I recently started to rebuild my home studio and have been doing a ton
of research on different mail-order companies. Reading alot of what
many people have been saying about many of these venders I get a sense
that no one really trusts any one company for all their needs. Now I
put my studio together about 12 years ago and I must admit I'm out of
touch as far as dealing with these companies. I have made small
purchases over the years through different vendors, however I recently
had a bad experience with Swee****er which was my main provider.
Therefore I need to find a company that I can trust with all of my
needs, all under one roof. I would need a place that can help me plan
as well since I am not to savvy with the new digital equiptment and how
it may interfere with existing gear.

After searching the net and reading what alot of you guys had to say, I
narrowed my search down to three places.

1. Full compass - I've never done business with these guys but they
seem ok from the outside and alot of you recomend them often.

2. B&H - These guys look ok from pics of the store in their ads, but
then again no one really says much about them other than the photo and
video groups.

3. Guitar Center - I bought some gear from there a while ago when I was
visiting New York. They were ok but I'm willing to bet I can find
better.


I'm not ruling out any other vendor, even swee****er has a chance. But
I want to know what you guys think of these places. This may not be the
biggest purchase but I would say the most important in my career. So I
want to know everyones opinion.
Thanks in advance for helping out.

Charles

wrote:

After searching the net and reading what alot of you guys had to say, I
narrowed my search down to three places.

1. Full compass - I've never done business with these guys but they
seem ok from the outside and alot of you recomend them often.

2. B&H - These guys look ok from pics of the store in their ads, but
then again no one really says much about them other than the photo and
video groups.

3. Guitar Center - I bought some gear from there a while ago when I was
visiting New York. They were ok but I'm willing to bet I can find
better.

Well, you're posting this message from the address 198.77.206.228,
which is an internal address on the B&H Photo network. So if you
don't work there, you are at least using a machine on their show floor.
Either way, you're in NYC, and there should be a lot of good options
for places that carry more high end gear in the NYC area. To be honest
now that most of the big studio supply places have closed, I don't have
any recommendations right now. But I would certainly suggest looking for
a small place that sells to the studio market rather than any of the MI
box houses.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

I got a good deal on an Audio-Technica AT822 mic at Boynton:
http://www.boyntonproaudio.com/catalog/

Tom

Scott Dorsey wrote:
wrote:

After searching the net and reading what alot of you guys had to
say, I
narrowed my search down to three places.

1. Full compass - I've never done business with these guys but they
seem ok from the outside and alot of you recomend them often.

2. B&H - These guys look ok from pics of the store in their ads, but
then again no one really says much about them other than the photo
and
video groups.

3. Guitar Center - I bought some gear from there a while ago when I
was
visiting New York. They were ok but I'm willing to bet I can find
better.

Well, you're posting this message from the address 198.77.206.228,
which is an internal address on the B&H Photo network. So if you
don't work there, you are at least using a machine on their show
floor.
Either way, you're in NYC, and there should be a lot of good options
for places that carry more high end gear in the NYC area. To be
honest
now that most of the big studio supply places have closed, I don't
have
any recommendations right now. But I would certainly suggest looking
for
a small place that sells to the studio market rather than any of the
MI
box houses.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

In article . com writes:

I recently started to rebuild my home studio and have been doing a ton
of research on different mail-order companies. Reading alot of what
many people have been saying about many of these venders I get a sense
that no one really trusts any one company for all their needs.

It's not a matter of trust, it's a matter that not every dealer sells
every brand, so sometimes you have to go to more than one.

What Internet and mail-order shopping has done, however, is made it
easier to spend too much time looking for the lowest price. This leads
to the concern that if someone's price seems TOO low, there must be a
catch, and if someone's price is a little higher than the average, he
must be a shyster or is just plain overpriced. So you buy from several
different dealers and develop no relationship with any of them.

I'd recommend that you just pick one, talk to a salesman, tell him
what you want, and if decide his price is fair, make your purchase.
Then call him again the next time you need something. I guarantee you
won't get all your shopping done in one spree.

I recently
had a bad experience with Swee****er which was my main provider.

Did you call Chuck, or Adam? While I don't specifically recommend
Swee****er these days, they, on the management level, bend over
backwards to keep people from saying things like that, or to make
things right if you had a problem. There's too much money to be made
to just let an unhappy customer walk away. Even Guitar Centers have
been known to make customers happy.

