Sweetwater replacement gear

[GRollins]

The entire story is long--I'll condense it considerably. I bought a piece of gear from Sweetwater. It had problems. They said they'd replace it. The new unit came in and seemed to be a used--refurbished?--unit that also has problems. I had been told the replacement item would be new.

 

They're sending a new, new piece that they say will be "inspected," which, me being cynical, sounds like they might be sending another "pre-owned" unit.

 

Has anyone gotten a refurbished unit from Sweetwater as a replacement before? A defective one?

 

Grey

[CEB]

No never had any problems. Always treated super.  But I have not needed any replacement gear since Chuck sold the business. 

[Stokely]

My only experience with this was sending back a Behringer p16M monitor mixer.  Apparently they determined it couldn't be fixed so they sent me out a new one.  It appeared to be new at any rate, in the box and no scratches etc.   This was earlier this year.   I did have to pay shipping back to them unfortunately, which I wasn't too happy about; the mixer was small so it didn't cost much, but if it was a keyboard that would be costly.  However, to get a similar warranty from Guitar Center--where i could take it locally--it costs quite a bit as well.

[Paul K]

Very recent.

Bought an open box TC Helicon Go Solo to get decent audio into my Android phone for live streaming gigs.

It didn't work on three android phones, nor did it work on my WIn 10 computer.  Sweetwater said, "It's probably a defective unit.  Keep it, we'll send you a brand new one no charge".  I said, "OK!".  2nd one was indeed brand-new.  It worked the same as the first.  Sweetwater quickly said, "Send it back, full refund, here's the shipping label." I sent both units back, refund was very quick.  Easy to deal with.

 

So I'm pleased with how I was treated.  And with this unit, my gut says that it'll work on iOS, but not really with Android.  Not happy with TC-Helicon, as their web site says that it'll work on Android.  But digging deeper it appears I need a "10-pin" USB mini to USB-C cable.  No vendors could assure me their cable was 10 pin, and I'm not savy enough to find a work-around...so I bailed.

 

Go Solo's are now silly cheap on Sweetwater; they must be tired of the hassles.  So if you have an iOS device you might wanna throw $20 at it. But that's just my guess that it'll work on iOS.

[GRollins]

The people I've corresponded with, or talked to, have all been nice enough. I don't really have a complaint there...unless you look at the possibility that I was/am being lied to about the replacements being new versus used or refurbished or whatever.

 

Oh, and they paid shipping for my original unit to go back. Supposedly there will be a hardcopy label for the second return in the box with the latest unit.

 

It's just the gear that's in question...so far.

 

Grey

[Docbop]

When I got my RD-2000 I opened the box and one of the small knobs was broken off.  Don't know how it happened because the they double box everything and no damage to the boxes.   I contacted Sweetwater and they overnight shipped me another brand new RD-2000 and arranged for my first one to be picked up.    

 

Another time I ordered a pair of studio monitors and FedEx was sending them on extended vacation and then FedEx tracking computer stopped working.   I called Sweetwater to have them check and they said they have use the same tracking computer so they couldn't tell me anything different.   Then Sweetwater said they would overnight me another set of monitors since FedEx overnight goes thru different trucks and shipping center.   The monitor arrived and Sweetwater sent a return to shipper to on the original shipment and I didn't even have to deal with those.   That's what I call great service.   

 

On the funny side I was ordering some headphones and joking around with my salesman told him you know the last two things I bought there was no candy in the box, are you guys getting cheap on the candy.    He apologized and I said no big deal.   A week later I get a box from Sweetwater a nice decorative glass jar full of candy.    Stuff like that is why I continue to buy from Sweetwater and only go to the local GC for strings, picks or audio cables. 

[lsj]

to me sweetwater is the best with the best prices and the best warranty

[Zalman Stern]

I've done a lot of business with Sweetwater. if there's a problem with their service, it's an anomaly. (Had one major replacement and a couple tiny ones. Their customer service has been as good as it gets. The only issue I ever had was long delays on a couple items during the pandemic, but that's hardly their fault. Warren at Zen Pro Audio was better telling me when I'd actually get stuff, but that was a bit later and I expect he'd had time to calibrate.)

 

That said, if you've gotten two of something and they both aren't working right, it's time to ask whether the product design is flawed or if it just doesn't meet your use case. If the third unit has issues, I'd say it's the product, not Sweetwater.

 

-Z-

[HammondDave]

Love Sweetwater. I have purchased keys, guitars, and amps from them over the years.  I had a defective volume pedal and they returned and replaced it right away. Ask for Derek. Great competitive prices and customer service. 

[GRollins]

The first unit was--I'm pretty sure--brand new. The second unit came in with all kinds of random tape everywhere on the inner poly bag from where it had been opened before and clumsily resealed at least once. The outer box had at least three layers of tape sealing the flap; only the top one of which was fully intact. There was also a gummy place where tape had been removed, leaving adhesive behind, which in turn had attracted dirt, so that was pretty obvious.

