Bad service

Armandearl

>☹

I general the service delivery in this country has never been great, but in the last few years companies realised that good service delivery goes hand in hand with turnover. So companies started to pull their fingers out you know what and started to deliver.

This does not seem to be the case in the music equipment industry ( or so I feel the last few months). I have a Laney Cub 12R that has been giving me problems. I sent it back to the supplier (or so I was told) and recieved it back as it was. They said thats normal for tube amps yada yada yada with no real solution. At least this site helped me with the problem and I was advised to replace the driver valves. Great!!! NOT!!! I have ordered at my local shop ( not going to mention the name) more than 5weeks ago, still nothing.

I have sent in my twin tube overdrive pedal to get it fixed at the same time. It was only picked up this week. And I oredered a Hughes and Kettner tubemeister 18 head at the same time, nothing! I told the guy at the shop to leave it and tried another very big shop, didn't even phone me back. Phoned another shop this morning. The guy said he will phone me monday morning with a price. I really hope he will come through for me.

There seems to be a problem with the shops or the distributers not caring much about service delivery. I am really thinking of starting to buy my stuff from ebay overseas, much much cheaper.

AlanRatcliffe

Where are you? I can try find someone in your area to help with the Laney and recommend a salesman if the other guy doesn't pan out.

Good salespeople are hard to find, but they do exist. When I find one I latch on as best as I can and always use them for everything. It's not a well paid job, so the better guys almost invariably move on to bigger and better things.

Armandearl

I'm in the Pretoria north region not far from a well known music shop, but had some bad luck with them in recent times.

psyx

Lets hope they come through this time...Very keen on hearing what they're going ask for the Tubemeister :?

studmissile

After Service in this country is shocking. I ideally I would try and find a Luther or in your case an engineer that specializes in that line of work. Most of the shops contract out anyway. I recently met a guy in Boksburgs that makes his own amps, he also seemed to have connections in Pretoria, if you don't come right give us a shout.

makepeace

Mr Valve is a great supplier of valves, if you want to beat the rush, send them an e-mail and order some tubes and you will most likely get them within a week. http://mrvalve.wordpress.com/. If it is the power tubes that are the problem, you need a pair of EL84s - but it might be an idea to revalve the whole amp. You will then have spares for the ones that are still alright (so 3 additional 12AX7s/ECC83s - these are plug and play).

I guess the sales people assume that you would know that you have to replace the valves in a valve amp periodically. It also seems that this amp is a bit of a mission to bias, but that is still no excuse for them to have been so uncommunicative, slow and unhelpful.

It's important to note that if you buy your own set of power valves, you should have them biased by someone who knows how to do it for best results regarding tone and durability.

sharonzaz

Armandearl wrote I'm in the Pretoria north region not far from a well known music shop, but had some bad luck with them in recent times.

unless a new shop opened, there are NO well known shops in the PTA north area, only one shop really....

Armandearl

? ? ?

Got my Hughes and Kettner tubemeister 18 this morning. Paid R7195 for, big discounts on some of their products. Service was very good, the guy phoned me this morning ordered and got it for me one day.

I would recommend these guys.

Warren

Armandearl wrote ? ? ?

Got my Hughes and Kettner tubemeister 18 this morning. Paid R7195 for, big discounts on some of their products. Service was very good, the guy phoned me this morning ordered and got it for me one day.

I would recommend these guys.

Very cool. I was in the market for one of those a few months back and nobody could help me (stock issues).

chris77

Armandearl wrote ? ? ?

Got my Hughes and Kettner tubemeister 18 this morning. Paid R7195 for, big discounts on some of their products. Service was very good, the guy phoned me this morning ordered and got it for me one day.

I would recommend these guys.

Please tell us who they are then ?. Enough horror stories about bad service doing the rounds, so a heads up about a store from whom you got some great service from will be more than welcome ?

PS - happy new amp day!

