RETAIL :: Sweetwater Sound Reviews

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Al Quandt
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RETAIL :: Sweetwater Sound Reviews

Post by Al Quandt »

Post experiences and Reviews here.

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Last edited by Al Quandt on Tue Aug 15, 2006 2:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Al Quandt
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Post by Al Quandt »

I have been buying from Sweetwater since I was 17 (1998). I have only had one issue with bringing an item in for repair that had to be sent out. It took over a month.

Other than that I have had a great exprience with the products I have purchased from them (over 4k worth). I know some friends of mine havent had the best expierence with them but I have not seen anything poor. I have noticed that they arent as interested in clients not purchasing expensive items ($500+) but they still get me what i have needed.

Also bare in mind that they have much bigger fish that they deal with, local retail is second to them.

_al
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Post by MrsV »

i have ordered numerous items from here and it may just be that my sales guy is fabulous, but i have always gotten my stuff on time and at a good price and he has even helped me surprise my hubby with something and that isn't easy to do since he is always in there too...i have found all of their staff that i have ever dealt with to be very helpful and resourceful...
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Post by 7WetCigarettes »

this was brought to my attention today....a friend of mine wrote it:
Sweetwater Sound. World renowned as the best in the business when it comes to professional music equipment. Best equipment, best customer service, they'll do whatever it takes to make the customer happy. It's where the professionals buy their stuff. Let me tell you all a story about how I have received the absolute WORST EVER customer service experience.

Monday, August 14- My wife Emily, sets out for Sweetwater to pick me up a wireless guitar kit I've been looking at. I'm sure it's the one I want because I've been emailing my personal Sweetwater Engineer in the days prior to my purchase. This is how Sweetwater works. Once you make contact with them, they assign you a personal sales engineer. Anyway, he's told me everything about it and he's given me all the info I need to know that THIS IS IT. So Emily enters the Sweetwater facility, and stands inside where the *edit* female receptionists ignore her for nearly 30 minutes. She exclaims over and over again "Can somebody please help me, I JUST WANT TO BUY SOMETHING. I KNOW EXACTLY WHAT IT IS. SOMEBODY HELP ME!" The receptionists are friendly and helpful to any male that walks by, but are giving Emily the silent treatment. Finally, she is able to summons the help of a male employee that is on his way out of work for the night. He points her in the right direction to getting my device. She pays CASH $201.37 for this thing. Finally, she gets in her car, and starts to head home. On the drive home, some dipshit kid ignores his responsibility to yield a left turn at a green light and pulls his sh*tty rust bucket right out in front of Emily. Her new car which she loved dearly (and only had for a month) is totaled and she is hurting badly with bruises and a broken wrist. Luckily she is alive and not seriously injured.

Wednesday, August 16- For the first time in this turned hectic week I get a chance to play with my new wireless device. I take everything out of the box, read the instructions, and get set to play away. First thing I notice is that the unit is tuned to a fixed frequency. That means that the wireless device that connects to my bass talks to the wireless unit at the amplifier on only one fixed channel. I can't change it. More advanced units let you select different channels in case of interference problems. I specifically asked my sales engineer if this device I was going to get was "selectable frequency", and not "fixed frequency." He assured me that this was "selectable" and not "fixed." That's one of the features that sold me on this particular unit. Anyhow, I'm willing to look past that misinformation and try out the unit anyway. I try to proceed to hook up everything, but something isn't right. I can't make the connection from my bass to my wireless body pack transmitter. I read through the instructions again just to make sure I'm not being an idiot....Surely I must be overlooking something. Nope. Something in this package is missing and/or incorrect. Damn. OK. Well I guess I will drive over there and see if they will exchange it for the right thing. I contact my sales engineer and he is not in on this day, but his assistants will be glad to help me with anything I need. OK. So I get to Sweetwater, head toward the showroom and find his assistant. I tell him that something isn't right with this. I take it all out of the box and show him my problem, and he acknowledges that yes indeed, something isn't right. He gets on his little computer online database and starts typing something. I'm thinking he's looking to see where to locate the right part. WRONG! He says "well we can get you this better unit for $200 more. We also have such and such unit for $400 more." Look, I don't want a more expensive unit. I want the CORRECT version of what you guys already sold me- what I thought I was getting. After he gets this idea through his head, he sets back to the warehouse to find the right part. What do ya know, THEY DON'T HAVE IT! He can overnight it, but since I'm there so late in the day it's not going to come in until Friday (2 days from this point). Although very upset, I agree that I'll excercise a little more patience and give it a try and wait for the correct cord to be shipped in. At this point I'm more than disappointed with my Sweetwater experience. It's already been bad enough for me to never want to deal with them again.

