So some of you might have seen my excited questions regarding my brand new Ampeg heritage Svt-cl and heritage svt 410 that was on its way this week.
Well it's ended up as maybe the biggest gear fail of my recent past.
So the story...
I finally saved up enough to purchase an Ampeg SVT and cab. And finally on Monday at about 1pm I place my order with Digital Village because they had the right price. The salesman assures me that even though they only have 1 in stock, it's brand new and in the box and that I will have it by Wed. Which is good news given that my band has all day Sat and Sunday booked in a recording studio to work on our next record. Brilliant.
Wed comes - no amp or cab. So I call and I am *assured* that I will have it by Thursday.
Thursday comes - no amp or cab. So I call and I am assured I will have it by today.
Today - nothing - so I call DHL instead of Digital Village and they tell me - the amp is scheduled for delivery on Monday. FAIL.
So I ask where it is. Well I am in London and and it is Luton at their depot. So I get a minicab and proceed to drive up to Luton.
We get there (and after my driver decides to take a piss in the bushes which is grabbed by the camera and gets the DHL people to threaten to not give me my crap) and the boxes come out. One is labeled Ampeg and is the right size for an SVT-CL. The other is HUGE. And it's supposed to be a 4x10. And it's labeled Electrovoice. So I call Digital Village - answer "oh we often pack in other boxes don't worry about it".
So £130 pounds later, I get home. And low and behold it's an Electrovoice 2x15 PA speaker with a horn.
So I call Digital Village furious about the waste of time and money. The guy is offended that I am so pissed off and tells me he will sort it (obviously not in time for our sessions but still sort it). So I hang up and start thinking about options. Of course when I call him 30 minutes later he had left for the day. Asshole.
Well by now I was set on using the damn SVT so I find another used Ampeg 4x10 in north London - hop in a cab, go up, grab it and come home. Another £50 round trip.
So all chuffed and not really thinking about Digital Village, I plug everything in, fire it up, let it warm up for 20 mins, turn it off standby and...... The fault light is blinking. And won't stop. And won't make a sound.
So...I whip out the manual. It says it's probably a power tube. But wait isn't part of the point of buying an Ampeg Heritage that it comes with nice Winged C tubes? Open up the back - oh look they are JJs! Awesome!!! Not....
Call up Ampeg in the US. 15 minutes of hold on a cell phone. Finally they answer - and suggest swapping out tubes. Now I happen to be one of the only assholes that actually has another set of 6550s on hand so I swap. But then I need to wait 20 mins for warm up after swapping tubes. So hang up, wait, turn it on, still flashing light - totally shit out of luck.
So by now the experience has cost me - £2000 for the amp, £700 for the 4x10 svt cab, £350 for the used ampeg 4x10, £130 for the cab to Luton and £50 for the London cab.
And I have NOTHING to show for it.
At this point, they are coming Monday to pick up the Electrovoice. I am seriously tempted to give them both items. I don't think I can be asked to bring this to an authorized dealer and have it fixed. Frankly I just want to forget the whole miserable experience. What would you do?
Comments
I hope you get it sorted
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
This. In bucket loads.
Similar, but nowhere near as bad, DV told me they had a pedal I wanted in their Cambridge shop, I did my utmost to get there and back in my lunch hour. Lo and behold, when I got there, no pedal in the shop, but the line of "we can order it for you".
Me "Fuck off, You told me you had it in store".
Went to Coda a week or so later to check the Charvel range, so they got a sale of a guitar, and a sale of a pedal.
Ringleader of the Cambridge cartel, pedal champ and king of the dirt boxes (down to 21)
Send them both back.
I get more Ampeg SVT CL bass amps through than all other bass amps put together.
6 off expensive 6550s, combined with an oversensitive self-diagnostic system, 700+ volts on the anodes, questionable design and mediocre build quality are not happy bedfellows.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein