Problem with selling amps is...

[Reeltarded]

People are (every expletive) as stupid as (2x expletives) green wood.

I sold my first amp to a friend's son. He just had to have it. Great, ok.. don't want to sell it.. here ya go..

In the last month I have had it apart for reported trouble twice. Once for sqealing condition (unrepeatable) and this time because switches don't turn amp on. No light, no heat, no nothing.

Call goes like this:

Hello...

I'm at practice and the white amp died.......... (90 seconds pass)..

And what happened?

It doesn't work.

Please explain what happened. (before I come through this phone and destroy you on an atomic level)

It doesn't work.

Ok, hey tell me what the fuck you were doing then it suddenly didn't work, or should I astral project myself through space and time to that moment!

It stopped working.

Checked fuses?

Yeah. They look good.

Ok. Look has nothing to do with a fuse. (he's a moron who has everyone else do everything.. meter would never be in his gig pile) and so you had it on then the light just went out?

Maybe. It just stopped working. We weren't playing.

Ok. Well. I can't just pull a magic ticket out of my ass and fix it over the phone.

Yeah.

(120 seconds absolute silence)

Ok.

Should I bring it to you?

Umm.. yep. Talk to you later.

----------

This morning. I checked fuses. I looked around. I tested switches. I tested everything to do with the mains. It's a 50w plexi with some mods. Connected mains wire.

All fine.

I plugged it in. It works as it always has.

If you are going to drive a rig.. gotta know how to isolate problems. The amp never broke down. It's his outlet on his power conditioner. The squealing problem is something about the 60 pedals he hides his poor playing skills behind.

Never sell a thing you made to anyone that might have your phone number. It's all suffering. Never. You'd be better off throwing it away.

[ChopSauce]

... You'd be better off throwing it away.

I often think about/like that too

[pompeiisneaks]

I have worked customer service in multiple areas of business. This is a common problem only in 100% of this type of job, so amp builders have it 0% worse than any other service field

If you don't want to work with morons, get a job that keeps you behind the scenes never to talk to customers. Which precludes any business. I have had the honor of dealing with some of the worst customer service reps ever, because they refuse to actually realize that you are paying them or their company to be the experts at the job, and not want to spend time learning about something you don't want to learn.

SO it's a 2 headed coin my friend.

I also had a wonderful experience buying tubes once from tube depot. They sent me an EL34 with pins 3 and 2 shorted. Guess what that did to the heaters of every tube in the amp? I had just retubed most of that amp, and bought them all but like 2 that I had on hand from them, their one tube ruined all of my tubes and they refused to do anything more than replace the one tube that was bad. Their person on the phone was super rude to me, and then hung up on me. He's obviously in the wrong job, and needs to go work behind the scenes. They then proceeded to lie to me that they'd always offered me all tubes replaced. One of the top 3 worst customer experiences I've ever had.

Customer service is not for everyone, and if it's not for you, you're absolutely right, you shouldn't be selling directly to anyone, as you'll be miserable, and you'll treat them like crap and they don't deserve that either in most cases.

~Phil

[Reeltarded]

This is not my job. I build amps for me.

[pompeiisneaks]

So then my post fits perfectly. I am 100% in agreement with you, you shouldn't have sold the amp .

~Phil

[Leo_Gnardo]

I should count myself lucky. My crustomers are generally smarter than yours Myles. Can't say I've ever been put thru that much tsouris on an amp sale, though I could mention a Twin Reverb repair that went perfectly. For me. Amp's owner is either dumb as two boxes of rocks, or has his ears in his butt. Probably both. Still unresolved. And that may be permanent which is OK with me.

Looking forward to disposing of most of my amp collection over the next couple years thru consignment. Luckily there's a friendly local store that specializes in quality vintage gear. Plus they seem to have the Reverb.com thing dialed in pretty well, as well as contacts in the UK. Don't mind paying a reasonable consignment percentage. Sure beats entertaining every tomato squeezer & tire kicker on the planet. Don't mention the geeks that make an appointment and don't show up.

[xtian]

I have worked customer service in multiple areas of business. This is a common problem only in 100% of this type of job, so amp builders have it 0% worse than any other service field

Truer words, etc. Haw.

[Reeltarded]

So then my post fits perfectly. I am 100% in agreement with you, you shouldn't have sold the amp .

