Your "brands of trust"?

[uOpt]

Are there any brand that you particularly trust to never sell you a bad or overpriced product? Things you can just pick up new or used and be sure they'll do their job well and you don't have to read a million reviews before pouncing?

Here's my list:

• Fostex
• Tascam
• Shure
• To a lesser degree Yamaha, but they have some amount of too cheap crap and some DX-7 variants were bogus
• Lexicon as long as it doesn't connect to a computer

[Jessie's ghost]

Seemore Duckman
Estwing
Ruger
Newman's Own
Extron
Joss Whedon
Fossil

[GuitarStv]

Joss Whedon

You know that he did Alien Resurrection right? That's gotta be pretty damaging to your trust levels . . . :P



I'd buy from any of the following with reasonable confidence that I'll get something I like:

D'addario - Never had problems with their strings
Planet Waves - Great experiences with their cables and guitar accessories
Shure - Dependable, decent sounding microphones
Seymour Duncan - Been happy with all of the pickups I've purchased
Eminence - Great speakers, reasonably priced, good customer service
Padilla and Sons Kimonos - Great price, durable gis
Sprawl - Toughest lightweight grappling shorts I've ever used
Twins - Great, durable, cheap protective gear for Muay Thai

[ItsaBass]

Shure; I agree with you about that. Simple and durable products that sound good enough. And they don't monkey with a good design by changing it every year or two, like some companies do.

Godin, or any of their lines (Seagull, AMI, A&L, etc.). Problem is that they are consistently "good," but I've never played a "great" Godin. And their looks usually leave me cold (aside from the archtops and acoustics). I sold my 5th Avenue not long after getting it. It was a decently made instrument, but it just didn't cut it tonally. I still have my parlor sized AMI nylon string, though. It gets the job done when I need a nylon string.

Fender Made in Japan. Always good, and usually a good value, even if you swap out the electronics.

Fender Made in Mexico upper level models. These higher-end MIM Fenders (Baja, Classic Series) have sort of moved into MIJ territory, and they usually have better pickups than the MIJ models do. They are more expensive than regular MIMs, but they are much better....and often better than USA Fenders in terms of design (specs, features, etc.).

Ampeg for years, but no longer. The overseas move killed them. They were always well built and moderately priced amps, and I though they were among the best sounding, for bass and guitar. Now they are poorly built and overpriced, though they can still sound good. But there is the used market.

[LesStrat]

Seymour Duncan
Zhangbucker
Parker guitars
Line 6
Shure
JBL
Bayou Cables
Celtic Amplifiers

[uOpt]

I thought SD is default, sorry

[ItsaBass]

SD pickups, yes. Good production line stuff for moderate prices.

They can really improve their pedals, though. They sound cool, but the components are not the best in my experience with them. Both of mine needed new switches after just a couple of gigs and practices (though one of them I bought barely used). If I ever get another one (which I might, because the Deja Vu sounds great in the inline demos), the first thing I will do is go through and replace the switches and pots with better parts.

[uOpt]

SD pickups, yes. Good production line stuff for moderate prices.

They can really improve their pedals, though. They sound cool, but the components are not the best in my experience with them. Both of mine needed new switches after just a couple of gigs and practices (though one of them I bought barely used). If I ever get another one (which I might, because the Deja Vu sounds great in the inline demos), the first thing I will do is go through and replace the switches and pots with better parts.

Yeah. Not to turn this discussion too much but it seems that once manufacturers introduce new product lines that are manufactured under contract in a far away country and don't separate it out very, very clearly with a new brand or label the thing that this thread is about goes poof.

Same reason I don't touch any Hamers. Too much confusion with mixing the good stuff and junk and semi-junk under the same brand name. It's not that I cannot tell a US Hamer from an Asian one but as some of you know I had a pretty bad trading accident over the question of which Asian country a Hamer I had came from. And I find that buyer confidence in used Hamers is generally low, and I speculate it's for that very reason. Really bad brand management and the flipping suffers from it.

[texasguitarslinger]

Seymour Duncan
Jensen (classic amp speakers)
Shure
Taylor
Dunlop (picks)
Thermos
Igloo
Smith & Wesson
Heckler & Koch
Kabar
Gerber
Coleman
Canon
Zeiss
Nikon
Wiha (German-made tech tools)
New Balance (durable, comfortable shoes)
Apple
Western Digital
OWC
Triumph (motorcycles)
Toyota
Luminox
Michelin
Swiss Army (backpacks)
Wrangler
Carhartt (ranch coats)
Dickies (heavy cotton t shirts)
Justin (ropers)
Hanes
Pendleton (Wool Indian Blankets)
Tillamook
Vlassic
Bayer (Aspirin, the wonder drug)
Purina (Angie loves Beneful)

[stratobastard]

Only one!

RTC

[BlueSnMettle]

SD
D'addario

[distortionhead]

GHS!!!!!