 

Although the unit looks good, the chassis is warped by about 1/8" or so.

 

The firmware was 1-1/2 YEARS out of date. Now, you could argue that maybe Sweetwater had ordered a bunch of product and that this had sat in the warehouse for that long, but...nah...I'm not buying it. They're a major retailer and they're going to roll their stock more quickly than that.

 

Again, this isn't about how people have treated me, it's about the gear. They get returns. What happens to those returns? Do they get a cursory check, then sent back out if they look okay physically? I don't know what happened. I was told to expect a new unit, but the second one doesn't appear to be new. Someone could end up with my original unit in a couple of weeks in a mirror image of what I'm going through. I could tell them what to look for, but obviously I have no way of knowing who might end up with the unit and they'll figure it out quickly enough on their own. It's obvious.

 

Grey

[Zalman Stern]

I almost never have a product that's been on the market for a while arrive with current firmware installed. Manufacturers make stuff in batches and no part of the supply chain between the factory and the customer is going to open up a box and update the firmware. In fact the most likely way to get current firmware on an older product is that some other customer had it first and did the firmware upgrade. Plenty of stuff *never* changes the firmware installed at the factory unless there is some change in the hardware itself.

 

-Z-

 

[Leroy C]

My only complaint with SW: Not enough Laffy Taffy!!!

[stillearning]

My quick sweet Sweetwater story…

 

I teach keys at the School of Rock, and had a young student with multiple medical issues including needing a kidney, and having hand/finger issues. They didn’t have a piano at their house, so her Mom would drive her to her Grandma’s house to practice. When a kidney became available, she had a long at-home recovery, and no keyboard to play for something to do.
 

I called my salesman, explained the situation hoping he would give me a deal so I could buy her an entry level 88 key weighted board because it was good for her fingers. I got transferred to another department where a nice woman listened to my story and simply asked me for the girls home address. A day later, a nice Casio 88 key piano w/home stand and bench simply showed up at their house!

 

I sent SW a video I took of the little girl playing a song, then looking up at the camera, smiling and saying “Thank you!”! (I think someone must have been chopping onions near me at the time) My salesman later told me it got passed around a lot at the offices there.

 

Also, I had to return a Nord Stage once and they took care of it no questions asked, but that doesn’t make for much of a story.

[Reezekeys]

23 hours ago, Paul K said:

Go Solo's are now silly cheap on Sweetwater; they must be tired of the hassles.  So if you have an iOS device you might wanna throw $20 at it. But that's just my guess that it'll work on iOS.

 

Thanks to you I have the stereo version on the way ($10 more)! Yea I'm an iOS guy so I'll take the chance, especially given the SW two-year warranty. It's the "Go Twin" and is essentially two of the solo's but has 1/4" line outs (looks like the solo's don't have separate line outs). Thanks again and sorry it didn't work out for you.

[Outkaster]

I have being dealing with them since 1994 and they replaced my SK Pro that had a software issue free of charge.

[bfields]

I've ordered from Sweetwater plenty of times (including a couple big keyboards), and only had one problem, handled about as well as you could expect.  (A "demo model" PX560 that arrived with a broken knob.  They replaced it with a new one and took care of all the associated shipping.)

[AUSSIEKEYS]

17 hours ago, stillearning said:

 

 

I sent SW a video I took of the little girl playing a song, then looking up at the camera, smiling and saying “Thank you!”! (I think someone must have been chopping onions near me at the time)

 

 

Yep must be chopping onions near me now.

 

Cudos to Sweetwater 

 

 

[Docbop]

18 hours ago, stillearning said:

My quick sweet Sweetwater story…

 

I teach keys at the School of Rock, and had a young student with multiple medical issues including needing a kidney, and having hand/finger issues. They didn’t have a piano at their house, so her Mom would drive her to her Grandma’s house to practice. When a kidney became available, she had a long at-home recovery, and no keyboard to play for something to do.
 

I called my salesman, explained the situation hoping he would give me a deal so I could buy her an entry level 88 key weighted board because it was good for her fingers. I got transferred to another department where a nice woman listened to my story and simply asked me for the girls home address. A day later, a nice Casio 88 key piano w/home stand and bench simply showed up at their house!

 

I sent SW a video I took of the little girl playing a song, then looking up at the camera, smiling and saying “Thank you!”! (I think someone must have been chopping onions near me at the time) My salesman later told me it got passed around a lot at the offices there.

 

Also, I had to return a Nord Stage once and they took care of it no questions asked, but that doesn’t make for much of a story.

 

 

That's the kind of things that family owned businesses do for people.    

