatedly that the Mesa Walkabout is something special tone wise. My understanding is that the new Mesa WD800 has the Walkabout preamp circuit coupled to a class D power amp section. It will be interesting to hear / read some comparisons between the D800+ and the WD800.
It seems to me who you are dealing with at Sweetwater makes a big difference. I got the impression they tend to send new customers to the new "sales engineers". That hasn't worked out real good for me. I have a guy I like now, but it hasn't always been that way. I have learned that Sweetwater will take care of you. But you have to escalate the problems up the chain of command. You can't stick with someone who screwed up to begin with. That's the secret, I think.
My next post is the story of what happened to me, if anybody's interested. Or, TLDR.
My next post is the story of what happened to me, if anybody's interested. Or, TLDR.
I saw a high definition photograph on the Sweetwater website of a Fender American Standard Precision 5 string that I just loved on account of the finish, which was unusually dark for a sunburst. I will say the color photographs on the Sweetwater website are incredibly true to life. Since that's a bass I had decided to purchase anyway, I ordered the bass expecting it would at least be playable upon arrival based on the 55 point inspection promise. There's no way anybody inspected that bass. The neck had so much relief that the bass was absolutely unplayable. God only knows where the intonation was at, it was impossible to tell. I don't expect a set up when I buy a new bass. But this bass was just totally impossible to play at all.
I tried adjusting the truss rod to bring the neck up to Fender specifications, but being a 5 string, and even with loosening the strings to make the adjustments and using a few other techniques I've learned over the years, there came a point where I could not comfortably go any further and I was beginning to be fearful of damaging the truss rod end anyway. I'd been talking to a luthier recently hired at my GC. He graduated from the Musicians Institute and seemed to know his stuff. So I left my bass with him for a set up and a change of strings to some flat wounds I had purchased there. When I picked up the bass nothing had been done to set up the instrument, they didn't return the Fender round wounds that came with the bass, and the bass remained totally unplayable. Turned out an apprentice had worked on my bass. The GC guy offered to make it right, but I declined and took the bass to an authorized Fender luthier here in Vegas (Neil Smith at Vegas Guitars) who finally got the job done under warranty. Yea, Fender!
So that experience didn't please me at all and I came close to returning the bass. I would have if it hadn't been for Neil. I learned the Sweetwater sales guy I had dealt with was gone, and later I was told he was fired. That gave me the confidence to go forward with another purchase from Sweetwater, a Universal Audio Apollo Twin Duo interface which was on a big sale, maybe a Christmas sale or something. For a sales engineer I got this kid who told me he was going to be a rock star. My response to that was to ask him if he was going to be a rock star, why was he working at Sweetwater instead of rehearsing his rock star act? Couldn't help myself. So he said, "Well, I'm going to be a rock star. I don't know about you".
So I said I would help him out and ordered the Apollo, but not before I asked him if there was anything I should be aware of from UA before I made the purchase.
Well, danged if no more than a few weeks after I had taken delivery of the Apollo Twin, the new Apollo Twin MkII quad came out! The big sale which I was suspicious of to begin with since UA gear doesn't ordinarily ever go on sale turned out to just be a way to clear the inventory to make room for the newer, far more powerful Apollo Twin Mk. II Quad. I was hotter than a hornet in a microwave oven. I felt like that chump who gave Snow White the hooker here in Vegas his ATM card to withdraw $200 for him, only to learn she had withdrawn $400, gave him $200, and kept the other $200 for herself! I called Sweetwater and raised a big ol' fuss about what happened, and demanded to speak to someone who wasn't a wet behind the ears kid who was going to be a rock star. I was put in touch with Roq Martin: Ex. 1634, who took back the Apollo I had purchased and sold me the new Apollo Twin Mk. II Quad for the difference. So now Roq's my guy and he has taken good care of me. I don't know if the kid I originally had as a sales engineer ever became a rock star, or not. Sometimes they do, I suppose. But to get the matter properly resolved, I had to escalate it up the chain of command. So that's my story if it helps.
I tried adjusting the truss rod to bring the neck up to Fender specifications, but being a 5 string, and even with loosening the strings to make the adjustments and using a few other techniques I've learned over the years, there came a point where I could not comfortably go any further and I was beginning to be fearful of damaging the truss rod end anyway. I'd been talking to a luthier recently hired at my GC. He graduated from the Musicians Institute and seemed to know his stuff. So I left my bass with him for a set up and a change of strings to some flat wounds I had purchased there. When I picked up the bass nothing had been done to set up the instrument, they didn't return the Fender round wounds that came with the bass, and the bass remained totally unplayable. Turned out an apprentice had worked on my bass. The GC guy offered to make it right, but I declined and took the bass to an authorized Fender luthier here in Vegas (Neil Smith at Vegas Guitars) who finally got the job done under warranty. Yea, Fender!
