Re: [ARSCLIST]

[Tom Fine <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I forgot to mention Musician's Friend! That's always my backup. I buy from
them or zzsounds, whomever is cheapest. It's usually zzsounds because
they're in NJ and offer free shipping on most items. But Musician's Friend
makes deals so sometimes they'll underprice everyone else for a limited
time.

Most of the kind of equipment that most of us buy is pretty commoditized, so
I see no reason not to buy on price.

I also forgot to mention, for the more hand-built/boutique stuff, always
check Mercenary Audio up in Mass. Fletcher offers some good discounts and
his website is amusing if nothing else. He'll also get right on the phone
with you if he's around and he knows his stuff from in-studio testing of
gear. For the boutique stuff, he generally offers the best price, but all
that stuff seems to have a somewhat high price floor because there's less of
it made and sold.

Since I know a couple of small guys with dealer licenses for a couple of
manufacturers, I have some idea of the markup involved with this and it's
more than you think. If you get aggressive, you can knock another 10 or 20%
off the price if the person you're dealing with wants a sale. For instance,
even at the street prices which are about 25-30% below list, Mackie stuff is
still bringing the dealer a substantial profit. Dealer pays around 50% of
list or less, depending on volume. It's about the same for everyone else. I
suspect most major manufactureres have an unpublished floor price they want
dealers to honor, or the heavy discounters are all in cahoots.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Richard L. Hess" <ArcLists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, September 26, 2005 5:43 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST]


> Steve, can you be more specific? I've bought some stuff from
> www.sweetwater.com but that's because at the time there was a fairly
> knowledgable sales person who was making sense discussing audio on
> the Pro Audio list. But they have fairly good prices if you know what
> you want, but it really depends. I shop around and buy lots of my
> stuff on eBay.
>
> I've probably given the most money to eBay vendors, followed by Dell
> computer. I bought three of my Mackie speakers from
> www.MusiciansFriend.com as they were offering a really good price
> with free shipping.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Richard
>
> At 05:35 PM 9/26/2005, you wrote:
> >Hi,
> >
> >Could you please recommend a good vendor for professional audio gear?
> >
> >Thanks,
> >Steve
> >
>
> Richard L. Hess                           email: richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Vignettes
> Media                           web:   http://www.richardhess.com/tape/
> Aurora, Ontario, Canada             (905) 713 6733     1-877-TAPE-FIX
> Detailed contact information: http://www.richardhess.com/tape/contact.htm