Purchase from local shop, or online - now NEW AMP DAY

joetele

ICBM said:

Adamski said:

As as others have said, their commission was VERY low - peanuts in fact - on selling your amp so maybe it’s the least they deserve. 

This.

10% is actually unrealistically low, they've already done you a favour by charging that little. You would have lost that much in Ebay/Paypal fees as well as almost certainly getting a lower price.

You can return it by allowing them to make the profit on the new gear - it won't hurt to ask if they can do a bit better, but I wouldn't be offended if they don't.

Oh no for sure, if anything, I always feel like I'm going to offend them if I ask them to go lower. It's never been something I've been great at doing. 

hywelg

joetele said:

Ok, so my Peavey has sold and I'm eyeing up the Boss Katana 100 with a footswitch. 

Online of course, the Katana is £243 and the footswitch is £74. 

My local music shop, who sold the Peavey for me for £339 and have taken their 10% (leaving me about £305), are saying that the sale proceeds "will cover the Katana 100 and will do the footswitch for £70 (RRP is £85)".

So I'm in a bit of a quandary. I know they're an independent shop, and can't match online prices for obvious reasons....and these guys have been great to me over the last couple of years - doing me good deals, doing really good and cheap setup/repair etc on my kit, and always great to chat to. 

But it's still clear I can get the Katana plus footswitch online for £317 together, and I'd be spending roughly £375 on the same at the local music shop. I appreciate that technically I'd bought and paid for the Peavey ages ago so in essence, all I'm spending is £70 on the footswitch - and I do want to support them - so should I just swallow the roughly £60 difference and buy there? 

I like the fact that I can go back to them if there are any issues, and they continue to take money off for me when I buy stuff, plus their resident tech has offered to help me (a luddite) run through all the options on the Katana including looking at my pedal chain and FX loop etc.

What do you guys think? Support the local buddies or save £60 in theory by going online?

EDIT: They've just emailed to confirm they sold it at £330 and so my take is £300. So with the difference between £317 and £370 being that much smaller - closer to £50 I suppose - I feel happier with the deal. 

Be very thankfull your local shop isn't Coda or you're going to be a lot poorer in the long term

joetele

hywelg said:

joetele said:

Ok, so my Peavey has sold and I'm eyeing up the Boss Katana 100 with a footswitch. 

Online of course, the Katana is £243 and the footswitch is £74. 

My local music shop, who sold the Peavey for me for £339 and have taken their 10% (leaving me about £305), are saying that the sale proceeds "will cover the Katana 100 and will do the footswitch for £70 (RRP is £85)".

So I'm in a bit of a quandary. I know they're an independent shop, and can't match online prices for obvious reasons....and these guys have been great to me over the last couple of years - doing me good deals, doing really good and cheap setup/repair etc on my kit, and always great to chat to. 

But it's still clear I can get the Katana plus footswitch online for £317 together, and I'd be spending roughly £375 on the same at the local music shop. I appreciate that technically I'd bought and paid for the Peavey ages ago so in essence, all I'm spending is £70 on the footswitch - and I do want to support them - so should I just swallow the roughly £60 difference and buy there? 

I like the fact that I can go back to them if there are any issues, and they continue to take money off for me when I buy stuff, plus their resident tech has offered to help me (a luddite) run through all the options on the Katana including looking at my pedal chain and FX loop etc.

What do you guys think? Support the local buddies or save £60 in theory by going online?

EDIT: They've just emailed to confirm they sold it at £330 and so my take is £300. So with the difference between £317 and £370 being that much smaller - closer to £50 I suppose - I feel happier with the deal. 

Be very thankfull your local shop isn't Coda or you're going to be a lot poorer in the long term

I honestly think with their location and current web presence, there's no danger of that happening anytime soon...

Wazmeister

So Joe, did you buy it ?

TheBigDipper

gordiji said:

If you buy from Thomann they give a 3 yr guarantee which they honour & cover the shipping charges with a printable postage paid slip. They may not be the cheapest but get my money especially for amps.

Thomann do their thing well, and I've bought from them in the past and been very happy with their service even if the product wasn't right.

From the OPs perspective, though, it's worth bearing in mind that Thomann doesn't pay tax in the UK. If he wants to support local businesses, and it seems like he has a local shop that he can visit and support, then buying from Thomann isn't going to be quite what he had in mind. Even buying from a UK-based online retailer would be supporting the UK economy in a way that buying from Thomann is not. 

None of which is Thomanns fault or of anyone who uses Thomann, but decisions have consequences and we are entering into interesting times. 

joetele

Wazmeister said:

So Joe, did you buy it ?

Reader, I've a new Boss Katana and footswitch waiting for me at my local music shop for collection next week. 

Also, I wasn't thinking of Thomann for online purchases. Most uk shops have the deals I mentioned. 

joetele

Also, I'm totally going for that gold Ibanez ARZ200 I've mentioned before - it's in the shop for the same price as online. Going to ask wife and family to contribute for Xmas and birthday towards it. 

joetele

Well, they took another £10 off the Footswitch so I got that for only £60, which is pretty darn good. Plus a deal on some extra cables to use the FX loop. The amp is now at home with me, waiting for the chance to play it a bit more...

Might have put a cheeky deposit down on that Ibanez ARZ200 too  

joetele

So, I plugged it all in last night and put most of my pedals through the FX loop. Took me a while to figure out I needed to tap the 'Loop' button on the footswitch to be able to hear it...

But despite only hearing it through the REC OUT into my Zoom R8 and then into headphones, it still sounded ace - properly great clean channel, with stunning crunch channel and drive channels - that brown sound!!

The onboard effects were a bit subtle for my liking but once I plug it into the laptop I can tweak them using the Tone Studio software, as well as switching some of the effects for a Tera Echo and Slicer, and maybe a Slow Gear. I'm mainly using my pedalboard for effects, but there are a few that I'll use on the Katana to fill in gaps or provide effects which would normally cost hundreds. 

I love the smaller size and the abundance of features. It kills two birds with one stone in that it's a much better headphone practice solution, plus it's a smaller and lighter amp that still kicks out 100W for the headroom I need at practice. 

Genuinely great tones, though - really very close to tube tones, which suits me fine. It looks the part as well. The one strange thing it does, which might be inherent in modelling stuff in general, is you have to almost readjust the knobs by starting from zero each time you want to adjust them  - I remember my Line6 POD 2.0 having the same quirk. No biggie though, it's easy to dial in great sounds. 

I've yet to explore setting up new patches etc but will revert to the manual or ask people here. I want to download the right sounds first. @Alnico has been providing some sterling advice so far. 

Am I right in thinking that there's a cabinet modelling setting you need to activate/deactivate to make it sound better for use with the REC OUT/PHONES output?  I remember watching a Youtube video where a guy was suggesting as much...