BIG TIME YMMV
Apparently the increasingly "Ill Fated" Musical Instrument expansion has been a major loss leader and given Best Buy's general poor financial performance and outlook... Skinny is Best Buy is slowly trying to quietly exit the Musical Instrument Biz...
So far it seems that discretion is being exercised by General and Regional managers on a store by store basis... Musical Instruments is one of the 'Premier' (my term) departments like Apple Store and Mobile Phones ... Only some stores have them.
If you are in South Eastern PA or Southern NJ area check out the Langhorne, PA Best Buy. I have not seen nearly the same quality of discounts at Cherry Hill, Mr. Laurel or Marlton... can't remember, nor Princeton, NJ...
LOOK FOR OPEN BOX: this is apparently a way for individual stores to somewhat circumvent the strict pricing guidelines imposed by corporate. So when a store wants to blow something out, (at least at Langhorne) its an OPEN BOX sticker they slap on it... NOT clearance. BUT ASK specifically about it, some are missing parts, or are ancient items that have been purchased and returned a zillion times and are not even in good USED condition...
I've only seen this at the Langhorne store and this is NOT advertised AFAIK.
*** All Open Box items in Musical Instruments ONLY take an additional 25% off !!! ***
My experience lately... I know I have a problem...
1) $800 - 2007 or 2008 Fender American Stratocaster Deluxe... Marked down to $800 (did not get the 25% off despite the well signed sale... didn't protest its less than average USED)
unlike the current model, this has the gorgeous G&G tweed replica HSC and pretty abalone large dot inlays... some prefer the current Pearl Dots... Extremely nice guitar...
2) Well less than $200 - VOX Night Train 15w & Matching 1x12 cab with celestion greenback... sweet deal all for less than $300 TOTAL! Can't remember the final price. Love this little effer.
3) $11 - Vox two botton foot switch (modded for my Fender Deluxe Reverb so I can finally switch the reverb and trem in and out... yeah!)
4) DW 5002 double bass pedals. AD3... the new AD4 just came out and isn't really much different. $90 !!! crazy! even included a hard cary case from the 9000 series kick pedals... Love them! Only using it as a single pedal (I have no need for double pedals, I can't even play one let alone two
5) $75 - Boss DD-20 dual digital delay pedal with presets and bank of 10 stored custom settings... Great pedal! - This was one of the unlucky finds. This was sealed, I purchased just to flip... Buyer opened it up and said it was a DOA obviously used pedal with the factory serial number sticker clearly taken off and swapped for another... So someone (I have no choice but to accept it was NOT the buyer... no evidence... purchased a new pedal and swapped it for a dead one, and BB just resealed it and out for sale... ooops. PIA for me... I'll either RMA to BOSS or get a refund... but the buyer is not very happy.
6) $850 - GIBSON Songwriter Deluxe Studio. This is a guitar upward of close to $3,000 List. Marked down, then down again, and again and then 25% off on top. Unbelievable deal. Danger buying guitars at best buy. Obviously hit and miss with the setups. Hard to evaluate a guitar with a bad setup. This was an old version... turns out 2008 model year. Strings haven't been changed, so they were like abandoned rail road tracks... but for that price took a flyer! Drove straight from the store to my Luthier who gave it one look and asked ... I'm dead serious... "uhm you said you bought this new? Can you get your money back? he wasn't even going to try and sell me on the work it needed... twisted neck... really bad. Fretwork needed besides (pretty much expected these days, even on Gibsons) and the real bonus... the hardwood block below the string stays which is supposed to keep the string buds from pulling though the soft Spruce top... NOT PRESENT! Yikes! One seriously effed up guitar. Brought it right back... and sure enough, despite all the problems which warrant a return to Gibson... they put it RIGHT BACK ON THE WALL FOR SALE... they tried to appease me with an exchange to their other Songwriter... an even OLDER model, but in much better condition... but they couldn't match the same price, and I just couldn't go that far.
OTHER DEALS I SAW
Some great deals on a few nice "K" series Zildjan cymbals...
Several BOSS Loop Station double pedals... these are awsome pedals, I just couldn't get anything else, I was already heading for divorce!
A very nice signature model (can't remember which) American Jazzmaster ... again marked waaay down
Several other BOSS and Digitech stomp boxes
ROLAND VDrums... a whole set and RACK... this was marked down a good bit and then the 25% on top... Great deal but even still over $1,000 and I'm not that serious.
A couple decent Fender, Yamaha, and other Acoustics... check them out carefully though, these are likely very old and possibly abused...
That's about all I can remember that wasn't crap gear. But check it out...I expect they will be adding more here and there.
The guys who work in musical instruments are pretty good, much better than typically expected of the lower rungs of the management/sales ladders for BB. The REST of the store however is another story. ZOMBIE land for sure. Mostly they are nice, and helpful, which is all you can ask from a BB IMO... but not generally much more knowledgeable than an average somewhat tech oriented person. So try and stick with the Music Instrument peeps, thought they are often doing double duty in HDTVs or some such... Ask for the music instrument supervisor or manager if needed... NOT store managers in general. The Store 'upper' Management is completely clueless regarding Musical Instruments and seem ill-inclined to go out of their way...
Good luck! /end babbling.
