Musicans Friend Outlet KC

[slkeen]

This is funny, I think. I lived in the Kansas City area a couple of years ago and used to go to the Musicians Friend outlet store there. Its right next to the Huge block long building where they do all their shipping from. Anyway, the outlet store tries to sell all the stuff that gets returned by unsatisfied customers.

 

Sometimes you can find a real deal, but usually the stuff is messed up. Much of the stuff has been damaged in shipping; things like cracked tops, cracked necks, big gouges and dings. They have it all set up like a music shop, so it looks ggod, but when you get up close, you see all the damage! I couldn't believe they would hang guitars on the wall for sale with necks totally broken off and hanging by strings! It was a hoot to look around.

[confuseitall]

maybe it's a big joke:

 

(smoke swirling thickly in storeroom)

"Hey let's hang crappy guitars on the wall man!"

 

"Woah dude! You're like one of those idea guys aren't you!"

 

 

I'm still not convinced that GC's retail stores aren't a big joke...on us.....

[riffdaddy]

Because we are the authorized service center for several brands, we see a lot of the stuff that comes out of the KC outlet. Some kid brought in an Epiphone Les Paul Black Beauty with a poorly repaired headstock crack, non-functional electronics, and massive scratching all over both sides of the body. He paid $20 less than our tag price for the same guitar (minus all the defects, of course).

[LittleBrother]

The "only" saving grace about MF is that online they have a 30 day guarantee. If they didn't have that you'd be screwed. Now GC is another story. They sell thier used guitars on Ebay under the name of "Musicians Exchange". Which looks real legit. I almost bought an excellent looking Gibson AJ special edition for 1600.00 on Ebay. After they relisted it twice and I emailed them for a two week long wait they finally responded and someone told me the guitar was in the Atlanta GC. I went down there to find it. When I looked at the so called "Near Mint" guitar I found the entire back was ruined with huge marring and scrapes. The spruce top was cracked into from the sound hole to the 14th fret. It was a piece of junk.

 

I would buy from MF online anytime even though they are slow to ship all the time. Takes them sometimes 3-4 days to ship something even though it is in stock and even if you paid overnight delivery.

 

Luckily they have pretty good customer service.

 

If I was going to buy online I would go to dealers like Riffdaddys place of work or Guitar Adoptions, Elderly, FQMS, and especially Shoreline. They EARN your business

 

If I visited that MF outlet I would leave my wallet at home.

[bullpencoach]

I bought a "scratch n' dent" mandolin from MF, and though I;m no mandolin expert, for the life of me I'm not sure what the flaw is. It's certainly not cosmetic, and it sounds fine to me as well.

 

For an acoustic guitar I'd be more hesitant to buy online from a big warehouse - for no other reason than I tend to be very picky with acoustics. For a Strat or Tele etc. - I have more faith in being able to set something up to my liking.

[takeout]

I've been to that outlet several times; yeah, a lot of their stuff is broken... but a lot of the broken stuff is still under warranty. I got a brand new (but broken) DanEcho pedal for $30, sent it to Danelectro, and they replaced it. All it cost me was shipping. I also got an Epiphone Jack Casady bass that had been returned after the guy caved the pickup in; Epiphone replaced all the electronics on their dime.

 

It's a fixer-upper's dream, if you know what to look for.