Behringer The Cat

[machinesworking]

'The customer is always right' is the way it should be. If someone I'm buying from treats me like sh*t, I won't buy from them again and I'll spread the word as much as I can to make sure they end up with a lot less customers in the future.

I don't agree at all. Some customers simply suck and I applaud employees that call a spade a spade.

Nahhh....

Edit: re-thinking it for a moment, sure there are some jerk customers that may deserve to be called out. But there are many vendors that are completely disrespectful to their customers no matter how kind and polite the customer might be, and people like that piss me off. If a customer is disrespectful and especially repeatedly so, then sure, they welcome to be knocked down a peg or two. But overall, my opinion stands that the customer is always right (barring extreme extenuating circumstances).

Now, back to the topic at hand: The Cat...

Many owners of small shops are not very forthcoming these days because many people enter shops, test products, leave and then order them cheaper on Amazon etc.

And that's exactly why Amazon will win. I'm one of those people with hardware where I go in more than once before buying. I test it, think about it, leave, and come back later to buy it. If the shop owner has an attitude about me just coming in to browse, and actually test the equipment, then that puts a HUGE damper on me wanting to give him my money.
I have a mutual acquaintance friend who works at GC, and he's a nice enough guy with zero sales pitch that I will intentionally wait until he's working to buy from him. Being able to go to a shop and waste some time adds up to me buying locally, even if I pay sales tax. I part with anything over $300 very reluctantly, but I do it.

The Cat here, no way I would buy it from demos online, so a local shop would get my money, but not if they act like dicks. Even in the USA it's not uncommon for music shop people to be obnoxious high pressure sales guys or like the german described above, snobs who don't want you wasting their time. Dealing with those two sales personality types is why people will buy off the internet, which is a lot less convenient, especially if there's issues.

[Russell Grand]

'The customer is always right' is the way it should be. If someone I'm buying from treats me like sh*t, I won't buy from them again and I'll spread the word as much as I can to make sure they end up with a lot less customers in the future.

I don't agree at all. Some customers simply suck and I applaud employees that call a spade a spade.

Nahhh....

Edit: re-thinking it for a moment, sure there are some jerk customers that may deserve to be called out. But there are many vendors that are completely disrespectful to their customers no matter how kind and polite the customer might be, and people like that piss me off. If a customer is disrespectful and especially repeatedly so, then sure, they welcome to be knocked down a peg or two. But overall, my opinion stands that the customer is always right (barring extreme extenuating circumstances).

Now, back to the topic at hand: The Cat...

Many owners of small shops are not very forthcoming these days because many people enter shops, test products, leave and then order them cheaper on Amazon etc.

That is a fair point, e-crooner...

[VariKusBrainZ]

Dealing with those two sales personality types is why people will buy off the internet, which is a lot less convenient, especially if there's issues.

Except you have more returns rights if bought off the interent in a lot of cases

[VariKusBrainZ]

interent

See what I did there

[machinesworking]

Dealing with those two sales personality types is why people will buy off the internet, which is a lot less convenient, especially if there's issues.

Except you have more returns rights if bought off the interent in a lot of cases

That's not true where I live. Every local music shop has a 30 day return policy, and if its defective they will simply replace it with another off the shelf, and deal with the broken one themselves.

For hardware I would much rather buy locally, I bought a Slate Raven touch screen monitor off of Sweetwater and I had to return two before getting one where the VESA mount points weren't leaving lines in the screen. It would have been much much easier to go to the local shop and switch to one without the factory defect.

[e-crooner]

Dealing with those two sales personality types is why people will buy off the internet, which is a lot less convenient, especially if there's issues.

Except you have more returns rights if bought off the interent in a lot of cases

Yes, local shops may, but are not obliged to accept returns, except of course when products break within 24 months.

With online shopping, however, one can send the perfectly fine stuff back within 2 weeks, no questions asked.

[Russell Grand]

'The customer is always right' is the way it should be. If someone I'm buying from treats me like sh*t, I won't buy from them again and I'll spread the word as much as I can to make sure they end up with a lot less customers in the future.

I don't agree at all. Some customers simply suck and I applaud employees that call a spade a spade.

Nahhh....

Edit: re-thinking it for a moment, sure there are some jerk customers that may deserve to be called out. But there are many vendors that are completely disrespectful to their customers no matter how kind and polite the customer might be, and people like that piss me off. If a customer is disrespectful and especially repeatedly so, then sure, they welcome to be knocked down a peg or two. But overall, my opinion stands that the customer is always right (barring extreme extenuating circumstances).

