RANTS & RAVES - The best and the worst customer service of boutique amp builders

[Travst]

Rave: Bill @ Reeves who promptly answers phone and email and is extremely helpful.

[DeaconBlues]

Raves:
Dr. Z
Soldano
Rivera
Victoria
Clark

[boogieongtr]

Raves;

Michael Kennedy - Komet Amplification

Greg Germino - Germino Amps

George Metropoulos - Metro Amps

Bob Reinhardt - Reihnhart Amps

Dr Z Amps

[spazmonkey]

Bruce Zinky and John Suhr = awesome!!!

[jimmyohio75]

Hands down: Best Customer Service I've experienced:

Jade Lowery
Twister Amps

[Marc Roy]

I've spoken to Simon Jarrett (Kingsley Amplifiers) and Mark Stephenson (Stephenson Amps) inquiring about their products. Both super nice and very helpful. I ordered a Jester pedal from Simon and ended up returning it since I felt it didn't work well with my rig (nothing against that pedal though, it did sound good but I had others that I preferred). Simon was very accomodating and even asked me what he could do to improve it. Mark Stephenson spent almost an hour with me shooting the shit about tone and rigs when I called inquiring about a Stage Hog. I wouldn't hesitate purchasing from either of these guys.

[hardys]

Raves

Germino
Fuchs
Reinhardt
Carol-Ann
Carr
Dr. Z

Rants

Dr. Z

I've had excellent service from Z, except for one time. There was an intermittent noise coming from a Maz Sr. head that I had purchased and sent back for warranty repair. Z returned it (reportedly fixed) claiming there was a bad 12ax7. The noise re-occured after I got it back, so I called to tell him. During the discussion, he actually called me a liar, saying that I never swapped out any of the tubes to troubleshoot it prior to sending it for repair. I swapped out every tube in that amp with two different sets of power and pre-amp tubes before sending it back and it didn't fix the problem.

Luckily, Stu from Fat Sound agreed to take it back and refund my money. Other than some RFI problems with a MAZ 18 reverb tank, I NEVER had a problem with any Z amp and I've owned 7 of them. I guess I caught Mike on a B-A-D day.

[deluxeman]

Bob Reinhardt is the best I have experineced, I bought a used amp and it had an issue. I called him and he said ship it to him and he would fix it. I did and he did, for free. I begged the guy to let me pay for his time and materials but he would not let me. How great is that.............. That is customer service!!!!

Don Mare is also a real great guy to deal with, nice fella great products, delivers what he say's he will and more.

Not really any bad dealings thankfully. But then again I don't shop at GC either.

[DT7]

With all the cone-heads an amp tech or builder have to put up with in an ongoing basis, it's amazing (to me) the number that still get favorable reports. I've heard of some guys quitting the business after so many years because the number of flakes they have to deal with on an off-and-on basis over several years began to threaten their sanity. What I CAN say concerning these guys is that, generally, you get good service if you're nice/polite. Sometimes you're the guy who calls up right after the guy had to deal with some cone-head...and the conversation doesn't go so well. We're all human beings...let's give each other a break. I think the red flag should go up if some guy consistandly gets bad reports...but we'd have to be posting on a board that completely tolerates such reports for that to be effective. So...we're back to the "let's give each other a break".

[RedRock]

Originally Posted by jaydub69

Thread revival!


Rant recant:
Ted Weber wrote that he was sick and had some lackey answer my questions. (Sick, a likely story.) May you rest in Peace.

How nice of you.

Lackey?

[bettset]

good point. i've had good dealings with fuchs, pritchard, & divided by 13. mesa boogie as well. i don't know the internal workings of an amp other than changing tubes & if a fuse may go. these amps are made to be tanks, but there is always the one that can go bad. you're right--don't be a jerk with someone--they tend to listen better--& there's your service

[Marc Roy]

Originally Posted by bettset

good point. i've had good dealings with fuchs, pritchard, & divided by 13. mesa boogie as well. i don't know the internal workings of an amp other than changing tubes & if a fuse may go. these amps are made to be tanks, but there is always the one that can go bad. you're right--don't be a jerk with someone--they tend to listen better--& there's your service

I think that's the thing in general. I can't remember the last time I've spoken to an amp/pedal/guitar builder who was an asshole. Generally, if you're nice to someone, you get the same in return.

[newking70]

is it me, or is there to many flakes and deadbeats in the guitar amp business? i'am at my wits end with two such people right now. they were happy to take my money and make promises.....but slow with results.

[VintageKnob]

On a scale of 10

Lil Dawg: 10+
Suhr: 10+
Fuchs: 10+

All of the above simple the best customer service in any product category.

Mesa Boogie: 9
Clarke: 9
Alessandro: 7 (sent me a 4x10 with the cheapest speakers in the world in it - WTF?!?!? And a bit Surly on the phone)
Got to add RSGuitarworks in there, they will answer all questions phone or email and never a hint of "I really don't want to be talking to you right now"

- D

[pedalcr8z]

Makes no sense to me why this thread is allowed but we may typically not post about bad experiences from retail stores