german music equipment shop (and website)

About two years ago someone told me about a German retailer of all things music technology related, apparently they sell things way cheaper than other shops/sites. Trouble is I've totally forgotten the name. Wanna buy a nice field recorder and I thought I might check the site before looking elsewhere.

Anybody happen to know the place I'm talking about?

Never mind, I found it. It's http://www.thomann.de if you're interested.

Musikhaus Thomann are superb. I get all my new stuff from there - excellent service and great prices.

They're good, I've never had any problems with them, but prices aren't as good as they were pre 2008 due to the weakening of the pound. Some UK shops (DV I think) will also price match them.

do they fuck - digital village are a bunch of rip off artitsts. wanted to get a dark energy - not only was it £30 odd quid more from Digital Village, they also wanted to charge me about £17 for the privilege of paying with paypal funds (had some in my account I needed to use), making the whole price nearly £50 more than the same product from thomann. thomann were more than happy to accept paypal at no extra cost, plus shipped it from germany free, plus give you a 3 year warranty. fuck digital village. fuck them up the ass.

  On 1/7/2011 at 1:39 PM, BCM said:

do they fuck - digital village are a bunch of rip off artitsts.

Some things are cheaper from Digital Village, some things are cheaper from Thomann. The Dark Energy is a specialist product made in Germany, so I can see why that'd be a bit cheaper in Germany.

But taking another example, the AKG 702 headphones are almost 50 pounds cheaper on Digital Village:

http://www.thomann.de/gb/akg_k702.htm

http://www.dv247.com/headphones/akg-k-702-reference-class-premium-headphones--60698

The Akai MPC 1000 is 145 pounds cheaper on Digital Village:

http://www.dv247.com/keyboards-and-midi/akai-mpc1000-bk-music-production-center--31962

http://www.thomann.de/gb/akai_mpc1000_black.htm

It's always worth checking both sites.

honestly, the paypal thing has put me off DV for life - just the kind of snide, rip off trick typical in this country. oh you want to pay with paypal? that'll be extra. absolutely no reason for it at all, just a cheeky way to extract more cash from their customers. plus whenever i have used DV in the past, I have found their staff to be rude and off hand and generally not a pleasant experience to deal with. thomann gets my money every time.

i suspect there are DV employees in this thread

Digital vilage prices are pretty good but the service sucks.

  On 1/7/2011 at 2:28 PM, BCM said:

honestly, the paypal thing has put me off DV for life - just the kind of snide, rip off trick typical in this country. oh you want to pay with paypal? that'll be extra. absolutely no reason for it at all, just a cheeky way to extract more cash from their customers. plus whenever i have used DV in the past, I have found their staff to be rude and off hand and generally not a pleasant experience to deal with. thomann gets my money every time.

 

i suspect there are DV employees in this thread

paypal takes a percentage of payment for a product . . international (non-US) purchase payments are 3.9% + a fixed fee. sounds like thomann was very kind to you.

i´ve used both, better experiences with dv. i paid with bank transfer, cheaper than paypal fees. a couple of days wait though for the payment to go through.

edit. bank

oh well, looks like i'm alone in my irrational digital village hate.

*orders 25 pizzas to be sent to digital village, clapham*

What about for the US? Are these sites still beneficial for shopping if you're shipping to the states?

yeah thomann ships to the US no problem - €30 EUR flat fee, 6 - 9 days delivery time.

i ordered something from thomann like 3 years ago and they still send me crap about sales or whatever in the mail every other week (snailmail, not email). and i don't even live in germany.