Apparently the increasingly "Ill Fated" Musical Instrument expansion has been a major loss leader and given Best Buy's general poor financial performance and outlook... Skinny is Best Buy is slowly trying to quietly exit the Musical Instrument Biz...
So far it seems that discretion is being exercised by General and Regional managers on a store by store basis... Musical Instruments is one of the 'Premier' (my term) departments like Apple Store and Mobile Phones ... Only some stores have them.
If you are in South Eastern PA or Southern NJ area check out the Langhorne, PA Best Buy. I have not seen nearly the same quality of discounts at Cherry Hill, Mr. Laurel or Marlton... can't remember, nor Princeton, NJ...
LOOK FOR OPEN BOX: this is apparently a way for individual stores to somewhat circumvent the strict pricing guidelines imposed by corporate. So when a store wants to blow something out, (at least at Langhorne) its an OPEN BOX sticker they slap on it... NOT clearance. BUT ASK specifically about it, some are missing parts, or are ancient items that have been purchased and returned a zillion times and are not even in good USED condition...
I've only seen this at the Langhorne store and this is NOT advertised AFAIK.
*** All Open Box items in Musical Instruments ONLY take an additional 25% off !!! ***
My experience lately... I know I have a problem...
1) $800 - 2007 or 2008 Fender American Stratocaster Deluxe... Marked down to $800 (did not get the 25% off despite the well signed sale... didn't protest its less than average USED)
unlike the current model, this has the gorgeous G&G tweed replica HSC and pretty abalone large dot inlays... some prefer the current Pearl Dots... Extremely nice guitar...
2) Well less than $200 - VOX Night Train 15w & Matching 1x12 cab with celestion greenback... sweet deal all for less than $300 TOTAL! Can't remember the final price. Love this little effer.
3) $11 - Vox two botton foot switch (modded for my Fender Deluxe Reverb so I can finally switch the reverb and trem in and out... yeah!)
4) DW 5002 double bass pedals. AD3... the new AD4 just came out and isn't really much different. $90 !!! crazy! even included a hard cary case from the 9000 series kick pedals... Love them! Only using it as a single pedal (I have no need for double pedals, I can't even play one let alone two
5) $75 - Boss DD-20 dual digital delay pedal with presets and bank of 10 stored custom settings... Great pedal! - This was one of the unlucky finds. This was sealed, I purchased just to flip... Buyer opened it up and said it was a DOA obviously used pedal with the factory serial number sticker clearly taken off and swapped for another... So someone (I have no choice but to accept it was NOT the buyer... no evidence... purchased a new pedal and swapped it for a dead one, and BB just resealed it and out for sale... ooops. PIA for me... I'll either RMA to BOSS or get a refund... but the buyer is not very happy.
6) $850 - GIBSON Songwriter Deluxe Studio. This is a guitar upward of close to $3,000 List. Marked down, then down again, and again and then 25% off on top. Unbelievable deal. Danger buying guitars at best buy. Obviously hit and miss with the setups. Hard to evaluate a guitar with a bad setup. This was an old version... turns out 2008 model year. Strings haven't been changed, so they were like abandoned rail road tracks... but for that price took a flyer! Drove straight from the store to my Luthier who gave it one look and asked ... I'm dead serious... "uhm you said you bought this new? Can you get your money back? he wasn't even going to try and sell me on the work it needed... twisted neck... really bad. Fretwork needed besides (pretty much expected these days, even on Gibsons) and the real bonus... the hardwood block below the string stays which is supposed to keep the string buds from pulling though the soft Spruce top... NOT PRESENT! Yikes! One seriously effed up guitar. Brought it right back... and sure enough, despite all the problems which warrant a return to Gibson... they put it RIGHT BACK ON THE WALL FOR SALE... they tried to appease me with an exchange to their other Songwriter... an even OLDER model, but in much better condition... but they couldn't match the same price, and I just couldn't go that far.
OTHER DEALS I SAW
Some great deals on a few nice "K" series Zildjan cymbals...
Several BOSS Loop Station double pedals... these are awsome pedals, I just couldn't get anything else, I was already heading for divorce!
A very nice signature model (can't remember which) American Jazzmaster ... again marked waaay down
Several other BOSS and Digitech stomp boxes
ROLAND VDrums... a whole set and RACK... this was marked down a good bit and then the 25% on top... Great deal but even still over $1,000 and I'm not that serious.
A couple decent Fender, Yamaha, and other Acoustics... check them out carefully though, these are likely very old and possibly abused...
That's about all I can remember that wasn't crap gear. But check it out...I expect they will be adding more here and there.
The guys who work in musical instruments are pretty good, much better than typically expected of the lower rungs of the management/sales ladders for BB. The REST of the store however is another story. ZOMBIE land for sure. Mostly they are nice, and helpful, which is all you can ask from a BB IMO... but not generally much more knowledgeable than an average somewhat tech oriented person. So try and stick with the Music Instrument peeps, thought they are often doing double duty in HDTVs or some such... Ask for the music instrument supervisor or manager if needed... NOT store managers in general. The Store 'upper' Management is completely clueless regarding Musical Instruments and seem ill-inclined to go out of their way...
Good luck! /end babbling.
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