Great gear you got a *bad* deal on

mjau · Post by **mjau** » Wed Jan 14, 2009 6:57 am

I bought a d12 that I *thought* sounded a little light on the low end compared to other kick drum mic's I'd used, but I still put it out in front of the kick and got a pretty usable sound. Come to find out that the capsule was pierced...which made me really question my ears afterward.

darjama · Post by **darjama** » Wed Jan 14, 2009 7:15 am

My first serious soundcard was a Lexicon Core2. What a waste of cash that was. I think I paid $400 for it. The drivers froze the computer pretty regularly, and promised Win NT drivers never materialized. They stopped supporting the thing after 2 years, and I've sworn off Lexicon products.

But I've dealt with more shady repair places than I care to mention. Like the place that had my roto vibe pedal for two months, then returned it to me with parts missing saying they couldn't fix it.

...and I'll second the guy who mentioned upright bass as a giant eater of cash. I've probably put 4x as much into my doghouse Kay as I paid for her.

getreel · Post by **getreel** » Wed Jan 14, 2009 7:26 am

Back around 2000 or so I bought a Les Paul copy off ebay for $100. I knew the thing was a copy and wasn't expecting much. It even had a fake Gibson logo on it but looking kinda cool and vintage in the pics. Well, I waited for what seemed like a long time to for it to show up and when it did, the neck was broken off as I lifted it out of the crappy chipboard case it came in. I mean, this thing was a piece of work. Looked like it was built by children in some 3rd world country(no offense I hope). The pickups weren't even Gibson copies, they weren't even humbuckers at all. They looked like some rudimentary single coils with little wire on the windings and no wax potting of any kind that I could see. This was disguised beneath standard looking chrome humbucker covers. It was the biggest joke of a guitar I've ever seen and I've seen a lot of crappy guitars. I'm not sure what it made off, maybe balsa wood, but it seemed to have termite damage as well. I was expecting something like one of the old Hondos or something but this thing was the super-sh**!! Amazingly craptastic! I threw it out in the hopes that it wouldn't give a disease to any of my other guitars. I've had other things I got a bad deal on but that was the worst I think.

RefD · Post by **RefD** » Wed Jan 14, 2009 7:30 am

wow, we've kinda wandered a bit here.

red cross · Post by **red cross** » Wed Jan 14, 2009 9:39 am

I've been looking for a working AKG D202 for a loooong time. As everyone knows, those things are fragile as hell. Finally found one on a "reputable" vintage audio website so I bit the bullet, even though it was a tad overpriced at $250. Fuck it, it's worth it as long as they have the techs and all to make sure everything's good to go right? Even told me they'd given it a going over and all was cool.

Well, it was DOA. Got my money back, but I think I've just about given up on ever owning one of those. Damn.

calaverasgrandes · Post by **calaverasgrandes** » Wed Jan 14, 2009 11:04 am

minorleagues wrote:I bought a Sennheiser MD421 the other day that "tested and 100% functional" last month and tried it out and it was DOA. I called, and they guy said "we're a pawn shop so there was probably no way for us to test it." Why then the bleep did you list it on eBay as tested! I sent it back for a refund for last week, hopefully I'll get my money back.

even on the internet pawn shops are still 110% evil

capnreverb · Post by **capnreverb** » Wed Jan 14, 2009 12:39 pm

MoreSpaceEcho wrote:i was the first kid on my block to have a cd burner, back in the late 90s. burnt all the way up to a blazing 4x and only set me back $700!

Maybe not such a bad thing. I bought the first Tascam cd burner in the late 90's and it was over a grand. It will not burn any cdr's that are faster than 16x, and wont take some 16x. I still use it as my main machine to burn stuff and I can get slow burn cd's on ebay for cheap. The good thing about slow burn cdr's they are less prone to internal digital errors in the burn process.
I once had the chance to meet mastering guru Bob Katz at his studio for him to critique some of my mixes for differant kinds of music I had been recording. He put my slow burned cdr into a computer program that looks for errors on cdr's and was shocked at how few there were. He said it was probably a combo of burning these discs at real time (1x) and the burner itself.
The only part I really hate about the burner is that they made it with a wired remote and my cat finds the long narrow cord yummy. I had to tape it up and hide it. My new new studio will be in an attic of my new house and the cord munching cat will not be allowed free roam.

