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I think Buck's issue was clearly with Musician's Friend, not Gibson, but anyway.... At 12:56 PM -0700 10/14/98, Howard Harawitz wrote: >Someone who spoke to someone at Gibson, or even someone who works there, >can post what they like in an email message to this list, but it certainly >is not reassuring in light of the message excerpt below. I am extremely >reluctant to order an Echoplex from anyone at this point. IMHO, if they >are >really interested in selling these things, Gibson/Oberheim needs to deal >with these issues. The "Someone who spoke to someone at Gibson" was me, one of the echoplex developers, speaking to the General Manager of the division that produces the echoplex. The "someone who works there" was Dino Cattaneo, who is/was(I think he's switching) product manager for the echoplex and other Oberheim products at Gibson. I don't think you could get much more direct info than that! ....most dealers are probably not that well connected. That's the value of lists like this, manufacturers take them seriously enough to put real representatives here. (maybe more dealers should do the same....) As far as Gibson dealing with these issues with dealers, they have been very aggressive on that front and deserve credit for that. I think the reactions you are hearing from some places are due to the chaos that was Oberheim a year and a half ago. Some people haven't forgotten the problems of those days, and you can hardly blame them. However, since then Gibson has completely turned things around with the echoplex. They've been pumping them out and meeting all Oberheim dealer requests for some time now. They've also been very good with customer support, another big change. And more recently, Gibson switched the Echoplex to a different division that is better equiped to handle it than Oberheim was. They will now be selling it through all Gibson dealers, rather than just Oberheim dealers. That should considerably expand it's availability. Its night and day from the old OB dark ages! (year long waiting lists, nobody answering the phone, calls not returned, orders never filled, etc....remember that?) I think the evidence of this change is pretty apparent, as there are an awful lot of new echoplex owners appearing all of a sudden. If you encounter dealers who don't seem to be aware of these events, you might want to encourage them to check with Gibson again as some dealers might not be up to date on how much things have changed there. Or, perhaps you can take this opportunity to humiliate them with your superior knowledge of their own business. :-) Also, the fact that the Echoplex went from being a neglected and doomed product in Gibson's backwaters to to it's now increasingly significant and prominent position in their product line, with significant resources behind it, has a lot to do with the influence and pressure from this list. Y'all have the power to move mountains if you want to. I think though, it's time to exert that power on Musician's Friend and demand that they clean up their act as well! kim ______________________________________________________________________ Kim Flint | Looper's Delight kflint@annihilist.com | http://www.annihilist.com/loop/loop.html http://www.annihilist.com/ | Loopers-Delight-request@annihilist.com