So that experience didn't please me at all and I came close to returning the bass. I would have if it hadn't been for Neil. I learned the Sweetwater sales guy I had dealt with was gone, and later I was told he was fired. That gave me the confidence to go forward with another purchase from Sweetwater, a Universal Audio Apollo Twin Duo interface which was on a big sale, maybe a Christmas sale or something. For a sales engineer I got this kid who told me he was going to be a rock star. My response to that was to ask him if he was going to be a rock star, why was he working at Sweetwater instead of rehearsing his rock star act? Couldn't help myself. So he said, "Well, I'm going to be a rock star. I don't know about you".
So I said I would help him out and ordered the Apollo, but not before I asked him if there was anything I should be aware of from UA before I made the purchase. Well, danged if no more than a few weeks after I had taken delivery of the Apollo Twin, the new Apollo Twin MkII quad came out! The big sale which I was suspicious of to begin with since UA gear doesn't ordinarily ever go on sale turned out to just be a way to clear the inventory to make room for the newer, far more powerful Apollo Twin Mk. II Quad. I was hotter than a hornet in a microwave oven. I felt like that chump who gave Snow White the hooker here in Vegas his ATM card to withdraw $200 for him, only to learn she had withdrawn $400, gave him $200, and kept the other $200 for herself! I called Sweetwater and raised a big ol' fuss about what happened, and demanded to speak to someone who wasn't a wet behind the ears kid who was going to be a rock star. I was put in touch with Roq Martin: Ex. 1634, who took back the Apollo I had purchased and sold me the new Apollo Twin Mk. II Quad for the difference. So now Roq's my guy and he has taken good care of me. I don't know if the kid I originally had as a sales engineer ever became a rock star, or not. Sometimes they do, I suppose. But to get the matter properly resolved, I had to escalate it up the chain of command. So that's my story if it helps.
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I really don't need that many guitars ( have a couple of dozen sitting here already) but the last couple of years I pretty much only buy instruments 'unseen' from TB classifieds or Reverb. In the past I would typically only either buy guitars that I could actually play in person, or online from one of the trustworthy big american vintage dealers (Gruhn, etc). Nowadays i pretty much only buy stuff that is too rare to find locally, so just take my chances on playbility. (And so far I have been very lucky that way!)
Schweetwater?? About twenty-five years ago I bought a lot of studio gear from sweetwater ('mail-order') - as at the time it was hard to get much of my favorite stuff up here in Canada. A couple miscellaneous gear purchases from them the last year or two (speaker cabinets, etc) have turned out fine - and the annoying unsolicited sales calls have tapered off.
I like AMS and MF just as well, for stuff I can't find locally or from the L&M website. Had to jump through hoops with a freight-forwarder and US-based VPN connection to get my last MF order through, but 'got er dun'! Also SamAsh has been good to me over the years, and I would add a friendly shoutout to AxeMusic.com in Edmonton...
As a European I always like reading what Americans like about customer service. For me it is completely different.
When I order online, I want a confirmation mail, not a call. That is half the reason I order online. I don't want some salesperson trying to talk with me about gear or other products. I have already done my research online.
Just send me the damn thing I ordered and let me return it if I don't like it or it is defective.
Where I live the only real retailer for musical gear is Guitar Center, and if I were shopping for an instrument itself I'd probably shop there just because I can physically drive to the local store if I need to return something and there's never any questions asked. Most anything else, if I don't need it immediately I tend to buy through Sweetwater.
My sweetwater rep shares my first name. And we always greet each other like "Hey Matt..... It's Matt.", it's become a running joke. Personally I don't mind the calls.. I look at it as them making sure I'm satisfied with my purchase and ready to take it back if I'm not, or they let me know when a backordered item has shipped or shown up at the store. His only calls are "Hey, your items shipping today" or to let me know if I ordered something on backorder, or to check how I'm liking my purchase.
Earlier this year, I was trying to do something weird with an electronic drum kit and needed a program select switch.. ended up with a midi merger and a midi mouse, after they sent it I realized the DDRUM I/O did everything I needed and then some for slightly less. Sent me a prepaid label to return. They ended up charging shipping on the replacement item, but that total was just over what I paid for the items I sent back and they adjusted the shipping cost to match my previous order.. they just sent it without any additional transactions as soon as they received my return.
I've kept them on the phone for 20-30 minutes at a time asking them to point me to solutions for odd problems.
If they had a local shop I'd gladly shop there rather than GC. My assigned rep is a guitarist who also plays some bass and he has a pretty good knowledge of most of the gear I've asked about. Bought a pair of DT 770M's for studio monitoring and he's like "I have a pair! How you liking those things? I love them!" Pointed me to a gator Pro-Go recently when I called asking about cases/gigbags and it was good advice. That gig bag is awesome.