[McHale]

It's because of the service at Sweetwater I buy from them almost exclusively.  Two weeks ago I got a defective keyboard controller and I called and talked to the sales guy and asked to speak to one of their service techs.  Service tech called and I explained the issue and asked about tearing it down so I could fix it (one of the key sections wasn't aligned properly - probably a 10 minute fix).  I've been repairing and restoring gear for decades.  He literally said "Let me just send you a brand new one."  And I was like, no, I can fix it I just want to make sure there's nothing I have to worry about when I take it apart.  "DUDE...  seriously... I'll send you a brand new one, no questions asked."  So I grudgingly accepted a new replacement and sent back the defective unit (costing them 2 way shipping PLUS whatever they will do with the returned unit).  I felt guilty that it cost them money to ship me a new one when it was probably stupid easy to fix.

And here's how much I trust my sales guy at Sweetwater.  On the day Korg revealed the OG Kronos at NAMM, I called him up and put in my order.  He literally checked every day until it was in the system so I could get one from the first batch.  He called me with the current price (MSRP) and when it shipped he price matched the cheapest place online.  

If they promised you a new replacement and you didn't get a new replacement, call them and they'll resolve it for you.  

p.s.  I agree, MORE LAFFY TAFFY.

[stillearning]

On 11/5/2022 at 10:44 PM, stillearning said:

… Also, I had to return a Nord Stage once and they took care of it no questions asked, but that doesn’t make for much of a story.

Here’s my Nord Stage 3 88 story. 
I had a pitch stick issue while under warranty, called SW service dept, explained the issue, they said it was a known issue and would order the part in advance since I use the board in a few bands and wanted to minimize my time without it. We made arrangements for me to drive there (9 hr round trip, but I like visiting there anyway) and hang while they fixed it. Turns out they had the wrong part, so they gave me a brand new Stage to take home.

 

Got home, the New Stage 3 88 action was very stiff and sluggish, nothing like mine. So they shipped mine back to me when repaired, and said “compare them and send back the one you don’t want”

 

Who does that?!? I hope things don’t change now that Chuck sold the business.

[GRollins]

Interesting side note...I got an email from a Musician's Friend sales critter this morning asking me to call if I had any questions or was looking for any gear. So many people here are obsessed with Sweetwater that it's easy to lose track of the fact that other retailers have personal salesmen, etc. the same way Sweetwater does. And, in fact, I used to have personal contacts when I dealt with Musician's Friend. That tapered off when I reached a period when I wasn't buying anything from anyone. I started buying gear again a while back and decided to give Sweetwater a try, largely because they had Eurorack stuff and Musician's Friend did not (at least at that time--haven't looked recently).

 

In truth, I haven't found Sweetwater to be all that much different or better than dealing with Musician's Friend, but people here get antsy if you mention anyone other than Sweetwater. I've had threads deleted and been admonished for mentioning sales at Musician's Friend, while at that same time there were active Sweetwater threads about sales there. Hmmm... I gave up. There's a very clear Sweetwater bias here.

 

Be that as it may, part of me is wondering if Musician's Friend is monitoring this site--in particular, this thread--and directed a salesman to touch base with me while I was at a "vulnerable" moment, or if it's just coincidental, what with the holiday buying season upon us. You could make an argument that it would be logical to do so, but I'm not sure it would be worth the time and trouble from the point of view of, say, Zzounds, to look for potential customers among disaffected customers of other retailers.

 

I've said it above and I'll reiterate--this isn't about how "nice" the Sweetwater people are (as were the Musician's Friend people, in their turn, but don't say that out loud). Yes, they've been nice, but the point of my original post was whether others had received gear that might potentially be used or refurbished. So far, the majority of responses have been about the people at Sweetwater and how nice they are and how they've earned the undying loyalty of poster X, Y, or Z.

 

I remain curious what happens to returns at Sweetwater. I'm sure some go back to the respective manufacturers if they're half burned-up. But if a piece comes in and the back-room support peeps at Sweetwater can't replicate the problem, what then? Do they conclude that the reported problem was user error and send that unit back out?

 

Grey

[Docbop]

Sweetwater has a lot of company reps that work in the Sweetwater facilities to be the main contact for issues like repairs, product data and availability.   So I'm sure returns on major brands end up being handled by a company rep.   If a problem can't reproduced it can't be fixed, no different that when I worked for software companies doing tech support or QA.   If I got a bug report and no steps to reproduce it or a test file that would reproduce it, it was marked as "can not reproduced" and filed away.    Need to way to reproduce the problem in order to fix it and also use to test with to make sure the problem is fixed.   