Friday, August 18- My engineer calls me and lets me know the cord is in. YEAH! I'm excited. I'm well on my way to wireless freedom. I can do some real Michael Anthony sh*t up on stage now!! Woohoo!!!! I set out to Sweetwater (trip #3 for those of you counting at home, if you count my wife's initial trip). I get the cord from my engineer, and head home as fast as the law allows. I get everything hooked up and I'm ready to go. I start playing some and I'm not real happy with the sound quality. No, this thing really sounds like sh*t. I consult the manual, and try every possible setting and tweak under the sun. This thing sucks. I'm very disappointed. I know now that I have to return it to Sweetwater. So I pack it up and take it back to Sweetwater just about an hour later (trip #4). I walk in there and tell my sales engineer that this isn't working out for me. The sound is bad and at this point I'm so frustrated with this whole ordeal I just want a refund. He immediately cops an attitude with me. He didn't really say anything offensive or anything, it was just his body language and his exuberated poutiness at the fact that I'm returning something. Anyway, he scans the thing back into his computer and stuff, and then says "well I can't give you cash back, I'll have to mail you a check or put it to a credit card." I'm thinking since we PAID WITH CASH, WHY CAN WE NOT GET A CASH REFUND??? Anyway, I give him my bank/credit card to credit back this $201.37 to. He hands me the receipt and tells me that this could take a *COUPLE* days to show up in my account. Understandable I suppose, since this is late Friday afternoon. I'll give it till Monday, or Tuesday at the latest.

Friday, August 25- It's been a week since I've had any encounter with Sweetwater. Emily and I are out shopping and she makes a routine call to the bank to check the account balance. When she hangs up, she has a very disturbed look on her face. I know something is wrong. "Sweetwater never credited that $200 back to our account" she says. It's been a week and they still haven't credited the $200 to our account. In fact our bank said the transaction wasn't even pending. I swear, I saw smoke coming out of her ears, she was so mad. She raced home at about 250 mph and immediately called Sweetwater to ask them what the hell was going on. "Well," he said, "we're like...uh still checking the unit to uh..see if it's like in good condition and stuff so we can resell it. We can't credit your account until we check it." OKAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYY. IT HAS BEEN 7 DAYS- HOW LONG SHOULD IT TAKE FOR YOU MORONS TO CHECK IT? Forget about the fact that, when I returned the item initially, he didn't mention they had to check it before crediting the account. I even offered at the time of the return to open the box and show him that everything was there. He declined at the time, saying that would not be necessary. Anyhow, after convincing him on the phone that we were completely dissatisfied with his answer, he NOW agreed to try to expedite the refund. He consults the accounting department and calls us back later to tell us that the best he can do is get us a check on Monday or Tuesday. That's 10-11 days after the return. That's where we stand now. Still waiting for this check. Which by the way, I will have to make an unprecedented *5th* trip to Sweetwater to pick up. Is that not the most ridiculous crock of sh*t ever? These guys are supposed to be THE GO-TO COMPANY for top quality equipment and and excellent customer service experience. I've seen neither.

For all of you reading this...musicians, loved ones of musicians...PLEASE OH PLEASE NEVER EVER EVER CONSIDER BUYING ANYTHING FROM SWEETWATER SOUND. Please take your business elsewhere. This experience shows me that because I'm not a big shot going in there to buy $6000 worth of equipment, they don't give a sh*t about my business. Well guess what Sweetwater, someday I WILL want to buy that $7500 keyboard and that new fretless bass. Guess what company I WON'T be buying them from.
Last edited by 7WetCigarettes on Fri Sep 01, 2006 12:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by bassjones »

I'm highly skeptical of that entire account. And since I know one of those receptionists personally, I think "bimbo" is highly inappropriate.
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Post by Shaggydoo »

On many levels I concur with the long drawn out story above........

I made a heafty purchase a few months back and had to make several trips back and forth from my place to theirs in order to get it RIGHT. Either they forgot items that should have been in the purchase (yes I should have checked), or one of the items didn't work properly. The one that didn't work properly was taken back in for service 3 times before they finally gave me a new one (at my "give me a full refund OR give me a new one request").

My other recent issue was when I placed an email to "my rep" for info on an item. He called me with a voicemail saying that he had several items that I could choose from and discuss with him. So I called him back leaving him a VM looking for help. It is now almost 3 wks later and I have not received a call back. I could certainly try him again, but since I'm the consumer I WANT GOOD SERVICE!!! I will go somewhere else for this product.
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Post by Massage...Bored »

bassjones wrote:I'm highly skeptical of that entire account. And since I know one of those receptionists personally, I think "bimbo" is highly inappropriate.

All I see is EDIT, I thought he would have put down "c*nt".
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Post by bassjones »

It said Bimbo before it was edited...
"brad!
...your tunes and your playing sound really great... all the best to you and god bless-
adam nitti" www.myspace.com/adamnittimusic

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Post by buttercup »

bassjones wrote:I'm highly skeptical of that entire account. And since I know one of those receptionists personally, I think "bimbo" is highly inappropriate.
So just because you know someone there personally, it's not possible for someone else to have a bad experience?
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Post by Oliver's Army »

He's not denying that a bad situation occured. He's saying that the person he knows is far from a 'Bimbo' and he feels obligated to defend her.
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Post by 7WetCigarettes »

I was personally not trying to offend anyone...I just felt that it would be a service to relay this story that was sent to me. I am sure that Sweetwater has had many speedy, customer friendly transactions. This might be a "few and far between" incident. Everybody has a bad day.
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Post by natewright »

I'm late to the game, but I also had a bad experience with Sweetwater and vow never to buy from them again.