Now, back to the topic at hand: The Cat...

Many owners of small shops are not very forthcoming these days because many people enter shops, test products, leave and then order them cheaper on Amazon etc.

And that's exactly why Amazon will win. I'm one of those people with hardware where I go in more than once before buying. I test it, think about it, leave, and come back later to buy it. If the shop owner has an attitude about me just coming in to browse, and actually test the equipment, then that puts a HUGE damper on me wanting to give him my money.
I have a mutual acquaintance friend who works at GC, and he's a nice enough guy with zero sales pitch that I will intentionally wait until he's working to buy from him. Being able to go to a shop and waste some time adds up to me buying locally, even if I pay sales tax. I part with anything over $300 very reluctantly, but I do it.

The Cat here, no way I would buy it from demos online, so a local shop would get my money, but not if they act like dicks. Even in the USA it's not uncommon for music shop people to be obnoxious high pressure sales guys or like the german described above, snobs who don't want you wasting their time. Dealing with those two sales personality types is why people will buy off the internet, which is a lot less convenient, especially if there's issues.

[BONES]

if you want patch saving, you can forget 250-300 for an analogue hardware synth

Uno manages it for $200, Trueno for half that.

neither are 100% analogue with knob per function

Changing the goalposts now, are we? Both are bang-up-to-date, modern synths that offer 100% analogue signal paths and (virtual) knob per function, making them even more superior to these slavish, unimaginative rip-offs of things nobody ever wanted, even when they were new.

[kelvyn]

I want to hear Urs' opinions when he gets one.

Is there a Guitar Center in Berlin?

No, but they have some other music shops that are better than GC. I went to Berlin for a month last January. It was cool to see a poster in the shop for u-he stuff.

BTW, in case Urs reads this, or any other German natives. I was in the shop in Berlin and was with a girl who is an amazing vocalist. She uses really cheap microphones for her recording's, and still sounds incredible. I wanted to hear what she sounded like through some better microphones so asked the shop if they could unlock the microphone testing station (about 10 microphones to test), so we could test them. I was told in an irritated German accent, "Why do you need to test the microphone's?" I was thinking to myself "why do you think, dummy?, what kind of question is that?" I mean, in the United States, no one has ever bothered to ask that question or seem suspicious of my intentions. I assume they don't want you to test the microphones unless you are seriously looking to buy one. I just said we wanted to hear what they sounded like. Without any other comment they unlocked the door to the room. In the USA I would have decided not to support that store anymore, because I wouldn't have wanted to give them my business. Probably just a different cultural approach to selling gear. Rubbed me the wrong way, because I'm not used to it. I did understand I was in another country and it's different, so it's all good, no bad feeling's, but just was curious if that was normal?

I know that shop... the people in the studio department suck!

[AnX]

if you want patch saving, you can forget 250-300 for an analogue hardware synth

Uno manages it for $200, Trueno for half that.

neither are 100% analogue with knob per function

Changing the goalposts now, are we? Both are bang-up-to-date, modern synths that offer 100% analogue signal paths and (virtual) knob per function

cool, so you don't need an editor or menu diving to access any features?

[AnX]

Dealing with those two sales personality types is why people will buy off the internet, which is a lot less convenient, especially if there's issues.

Except you have more returns rights if bought off the interent in a lot of cases

Yes, local shops may, but are not obliged to accept returns, except of course when products break within 24 months.

With online shopping, however, one can send the perfectly fine stuff back within 2 weeks, no questions asked.

i prefer buying from a shop, no doubts about damage from postage when sending back

over here, if a product is faulty, you return to the shop and get a refund or repair, no probs

the shop is just a seller

[boombaxx]

Music and politics has been intertwined forever. My point is i would not buy anything from an oppresive regime like China. If you are comfortable with that good luck to you

[Hink]

Music and politics has been intertwined forever.

and we havea forum for such posts

viewforum.php?f=48

[toonertik]

Music and politics has been intertwined forever. My point is i would not buy anything from an oppresive regime like China. If you are comfortable with that good luck to you

Interesting. So you don't buy much of any thing... I assume you are not an Apple user...
but have a PC...


hmmmm... lets take a look inside.

Audio interfaces... who made yours...
Mics... monitors etc etc.

Clothes... so many now come from China...
and so it goes.

[vurt]

toon, hpc