Key Of Grey

Photo courtesy of Korg

August 21, 2009 – If you’ve been following my Twitter updates (if you aren’t, you can follow me here), you’ll know that I’m irritated that a new Korg NanoPad I purchased from a seller on Ebay doesn’t work, and neither the seller nor Korg Canada seems to want to communicate with me. I know it’s only 60 dollars, but it’s still 60 dollars.

The thing that bothers me about the whole thing is that I’ve bought lots of items off of Ebay and online in general, sight unseen. Now I’ll worry if things I buy will be defective, or even arrive at all (I bought two Jabbawockeez shirts that never arrived either; another $60 gone). To offset the bad experience I had with the NanoPad, today I received my new Takamine acoustic guitar case quickly, and with minimal fuss.

That got me thinking about buying gear and instruments online without trying out the actual item you’re going to buy. I think this may be fine for items that should all work the same (ie. MIDI controllers, accessories), but may not be a good idea for items that can vary. For example, I bought a Takamine EAN10C acoustic guitar at a local music store for about $1100. The case I got today was for that guitar. On Ebay right now, the guitar and case together go for 2/3′s what I paid for just the guitar. That’s a big difference.

However if I had to do it again, I would still have bought it at the local music store. Sure, you can save a lot of money by buying things online, but for personal things like guitars, price isn’t everything. I already knew that the store I was going to was more expensive than buying on Ebay, but when I played the guitar in the store, it had a unique quality to it that I couldn’t put my finger on. I fell in love with the guitar right there. I’ve played others of the exact same model and they don’t seem as alive, if that makes sense.

I’ve bought two other much more expensive guitars off of Ebay, but they were rare items that I likely would not have been able to get if not for the internet. I won the draw on those two and they both feel and sound fantastic. So you can buy guitars sight unseen if you’re willing to gamble. I guess I’m still not really sure if I like buying music gear and instruments online. Sometimes the cheap prices override my distrust of paying for something I can’t see. Mostly I win and sometimes, like with the NanoPad, I lose.