 

As for Musician's Friend who is one of the many companies owned by or purchased by Guitar Center.  I used to buy a lot from before I discovered Sweetwater.   Also in my jobs as roadie and working in media I did a lot of the buying for different companies/artists and bought from a lot of online and local stores.     My experience with Musician's Friend was good but nice on phone, some good deals and in general pretty much the same as Guitar Center online or others.  None of them has the customer care that Sweetwater does.   None would call or email me back,  call or email after the sale to make sure things are good and if I had questions.   Would check in now and then just to say hello and maybe talk about some new product.   You could also say don't call unless I call you and they would honor that too.    Sweetwater really does give you customer service like a little local store would except have the power of their size to get major brands to be part of their support system.   I think this thread shows that by the number pro Sweetwater post versus cons. 

[GRollins]

Update:

Unit #3 is in and it looks, if anything, more "used" than #2. Sumthin' ain't right, here. Like #2, there's a lot of previously cut tape on the box. The inner poly bag has strands of old tape just hanging off of it; they go nowhere and aren't even tagged down. The poly bag also has wrinkles and small cuts/tears. Obviously not a new bag.

 

I'm still unpacking and will report on the functionality later, but I'm starting to get a bad feeling about this.

 

Docbop,

I fully understand about not being able to fix something you can't get to screw up, but that still doesn't answer my question: What happens to those units? Do they get sent back out?

 

Grey

[EscapeRocks]

It's obvious that they have decided to pick on you 

 

How about some pictures?

 

Seriously, though, add me to the list of those who have not received a refurbished/used item when told I'd get a new one to replace a bad one.   This is within the last 6 months.  They sent a new item, with a call tag for the old one.  All on their dime

 

I did get a refurbishment unit once, but that's when that's all they had left, let me know, and refunded some $$$

[Anderton]

10 minutes ago, GRollins said:

Update:

Unit #3 is in and it looks, if anything, more "used" than #2. Sumthin' ain't right, here. Like #2, there's a lot of previously cut tape on the box. The inner poly bag has strands of old tape just hanging off of it; they go nowhere and aren't even tagged down. The poly bag also has wrinkles and small cuts/tears. Obviously not a new bag.

 

I highly recommend referring your sales engineer to this thread. You're asking questions regarding returned gear that really, only someone from Sweetwater can answer.

 

Anyway, I don't think there's a one-size-fits-all answer. I do know where some gear that's returned to a company ends up - with me  , at least temporarily. When writing books and articles, it would be impossible to buy everything I write or do videos about. Companies are often willing to supply me with a loaner that's a cosmetic reject, or something that was used at multiple trade shows and a little the worse for wear. A couple times when I've called the company about returning the returned gear, rather than asking for me to send it to them, they've said to contribute it to a local school or church if it's in working condition. Sometimes returned units are refurbished, and become demo units for reps. Sometimes non-working units go to trade shows to provide eye candy for a booth. There are lots of variables.

[GRollins]

Pictures of unit #3 packaging:

First picture--multiple layers of tape on the box flap.

The other pictures are of random pieces of tape that don't go anywhere. They're the leftovers after someone cut the original tape.

 

I have more pictures if you want, but it's kinda hard to get a good picture of clear tape. This should be enough to give you the idea.

 

Remember: I was promised a "new" unit. For that matter, I was told #2 would be new also.

 

Aaaaaand...wait for it...

This unit also has a problem. Unit #1 and #2 had MIDI note on/note off problems. This one the volume jumps randomly by a number of dB. No, it's not a key velocity thing. For what it's worth, this unit also came in with out of date firmware. I updated that, so that's not the problem, either.

 

Crap, crap, and double crap!

 

Once I could understand, right? Shit happens, as the expression goes...but three times in a row?

 

I will mess with this a little longer and give another report, but it doesn't look good.

 

Grey

[Anderton]

Out-of-date firmware is commonplace. Companies are reluctant to open up new gear, load new firmware, and then find out they have to load newer firmware a couple months later. I suspect quite a few units in warehouses were shipped pre-pandemic, or before the supply chain issues got out of control in harbors that receive container ships from Asia.

 

Also, some companies will not accept returned units for credit, even if they're new, with the original packaging, and 100% unused, if they've been modified in any way (which includes loading new firmware).

[GRollins]

Point taken.

 

Also, I have solved (I think) the volume jump problem by reseating the MIDI plug. Why or how that should make a difference I cannot fathom, but it seems to have done the trick.

 

Cross fingers.

 

Grey

[Docbop]

Reseating helps clean the contact points on electronic components always of good thing to do when troubleshooting. 

[Anderton]

I've fixed many pieces of digital gear with contact cleaner. 

13 minutes ago, GRollins said:

Also, I have solved (I think) the volume jump problem by reseating the MIDI plug. Why or how that should make a difference I cannot fathom...

 

Oxidation probably caused contact problems. It's a common issue in places that have sketchy air quality, and is most problematic with dissimilar metals.