Reinhard

I wanted to buy a Gibson case from Marshall Music CT, I think it was something like R1600. Left my details so they could contact me to let me know whether it was possible or not. Never heard back from them.

Walked into the same store one Saturday with a wad of cash and asked to play one of the higher end guitars to the annoyance of the guy working the floor. I don't know whether they work on commission, but I made sure that I made the deal with the owner/manager instead.

psyx

Armandearl wrote ? ? ?

Got my Hughes and Kettner tubemeister 18 this morning. Paid R7195 for, big discounts on some of their products. Service was very good, the guy phoned me this morning ordered and got it for me one day.

I would recommend these guys.

Pics or it didn't happen! ?

And I had the same thing with a store in Joburg where I asked them to quote me on some Dimarzio pups (which was what the salesman recommended) and they just never phoned me back

Armandearl

Hope this works :-[

I guess one should start to demand good service. Thanks to Bavhnesh at Sound select. Its a online store but you can buy the products at their premises and collect. They got lots of stuff, check out the website www.soundselect.co.za and try them out. Maybe I just got lucky today.

Now its just my twin tube pedal and tubes for my laney to sort out. ☹

Was at Marshall CT last week, they got some nice stuff but I get your drift about service. I have to pay deposit before They will order the amp.

I think because that people think if they play a specific instrument well, they automatically will make good sales persons. Normally when you ask for a product most salesmen will tell you that another product is better than the one your enquired about. Most of us already know what we want when we walk into a shop.

studmissile

I haven't used them yet, but Bavhnesh at sound select is very good at getting back to you! And the prices are also pretty good!

Bob-Dubery

Armandearl wrote Was at Marshall CT last week, they got some nice stuff but I get your drift about service. I have to pay deposit before They will order the amp.

I have some sympathy for that position. I've seen retailers suffer because they bought in something they don't usually carry and that somebody HAD to have, and then got left holding an expensive baby when the oke never came to get it. We all pay for other folks' nonsense.

I think because that people think if they play a specific instrument well, they automatically will make good sales persons. Normally when you ask for a product most salesmen will tell you that another product is better than the one your enquired about. Most of us already know what we want when we walk into a shop.

That doesn't make us right ? It's worth giving the sales guy a listen, and there's an argument that if he doesn't propose alternatives to you he's not doing his job. You don't HAVE to agree with him - but it's not necessarily bad service if he proposes an alternative.

Armandearl

He phoned me this morning with the price, ordered it for me and got it on the same day and he made me some coffee. Like the afrikaans saying goes "top klas". ?

psyx

Armandearl wrote Hope this works :-[

I love that look!! Congrats man! :goodtimes:

vic

There're 3 things I try to avoid.....

1. Banking on Saturdays
2. Going with the Mrs to a shopping mall
3. Music stores

:?

rossgun

Armandearl wrote >☹

I general the service delivery in this country has never been great, but in the last few years companies realised that good service delivery goes hand in hand with turnover. So companies started to pull their fingers out you know what and started to deliver.

This does not seem to be the case in the music equipment industry ( or so I feel the last few months). I have a Laney Cub 12R that has been giving me problems. I sent it back to the supplier (or so I was told) and recieved it back as it was. They said thats normal for tube amps yada yada yada with no real solution. At least this site helped me with the problem and I was advised to replace the driver valves. Great!!! NOT!!! I have ordered at my local shop ( not going to mention the name) more than 5weeks ago, still nothing.

I have sent in my twin tube overdrive pedal to get it fixed at the same time. It was only picked up this week. And I oredered a Hughes and Kettner tubemeister 18 head at the same time, nothing! I told the guy at the shop to leave it and tried another very big shop, didn't even phone me back. Phoned another shop this morning. The guy said he will phone me monday morning with a price. I really hope he will come through for me.

There seems to be a problem with the shops or the distributers not caring much about service delivery. I am really thinking of starting to buy my stuff from ebay overseas, much much cheaper.

Buy a Kemper ?