Frank Farago

Review of Sweetwater Sound

Wow, where to begin.... Sweetwater is the absolute...

Wow, where to begin.... Sweetwater is the absolute pits. I have purchased gear before from Adorama, AMC, B&H, Full Compass, Markertek, etc. So I thought, let's give Sweetwater a try.... they have a SWEET sounding name. They are in the Midwest, after all, so just ho bad can they be? Well, THAT bad. :-((

Some of their so-called "salespeople" are borderline psychotic. Maybe the call center is in an isolated, rubber walled room, who knows.... They cannot help you squat, let alone help you pick the right products. Some of their were probably selling tobacco products or used cars last week -- this week, they are audio gear sales peddlers. It shows, in spades.

Sweetwater lists anything and everything. Never mind if they have them or if the sales folks even know what the heck it is. We picked some major brand U.S. made loudspeakers -- should be pretty easy, right? Nope, not with the Sweets it wasn't. One name model speaker we had wanted -- they only had ONE SINGLE UNIT in stock and that was a DEMO with SCRATCH MARKS. They are actually SELLING something like that??? How outrageous. The other model they claimed it was "NO LONGER AVAILABLE." When contacting the Sweets, they came up with the story that it is a "DISCONTINUED" model. So, why didn't they say that on their own product listing then? And if t is discontinued -- why have it advertised for sale in the first place?

Called the manufacturer directly -- well, they never heard of it being discontinued. Stuff like that. My advice: take your hard earned dollars elsewhere. These guys are clueless. Many others here complain that even when they sell you "A-stock" gear -- you may get a "B"-stock" or open box demo. Fortunately for us, we have never gotten that far with them. If you love music and pro audio technical gear -- don't ruin the purchasing experience by trying to deal with Sweetwater.