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Got screwed by dealing with Craigslist, but it was my own damn
fault. The details are now too tired for
me to reiterate another time, but suffice to say that although I knew it was
indeed my own (un-) doing for dealing with inscrutable miscreant/angling con-job
types who populate that venerable soup-line of internet trading posts, still
you gotta recognize that dishonesty in the face of good faith (mine) sucks
worse than a three-hour bus ride with your best friend's mother-in-law.
Anyway I now have a noisy bass preamp to replace the beautiful, albeit
too-hi-fi Eden WT-405 amplifier I used to own.
Didn't love the Eden at all really, but it was better than the odd, and
loud, hum and hiss in this poorly laid-out Ampeg SVP-Pro I do now own. The newer edition of the SVP-Pro, that I
don't have, is great- and really this one actually DOES SOUND really good,
aside from the noise... I will bring it
to B-Sharp Music in Providence to see if Dave can do anything for it, but we've
spoken and he's doubtful... I have to try everything though, since the stupid
thing's here. No, wait- it's just a box
with a bunch of circuits in it. I'm the
one who went through with a bad deal to get it...
Craigslist can be a great thing.
If you find what you need for the right price, sell something because
you need the cash, or run into a great deal or opportunity then it's a good
resource. In fact I recently got a nice
little gig off Craigslist, building a set of 'end-caps' for a retail
display. Might generate some more work,
which'd be fine. I also found a
Portuguese festival band to audition for, which I've been with now for about 3
years. Okay, winners. But this was a profoundly gone-south, bad
episode. It's left me sour and
morose. Because it was, again, my own
fault. God I hate that.
Okay so briefly, here's what went down. I posted an ad to sell the Eden. Got an answer, a proposal to trade it for my
recent desire, an Ampeg SVP-Pro that the guy had laying around. I have wanted an SVT all-tube bass amp for
years to replace the one I traded off to Ric's Music in Seekonk back in '95, so
it sounded like a way to get there without the needed $1,000 or so, which I
ain't presently having. So having read
all about this special-est of all bass preamps here and there, I decided I'd do
it. The guy ended up implying to me that
if he were coming to my place he was going to want to know it would be a
deal. He had sort of a hard-luck story,
so I went with it, figuring I had worn such shoes before... I plugged it in when he got here, and it
seemed ok. I held to my word and we did
the deal. The Eden he went away with, I
knew, was flawless... he left, "happy" in his more or less
downtrodden state. So...
Over the next month or so I found it very noisy after all. Life is full of non-music things with school
issues, family-man duties, work, kids, cats, house, etc... and now a couple months
later I find time and the confidence to write the guy an email and voice my
complaint. I was met with "It's
been too long, and can't do anything about it now". But here's the thing: The preamp has a noise issue, and he knew it
did when he offered it, and when he gave me his hard-luck story to get my
sympathy (brings a song to mind). Well I
can't make him deal with me without going postal... and getting wrathful and vengeful
about it is not only distateful and unseemly, he also knows where I
live. I'm not living the "carefree" life of a bachelor... so it's either be amicable about making it right, or it's a closed
issue. It isn't going to be amicably
resolved. So I lose, and have to cut it
free and let it go. God I hate
that. But ok, I'm letting it go.
Sometimes I think that in 51 years I've learned damn little. Maybe I've learned a little more today,
because I hate it when I do this kind of thing.
At least I have my vintage, way-pre-Fender and good-sounding SWR heads,
an SM-400 and an SM-400s, the latter of which is now having a loud, annoying
'Pop'. Some of us had a loud annoying
pop when we were kids, but this one's at the amplifier's input. So when I go get the SM-400 out of the shop
tomorrow I can drop off the SM-400s, along with the Ampeg preamp. Maybe we can get a noise-ectomy for it.
Yay, gear.