Therefore I need to find a company that I can trust with all of my
needs, all under one roof. I would need a place that can help me plan
as well since I am not to savvy with the new digital equiptment and how
it may interfere with existing gear.

It's really tough to get a dealer to do that unless he's going to get
a piece of the action beyond just shipping you boxes. A dealer who's
going to be price-competitive has so litte markup that he can't afford
to spend a few days with you planning your studio, and may not even
have the expertise to do it. I've done things like this for people,
but it's always been in-person, not over the Internet or phone other
than quickie questions, and I charge real money for it. If one dealer
were to give you that kind of service and sell the gear for 20% higher
than the other guys, you'd probably pass him up saying his prices were
too high.

Used to be that when a studio was setting up, they'd buy as much as
they could from the dealer that gave them the best deal, and the deal
usually included coming to the facilty, wiring things up, testing, and
solving any problems. But that was when, if a mixer cost $100,000, you
paid $100,000, not $70,000. Guess what the other $30,000 covers?

A lot of people around here recommend Mercenary, and Nathan from Atlas
hangs out here and generally gets good reviews. But they don't carry
all the product lines. There are so many microphones that nobody can
carry them all. Same for preamps. Same for software. And then there's
cables.

You can save money and do your own system engineering, but you have to
do a lot of research. Or you can let someone else do the research and
pay for it. But this is about all the research you'll get for free.

Good hunting.

--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

3. Guitar Center - I bought some gear from there a while ago when I was
visiting New York. They were ok but I'm willing to bet I can find
better.

From my own experience, never take the price tag at Guitar Center at
face value - and I mean that in a *positive* way. When I go to GC, I
talk to the musicians there and *frequently* get a bigger discount than
advertised etc.

So, know what you want to buy and have a fair price in mind. If you
never get to that price, *walk* away. However, a little communication
goes a long way ...

P

Philip N. Daly wrote:



From my own experience, never take the price tag at Guitar Center at
face value - and I mean that in a *positive* way. When I go to GC, I
talk to the musicians there and *frequently* get a bigger discount than
advertised etc.


Like where the tag says list is $1200 and they discount to $950 and the
MSRP was really $1000 to begin with and Swee****er has it for $900?

S O'Neill wrote:
Philip N. Daly wrote:



From my own experience, never take the price tag at Guitar Center at
face value - and I mean that in a *positive* way. When I go to GC, I
talk to the musicians there and *frequently* get a bigger discount than
advertised etc.



Like where the tag says list is $1200 and they discount to $950 and the
MSRP was really $1000 to begin with and Swee****er has it for $900?




No. Like where I ask for another X bucks off the discounted price and
never get refused ...

"Philip N. Daly" wrote in message
...
S O'Neill wrote:
Philip N. Daly wrote:



From my own experience, never take the price tag at Guitar Center at
face value - and I mean that in a *positive* way. When I go to GC, I
talk to the musicians there and *frequently* get a bigger discount than
advertised etc.



Like where the tag says list is $1200 and they discount to $950 and the
MSRP was really $1000 to begin with and Swee****er has it for $900?




No. Like where I ask for another X bucks off the discounted price and
never get refused ...

"Philip N. Daly" wrote in message news:ctr3v5

Like where the tag says list is $1200 and they discount to $950 and the
MSRP was really $1000 to begin with and Swee****er has it for $900?




No. Like where I ask for another X bucks off the discounted price and
never get refused ...

Wow ! Why don't you ask for X=100% bucks off next time then !!!

geoff

Geoff Wood wrote:
"Philip N. Daly" wrote in message news:ctr3v5


Like where the tag says list is $1200 and they discount to $950 and the
MSRP was really $1000 to begin with and Swee****er has it for $900?





No. Like where I ask for another X bucks off the discounted price and
never get refused ...


Wow ! Why don't you ask for X=100% bucks off next time then !!!

geoff


I tried but even GC aren't that stupid ;-|

Scott Dorsey wrote:

Well, you're posting this message from the address 198.77.206.228,
which is an internal address on the B&H Photo network.


Busted!

wrote:

I got a good deal on an Audio-Technica AT822 mic at Boynton:


Ouch.