~Phil

Next time I work on it I am going to buy it back with fire.

[Reeltarded]

I should count myself lucky. My crustomers are generally smarter than yours Myles. Can't say I've ever been put thru that much tsouris on an amp sale, though I could mention a Twin Reverb repair that went perfectly. For me. Amp's owner is either dumb as two boxes of rocks, or has his ears in his butt. Probably both. Still unresolved. And that may be permanent which is OK with me.

Looking forward to disposing of most of my amp collection over the next couple years thru consignment. Luckily there's a friendly local store that specializes in quality vintage gear. Plus they seem to have the Reverb.com thing dialed in pretty well, as well as contacts in the UK. Don't mind paying a reasonable consignment percentage. Sure beats entertaining every tomato squeezer & tire kicker on the planet. Don't mention the geeks that make an appointment and don't show up.

I work on a couple amps a year because a friend has a simple problem and I have parts for emergency situations. I don't want to say no to that, but I always tell them to call this other guy before it gets that far. He has a sign and a lock on a door at a place of business that he leaves every day around 6.

I need to talk to your friendly consigners. My big Fenders have to GO.

[pompeiisneaks]

So then my post fits perfectly. I am 100% in agreement with you, you shouldn't have sold the amp .

~Phil

Next time I work on it I am going to buy it back with fire.

LOL DO EET

~Phil

[M Fowler]

Guys screw up my amps, and all amps, then I get called to determine the cause of what?

I have no idea what some of the guys are doing, speaker impedance mismatching, tube melt down, dropped amps, broken tubes.

No wonder they order from Sweetwater, destroy the amps then return them.

Or the guys that spend $2500 on guitars, $3500 on name brand amps but offer me $500 for my custom amp.

[RockinRocket]

Ive built 4 custom amps this year for fellas that I just happen to come across.
1 was a blessing, one a complete PITA and the other two were understandable in the custom build time frame.

They all have their needs and all the amps completely custom Marshalls to their own specific needs. I've learned ALOT about how to read a person before I agree to build amps for basically fun. 300-400$ fully custom amps that they couldnt find any one else to build for them (or were to cheap to pay lol)

[Phil_S]

LOL, when you build amps, this is gonna happen. Even me, the rank amateur has a story to contribute. I built an amp for a friend's daughter. She's got talent. She was doing house party gigs. I took a liking to her. I built her a nice amp. I did a barter with her father, my friend. Never had a problem from her. She brought it back about 2 years later. Something wasn't right. Someone stole the GE 6L6's I'd given her, or maybe it was just an honest re-tube. I don't know. There were two mismatched power tubes in there. All I had were a couple of wannabe Ruskie almost 6L6's. At least they were new. I installed and biased. No charge. I think I paid $5/tube. She was happy as a clam. Go figgur.

Meanwhile, I had loaned her the Fender 5e6-ish thing I'd built so she wouldn't be without an amp. No problem there either. I guess she's just a sweet heart.

Wait for it.

Another musician friend used the 5e6 while she had it. I got an indirect message from my friend that someone wanted to buy it. NFS! OK I'll give a price. Really, although it is cobbled together from this and that, used iron, etc., it's nice amp. I made a nice headshell for it, covered in black elephant style pleather. The works. I passed back a message I'd let it go for $600. I think the poor kid who wanted it thought it would be way less money. Are you frickin' kidding, I said to myself. I consider myself lucky. Apparently the mention of almost real money saved me from, "It stopped working <2 minutes dead air>. Sorry for your trouble, Miles. You know the saying, no good deed goes unpunished.

[Reeltarded]

they all have needs.. special needs... needs a face punch.. needs a face soak in a dirty toliet.. needs to buy an amp book on amazon so they don't have to put my life at risk by driving.. needs to drop their phone in deep water and not have me backed up on a cloud service..

NEEDS TO BUY A USED POD!!

Gahh! Go bother Fuchs!! He builds amps!!!

[AtomCap]

Selling amps carries unfathomable amounts of liability. If you plan on selling amps or are selling amps make sure you dot every I and cross every T. All it takes is someone getting injured and your ass is open for business. I've sold 3 ground up builds to Vetted- close friends and threatened all 3 that if they ever took them anywhere else for service or spare parts I'd never pickup the phone and their service privileges would be suspended indefinitely..