pretty

[lovekraft]

undefined It always amuses me to see Ed Roman portrayed as the AntiChrist of Guitardom, especially since he continues to make a profit in spite of his professed underhanded practices and shoddy products. Now before you all start fueling up your flamethrowers, let me make clear that my only experience with Ed, other than surfing his site. was a long phone conversation over a decade ago. I called to ask about a BC Rich bass he had, and he was not only personable and helpful, but even after it became clear that he didn't have what I was looking for, he helped me out with some questions I had about Rich's Custom Shop and some other info, including a plug for Rick Turner's stuff (which I still can't afford, but wold love to own). His input led me to have a bass built in'93, a decision I've never regretted. I've also heard horror stories about his dealings, but I've never gotten any details more specific than "yeah, man, my brother's pool guy's cousin's veterinarian bought a (fill in brand name here) from Ed Roman, and, like, it sucked, and he wouldn't do nothin' about it, man, he's a ripoff!!", so if anyone here knows of actual incidents, I'd like to hear what really happened. As an Ebay junkie, I know that negative feedback is easy to get, and is just as likely to be a result of buyer remorse or a perceived slight as a real incident ( example: an associate of mine recently sold an item, was payed with Paypal, shipped the next day, but neglected to email the customer. Result: Neutral feedback "Buyer did not respond to email" even though UPS tracking and feedback date show the item arrived within 48 hrs of the auction close!). In these litigation-happy times, don't you think that if half of these rumors were true, it'd be Johnny Cochran's World Class Guitars?

Don't get the idea I'm defending anyone, that is not the case, I just don't like to see anyone innuendo'ed to death. I'd just like to find out what he's accused of, specifically, so I can make my own judgement. No disrespect to anyone here, but I'm not willing to just take anyone's word for it.

My too sent

[westhemann]

well he certainly is well known.what is it they say?"bad publicity is better than none"

[Reaper]

Interesting quote:

"My principal bitch with Ibanez of course was their pricing. The pricing on Ibanez guitars has come way down, I have not seen any loss of quality from 2000 to 2003 in fact some of the lesser priced models have improved in quality. This fact serves to prove my point, when I complained about them being so overpriced in the past few years. This trend has been almost universal, In fact, I there are very few Japanese & Korean companies who have not complied with the pricing. The biggest offenders would be ESP and Schecter who are both owned by the same Oriental conglomerate.......The Dillion Guitar and the Dean Guitars are by far the best deals I have seen on any imported guitar. The Japanese Fender Guitars are actually far better than their USA counterparts. I think they sound better, play better and even look better. Fender discontinued making Japanese guitars available in the USA because most people were figuring out that the Japanese ones were such high quality. In my opinion Fender had to stop bringing in the Japanese models or start losing sales on their overpriced USA models (that is their main source of revenue) "

-Ed Roman

He does speak the truth, you just have to get deeper into the website.

An he may sound cocky when he says "they complied with his complaints about pricing" or whatever, but he has about 400 Ibanez in stock and is overall one of the biggest guitar dealers in the world, so he has some say in issues like that.

And Wes... I see your point about the Korean-made Ibanez, actually Ed Roman says that if your going to buy an Ibanez, get a lower to mid priced one, because its 90% the quality of a more expensive one, but $500-$1000 less. And you yourself love your lower cost one. He is most upset about the price and value of them compaired to just the quality.

Anyway, I've added my .02 on the Ed Roman issue. I don't mean for this to get out of hand or anything.

Yes he speaks the truth... and JS's are really made of bondo. Bullshit. I would attribute the price drop more to the supply/demand curve Ibanez is running, and to the economy. Lets face it: you can't sell the same products for the same prices during a recession. As for the 90% thing, that runs true for nearly any product you buy.

The only thing I really agree with Ed on is chain stores. All else seems to be the ranting of a pissed-off bitter jackass.

[krazyderek]

i duno, i mean yes, he has opinions, some people may agree others may not, but it terms of guitars, alot of what i read seems to make sense, that said, there is also alot of BS on his site, but that also said, he can gives really good prices on alot of quality parts.... so i'd say the seesaw is balanced right in the middle...