Well, being a cheap Jewish girl, I'm always looking for bargains in anything on sale which includes, scratched and dented stuff! Now I don't mind some cosmetic blemishes. I had a friend that had an old DBX noise reduction unit and he went completely ballistic, after loaning it to me, when he noticed a small, barely noticeable scratch, in the decorative wood side panel, that you never see. So you do the math. Will anybody see that and does it affect the operation of the unit?

We all use plenty of microphones, expensive microphones, like Neumann U87's that you can drop a couple of grand on, that have occasionally been whacked with a drumstick, the wooden kind, not Kentucky fried or Popeye's, hopefully, not to mention the spit and heavily laden pot/alcohol/cocaine breath that accumulate, on the capsules over years of time. Sometimes it can destroy a microphone. Most of the time, it just leaves a nasty blemish in the decorative screen top. I've purchased microphones like that and never regretted it. Consoles, signal processors, reverb units, if they haven't taken a huge fall and there is no chassis damage and the unit works, I'll go for it. Make sure it works properly and up to what you believe may be proper specifications?

JAP engineer. And not from the land of sushi.
Ms. Remy Ann David

AKR wrote: i'm looking at buying an audio interface that is "blemished." both musician's friend and zzounds have these items. have you had any experience with this?

thanks, Reuben

Resellers don't usually give you enough of a discount on blemished products to even make it worth buying. I am always on the lookout for blemished products being sold at Sweetwater and other big name online retailers... and they give you jack squat for blems. Only one time out of about a thousand searches, have I ever seen a fair discount for a blemished product. In one instance they were selling a $1,000 product for $666 (<-- hmm perhaps that should be an omen) which is more than a fair deal.

More often than not though.... I'll be looking to buy a pair of Genelecs or spend some big cash on a fairly high ticket item, and they have the audacity to offer a blemished product for the remarkable price of $30 less than retail.

Like who the hell in their right mind would ever buy a potentially damaged or blemished product (and it can be a serious blemish for all you know... because they dont want to tell you what the blemish is), and the only deal your getting is $30 off a $2,000 products. A little over 1 percent. Better to just pay the extra $30 and have the assurance that your not going to open the box and be in for a hell of a surprise when you find that the blem is begger than you thought and it wasnt worth the $30 you saved.

So that makes no economic sense take that kind of risk for a questionable product when your only getting a 1.5 percent savings.

I actually wrote a facetious civilized-irate letter back to the Sweetwater sales rep a while back regarding just such a matter. 1 percent savings is a frigging joke. They've got a hell of a lot of nerve selling damaged crap for only 1 percent savings.... which of course, is why I didnt buy it.... because consumers need to watch out for themselves because the company isnt going to do it for you. Theres a sucker born every minute, and they know it, and their looking to take advntage of suckers.

About the only way you can obtain good deals from retailers, is from actually cruising through the store. When you see a piece you are interested in, regardless of the price indicated, you have a tongue in your head and you should use it by making them an offer! They might go for it?

On the other hand, the other day, I'm walking through a Circuit City, where you usually find some kind of table of customer returned and/or display items that may or may not include all their included accoutrements. I saw this Panasonic combination VHS/DVD/hard disk recorder which was normally about $540. It was on the table with all of these other pieces of crap equipment and VHS decks, there were not the same type of high ticket item this was. It had no box, no manual, no remote-control. It did however have a price tag of $118! Now I know this was wrong. There's no way, in comparison to the other devices, that were also on display, open box and returned items, that this should have been marked $118! To make this even funnier, I grabbed the closest flunky sales kid and said to him, "look, all of these other items include the remote-control. The remote-control is included with this item, right? To which he confirmed, affirmative. So, he goes away for about 10 minutes and then, brings out a Panasonic remote-control. I looked at this remote-control and knew, this wasn't the right one. I told him this but he assured me it was. It certainly looked similar to the right one (not exactly). But I purchased the machine anyhow. I looked up the manual on the Panasonic web site and got a PDF file. Of course this was not the right remote-control. So, I go back the next day and purchase the identical new unit for $540. I take it home, swap the remotes and returned the new one. Not exactly a nice or legal thing to do but I've lost so much other money from buying other crappy equipment there, like the 3 new Cyber Home DVD recorders, 1 1/2 years ago, that have now all crapped OUT with less than seven hours of DVD recording on them and the company has gone out of business. I have no remorse when it comes to this kind of crap.

Not exactly legal
Ms. Julie Wright Wrong

RemyRAD wrote: About the only way you can obtain good deals from retailers, is from actually cruising through the store. When you see a piece you are interested in, regardless of the price indicated, you have a tongue in your head and you should use it by making them an offer! They might go for it?

On the other hand, the other day, I'm walking through a Circuit City, where you usually find some kind of table of customer returned and/or display items that may or may not include all their included accoutrements. I saw this Panasonic combination VHS/DVD/hard disk recorder which was normally about $540. It was on the table with all of these other pieces of crap equipment and VHS decks, there were not the same type of high ticket item this was. It had no box, no manual, no remote-control. It did however have a price tag of $118! Now I know this was wrong. There's no way, in comparison to the other devices, that were also on display, open box and returned items, that this should have been marked $118! To make this even funnier, I grabbed the closest flunky sales kid and said to him, "look, all of these other items include the remote-control. The remote-control is included with this item, right? To which he confirmed, affirmative. So, he goes away for about 10 minutes and then, brings out a Panasonic remote-control. I looked at this remote-control and knew, this wasn't the right one. I told him this but he assured me it was. It certainly looked similar to the right one (not exactly). But I purchased the machine anyhow. I looked up the manual on the Panasonic web site and got a PDF file. Of course this was not the right remote-control. So, I go back the next day and purchase the identical new unit for $540. I take it home, swap the remotes and returned the new one. Not exactly a nice or legal thing to do but I've lost so much other money from buying other crappy equipment there, like the 3 new Cyber Home DVD recorders, 1 1/2 years ago, that have now all crapped OUT with less than seven hours of DVD recording on them and the company has gone out of business. I have no remorse when it comes to this kind of crap.

Not exactly legal
Ms. Julie Wright Wrong

nice find! i don't blame you. if a company is going to carry crappy items, you should be able to make it up in some way, regardless of legality.

i've done similar things: item craps out before it should; i buy a new one; return the old one with the new receipt. problem solved...for a while.

thanks everyone for the replies. i ended up buying a new one of the particular item i was looking at. found a good deal on a new one with a free set of AKG head phones. now i don't have to wonder if the item is actually in perfect condition.