[That90'sGuy]

I'm assuming this thread was intended for music brands so here I go:

PRS Guitars - most consistent product I think I've ever come across. Even the import line you can pick up almost any one randomly from any guitar store and have a guitar more playable than most. They're probably the only brand I can think of that can edge out Hamer from that status.

Pete Cornish effects - simply the best. They speak for themselves. These things are tanks and the shielding and buffering are as good as it gets. I could buy anything from him and know it's going to be spectacular.

Lava Cable - I've ordered many cables from Mark over the years and he's even done some custom work for me and it's always been exceptional. I use (and swear by) my Sommer GCB cables that he modified with his Lava silver plugs. They're the best longer length cables I've heard yet.

Mulder Audio Cable - The speaker cables I bought are the best I've ever heard; these are the guys made me believe in the value of high end cabling. My pedalboard is outfitted with the X-patch cables and I think they're the best. One of these days when I get a little extra income, I want to place an order for a few long length guitar cables because if anything could beat the Sommer cables it's those. These cables aren't very well known, but if you've ever seen them before they're instantly identifiable.

Apogee. I love their products to no end. Great conversion, good built in preamps, amazing detail and resolution for the price. If my laptop ever goes south, I'm getting another Apple just so that I can continue to use these products. The Maestro software is really nice and I love how well my Ensemble is integrated into Logic.

Glyph. Great power supplies, strong warranty and good customer service. I experienced a failure with one of my Seagate Barracuda drives (I probably had it for about 4-5 years) and currently use Western Digital Black Caviar drives in it. Had to modify my enclosure/the electronics slightly, but the power supply is still great as is the monitoring RAID software. Customer service gave me the info I needed to make sure I wasn't going to experience any problems with replacing the drives and sure enough it was a pretty smooth process.

API. I love my 3124+ and I've always loved the API sound. It's consistent and sounds really natural. The character of the equipment I'm micing seems to come through well with it. My favorite preamps are truthfully D.W. Fern, but I can't afford those unfortunately. I've heard the API compressors and dig those a lot too though, so I've got a funny feeling I'd like most of the stuff they put out.

SKB cases. I have quite a few SKB cases and they're one of the few manufacturers out there that really stand behind their products. The stuff is always built well and I've found them to offer good protection.

Pedaltrain. My favorite pedalboards. I've had other stuff and the design is just superior IMHO. You can't break these things and they're lightweight (heck, even my Pro is pretty effortless to lug around).

ATS Acoustic. J Moose recommended these acoustic treatment products to me years ago and they made my basement useful. They're the best priced, most equipped acoustic panels I've seen and the options are impressive (as an understatement).

Dean Markley strings. Once I heard the signature series I was sold. I forgot about Ernie Ball, D'Addario, GHS and even the boutique stuff like Snake Oil Strings. These things are what I look for in strings and they last a long, long time.

Apple. Yep, my MacBook gets too much use and love from me to ever sell me on anything else. It's lasted so long; I've even spilled an entire cup of coffee in it and still runs well. No crashing, no headaches, just smooth operation. Considering my love for iPods and I like my wife's iPad and iPhone I don't think there's another brand I could have better loyalty to.

ATC Speakers. A staple in the audio speaker community. I love the natural, non hyped sound and they're British, so you know it's good stuff. A good friend of mine is a US Dealer and that's how I ended up with a set of SCM 16As that I use every single day.

[Andrew Lamprecht]

Fender - They have great CS
Planet Waves/Daddario are good guys (I don't use Daddarios though)
Seymour Duncan....

[aleclee]

Without getting into really booteeky stuff:

• PRS (at least the US stuff, the import stuff varies a bit)
• EBMM (again, the US stuff. OLP was junk, SBMM seems pretty good so far)
• Rivera
• Mesa-Boogie. They have an amp for almost everybody. It's not cheap but it's built to last.
• Barber. Well-built, sound great, and don't break the bank
• Fulltone (I think Mike is a jerk but his company makes some nice stuff)

[LesStrat]

DR Strings

[Binnerscot]

Seymour Duncan
Mesa Boogie
Jackson USA
Parker Guitars
Glock
LWRC
DeWalt
Milwaukee
Weaver
Nikon

[verbotenco]

Many, but I can only remember one brand that cannot be trusted: BEHRINGER, a total disgrace to Deutschland.

[Funkfingers]

Erm, read the product cases, bro. "Behringer - Designed in Germany, Manufactured In China."

MY OWN LIST
Seymour Duncan
Roland
Mackie
Mark Of The Unicorn

[verbotenco]

Erm, read the product cases, bro. "Behringer - Designed in Germany, Manufactured In China."

MY OWN LIST
Seymour Duncan
Roland
Mackie
Mark Of The Unicorn

Isn't everything made in the Far East these days? Even Boss, iPod, iMac, Nike, Nikon, Canon, etc., etc. are made in China, Vietnam, Taiwan, etc. but they retain the original quality. Behringer is a basket case. I once bought a Behringer preamp and had to exchange it a month later cause the db indicator went erratic.