It was a while back, a few years by now. But, back when Line 6 introduced the Flextone series of amps, I bought the first edition Flextone Head from SW. I got it for a great price, but they wouldn't let me come to the store to pick it up. I had to pay 90 bucks shipping for the head...I lived in Fort Wayne. So, it was still a good deal so I said "whatever"...Got the amp in and being digital, I scoped the thing pretty heavily. After playing the amp for a while, I noticed the amp selector knob would select random amps rather than ones the knob pointed to. I called Sweetwater and told them I'd like to bring it back and arranged for me to do so through my sales eng. So, I bring the unit back and he tells me the service dept. will have to look the amp over...After 3 hours of waiting, they bring the amp back out and tell me they find no problem. I refuse to believe this and tell them I want a refund or a new amp. They take the amp back and come back with a new amp straight from the box. I look it over and things seem OK. I go back home and refer to my warranty card (that I had filled out) and checked the serial #...They gave me the defective amp back! In a new box! I called the sales eng. livid and told him what they did. He claimed he had no idea. So, I go back and they have a new amp waiting for me, but no box (hmmm, wonder why). I take this amp home and all's good. But, the scam they tried to pull has soured me on the situation. Well, after about 3 months of use, the amp's power amp PCB fries...And SW is the only authorized repair center in Indiana (at that time, 1998 IIRC). So, another trip with this POS amp back to SW...3 weeks later, I get the amp back. All's good for another 3 months when the amp fries the other power amp PCB (it's a stereo guitar head). So, back to SW we go...This time, I get attitude from the sales eng. and the reapir staff saying I'm not using the amp correctly. I deny this as I'm not an idiot, and leave the amp with them for repair...After 3 months and no calls or activity from SW, I call my sales engineer and demand that a.) I get a full refund or b.) there is a new amp waiting for me when I come in that afternoon...Well, they deny my refund request and state that they will not give me a new amp - after 2 repair jobs for this one! They say they will repair the amp, but they've been "waiting on parts from Line 6, which takes forever". After another month, I get fed up and email both SW and Line 6's support center detailing this whole debacle. Within 4 hours, I get an email from Line 6 with a number to call the main service guy from Line 6. He tells me that he is personally sending a new amp head to SW for me next day air - all at no cost. This is supreme CS to me from a company like this...Well, I call SW the next day to go pick up the new head and they tell me they have no idea what I'm talking about and L6 never sent an amp...I go on in with Robert Duvall on my cell (yeah, yeah, not that one, the L6 service manager dude - same name) and I hand the phone to my sales engineer...After about 10 minutes of them shuffling about - an new unopened box is presented to me. After me blowing my top on what a shitehole operation SW is, at least I walked out with a new amp - which was a fine piece of gear for the 2 1/2 years I used it.

Sweetwater is too stuck up their own asses to care about anyone other than the stars and their fat wallets. I don't need a "tour" of the facilities and a 10 minute speech on all the wonderful and great things they do, I want good CS with a reasonable price. I did not get that at SW.

Hopefully they've changed since then.
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Post by bassjones »

Actually they've changed a lot since then and Chuck has been fairly open about one of their biggest flaws being their treatment of "locals" early on. They even used to announce "LOCAL" over the intercom when one would stop by. They now have an entire showroom dedicated to walk-ins (one would presume mostly locals would take advantage of this) and much improved customer service.

Some things I will buy from them, some I won't. Recording equipment, cables, effects pedals, etc... sure. Basses - nope! They don't have what I like, and their prices are a little high on what they do carry. I'm not a Fender guy anyway, and the new (Gibson made) Tobias basses suck, except the Killer B, which is still too expensive considering I can get a Roscoe for not much more.
"brad!
...your tunes and your playing sound really great... all the best to you and god bless-
adam nitti" www.myspace.com/adamnittimusic

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Post by therecordinghouse »

i have had good expiriences with sweetwater. most recently were my macbook pro horror stories. long story short, they let me borrow one while mine was out for repair. then, they eventually replaced it even though apple wouldnt. i think it has alot to do with the sales engineer you get. mine has been wonderful.
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Post by tiny »

Got nothing particularly good to say about Sweetwater. Last time I was there, it was to buy two cables. Asked for male to female cables. Picked one off the wall. Asked for two longer cables just like that one. Got two male to male cables. Had to go back. Got sold two adapters (a $14 upsell) that not only negated the 'deal' they gave me on the cables, but if they had been offered in the first place, would have prevented the need for the additional cables at all.

I'd go to GC, or even Radio Shack before I'd buy from Sweetwater. Having said that, they ARE still my house of last resort. At best I'd give them a 5 on a 1-10 scale. Maybe if i bought thousands of dollars worth of gear, they'd treat me better. That STILL seems to be the M.O.

And at no time did I encounter a bimbo.
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