MoreSpaceEcho · Post by **MoreSpaceEcho** » Wed Jan 14, 2009 2:11 pm

yeah i always burnt at 1x on that thing. the plextor i have now won't go slower than 16x. the thing that's weird about the errors on cdrs is you can burn two identical discs off the same spindle, one right after the other, and one might well have dramatically fewer errors than the other. stupid cdrs...

that burner was worth it though, because that was what basically got me started learning about mastering. i was soooooooooo psyched when i got it. "i can make a CD now! i am PROFESSIONAL!" and so i carefully burnt some mix in progress and brought it to work to play on the stereo there and impress all my friends...

*cue Big Disappointment*

what the hell? why is my song a billion times quieter than everything else we listen to? and why does it sound like it's coming from the bottom of a swamp?

well, dummy, you see....

percussion boy · Post by **percussion boy** » Thu Jan 15, 2009 12:40 am

1. Using a big chunk of my small savings to buy an analog recording rig (Otari eight track and fixings, Allen & Heath board). Not many years later, Quantegy went broke.

2. Using credit to buy good gear at good prices when the budget wasn't in place to pay the money back immediately. The LA3A and nice German mics are no longer bargains.

When I make gear mistakes, I don't fool around . . .

(Ironically, the mediocre, over-hyped stuff I bought -- AKG 3000b, Audio Buddy preamp, et al -- still yielded some good sounds. Too bad those weren't the mistakes, would have been cheaper.)

Babaluma · Post by **Babaluma** » Thu Jan 15, 2009 12:56 am

it was about 500 dollars cheaper for me to order a chandler germanium compressor from the states to japan, than to buy one here (i bought my first one here, doh!), and that INCLUDES shipping and import tax. we get right royally screwed on us/european goods here sometimes...

i think a purple audio mc77 is about 2 and half grand if you buy it in japan!!!

calaverasgrandes · Post by **calaverasgrandes** » Thu Jan 15, 2009 1:10 am

I suppose I could add to this list my first 3 dat machines. I thought I would be elevating the quality of my studios sounds quality.
In hindsight I got better mixes on my tascam and sony cassette decks.
Dats are crap. Sure it was the pro standard for 12-15 years. But all the stuff I was recording was edning up on 7 inches anyway!
Anyone remember trying to edit track subcode info so the mastering house would get the CD right? Fun times!

Mane1234 · Post by **Mane1234** » Thu Jan 15, 2009 1:45 am

I haven't gotten so much hosed on purchases but I sure have on repair jobs and modification work. Took my Soundcraft 600 board into a place here in Houston that has a great reputation for working on amps and they said they could work on my board which was having problems. It came back after a 300 dollar repair bill in worse shape than it went in but I was really busy for the whole month after I got it back and didn't get to hook everything up until after the warrenty for the work expired so essentially I paid to just drop it off and pick it back up. It's still not fixed yet!!!

Sent some modules off to a guy once to get racked up and he had them for close to a year. Sent them to me finally and when I pulled them out of the box the power supply was rattling around on the inside of the unit and had pulled some wires off in the process. Had to send it back and wait some more and still got it back unfinished.

I did get scammed on Ebay once for some SM 57s that were fake but that all came out ok.

curtiswyant · Post by **curtiswyant** » Thu Jan 15, 2009 6:00 am

I bought an effectron delay on ebay a few years ago and it seemed like it was DOA. I sent it back to the seller and he tried it out and it worked. So he shipped it back to me and it still didn't work for me. I shipped it back and kept my refund. It wasn't really a burn, just a waste of time and shipping money.

I really like buying broken or neglected gear and fixing it up. It makes me feel good.

trodden · Post by **trodden** » Thu Jan 15, 2009 10:50 am

curtiswyant wrote:I bought an effectron delay on ebay a few years ago and it seemed like it was DOA. I sent it back to the seller and he tried it out and it worked. So he shipped it back to me and it still didn't work for me. I shipped it back and kept my refund. It wasn't really a burn, just a waste of time and shipping money.

I really like buying broken or neglected gear and fixing it up. It makes me feel good.

you wanna feel good about my Rev 7 that is constantly intermittant?

kingmetal · Post by **kingmetal** » Thu Jan 15, 2009 3:08 pm

standup wrote:Not a great deal. Any computer or firewire audio device is a money loser for sure.

You tell that to my MOTU 828MKII that I bought almost 6 years ago used for $500. I'm just now about getting ready to max the thing out (just finally started using the ADAT sync port, which I believe is the last in/out the thing has) and I'll probably just pick up the MKIII and chain them together.

If I was opening a professional studio, I guess the story would be different.

And while a computer will certainly depreciate in market value, it's not like it gets slower over time. The software end of the deal falls apart, and things break, but the computer is still every bit as good as when you bought it.

If we're talking about pure market value, most stuff is a money-loser.

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