IMO ordering an instrument from the internet is gamble no matter where you order it from. At least sweetwater generally has free shipping, a 2 year retailer warranty on most items at no additional cost, where MF or GC would try to get you to pay extra for at checkout. And for orders in my state Sweetwater doesn't charge sales tax. The bag of candy with every order is a nice touch too. When I can't buy locally, these tend to be the guys I turn to. It helps I guess that it only takes a few days for things to be shipped to/fro where I live generally. And I can't say I mind knowing that as long as I treat my gear right, Sweetwater has put themselves on the hook for it for 2 years should it malfunction. If they had zZound's no credit check payment plans my music room might be more cluttered.
Suffice to say... I don't know of many businesses that would cross-ship or refund an item without first receiving the return unless you purchase some kind of extended warranty, music retailer or otherwise. EVGA for example might cross ship, if you put a deposit for the cost of the item down unless you spend $90 on an extended warranty. The amount of time it takes to ship an item falls on the delivery service imo. Sweetwater itself generally ships within 24 hours, and processes returns/refunds within 24 hours of receiving the item. It is unfortunate to receive a defective instrument though when they tout that 50 point inspection plan.. but personally my worry wart grows as soon as I order any kind of guitar or bass off the internet, regardless of who I buy from.
My sweetwater rep shares my first name. And we always greet each other like "Hey Matt..... It's Matt.", it's become a running joke. Personally I don't mind the calls.. I look at it as them making sure I'm satisfied with my purchase and ready to take it back if I'm not, or they let me know when a backordered item has shipped or shown up at the store. His only calls are "Hey, your items shipping today" or to let me know if I ordered something on backorder, or to check how I'm liking my purchase.
Earlier this year, I was trying to do something weird with an electronic drum kit and needed a program select switch.. ended up with a midi merger and a midi mouse, after they sent it I realized the DDRUM I/O did everything I needed and then some for slightly less. Sent me a prepaid label to return. They ended up charging shipping on the replacement item, but that total was just over what I paid for the items I sent back and they adjusted the shipping cost to match my previous order.. they just sent it without any additional transactions as soon as they received my return.
I've kept them on the phone for 20-30 minutes at a time asking them to point me to solutions for odd problems.
If they had a local shop I'd gladly shop there rather than GC. My assigned rep is a guitarist who also plays some bass and he has a pretty good knowledge of most of the gear I've asked about. Bought a pair of DT 770M's for studio monitoring and he's like "I have a pair! How you liking those things? I love them!" Pointed me to a gator Pro-Go recently when I called asking about cases/gigbags and it was good advice. That gig bag is awesome.
IMO ordering an instrument from the internet is gamble no matter where you order it from. At least sweetwater generally has free shipping, a 2 year retailer warranty on most items at no additional cost, where MF or GC would try to get you to pay extra for at checkout. And for orders in my state Sweetwater doesn't charge sales tax. The bag of candy with every order is a nice touch too. When I can't buy locally, these tend to be the guys I turn to. It helps I guess that it only takes a few days for things to be shipped to/fro where I live generally. And I can't say I mind knowing that as long as I treat my gear right, Sweetwater has put themselves on the hook for it for 2 years should it malfunction. If they had zZound's no credit check payment plans my music room might be more cluttered.
Suffice to say... I don't know of many businesses that would cross-ship or refund an item without first receiving the return unless you purchase some kind of extended warranty, music retailer or otherwise. EVGA for example might cross ship, if you put a deposit for the cost of the item down unless you spend $90 on an extended warranty. The amount of time it takes to ship an item falls on the delivery service imo. Sweetwater itself generally ships within 24 hours, and processes returns/refunds within 24 hours of receiving the item. It is unfortunate to receive a defective instrument though when they tout that 50 point inspection plan.. but personally my worry wart grows as soon as I order any kind of guitar or bass off the internet, regardless of who I buy from.
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I've had nothing but excellent service from Sweetwater: 100% satisfied. I learned about Sweetwater from Talkbass and all the raving reviews herein.
I’ve made numerous purchases totaling many thousands of dollars from Sweetwater. Only had one bad experience...and I mean BAD. I have been protesting them for a while and I’m now only buying things from them that I can’t get anywhere else.
It is great that they list the weights of the instruments. They also offer PLEK (they screwed my PLEK job up royally), will swap out picksups, bridges, pickguards, etc., which are unique services, IME.
Lastly, they never offered me the best prices. I could almost always get a better deal from MF, but when I was happy with Sweetwater, I didn’t care about saving 5%. That’s changed for me since my last really bad experience with them.
It is great that they list the weights of the instruments. They also offer PLEK (they screwed my PLEK job up royally), will swap out picksups, bridges, pickguards, etc., which are unique services, IME.
Lastly, they never offered me the best prices. I could almost always get a better deal from MF, but when I was happy with Sweetwater, I didn’t care about saving 5%. That’s changed for me since my last really bad experience with them.
If I don't recognize a number and it's important, I assume the caller will leave a voice message. If it's a message I don't care to respond to, like a Sweetwater rep, I would block the number. If the caller doesn't leave a message, I would block the number, assuming the call wasn't important. But I suppose some people have situations where it's not that cut and dry.
