What happened to the Mammoth thread???

[kodiakklub]

I am fairly new to Mammoth (first ordered a few weeks ago, 3 in all) and all 3 were perfect. I have otherwise been buying exclusively from Steve at Smallbear and Mouser before that. So now that Ive tried all 3 of the "biggies" (yes there are a couple others), i have some pros/cons/issues:

-the exact same 3PDT "true bypass china blue" footswitch is 8.50 at smallbear and 3.50 at mammoth. $5 difference!!! thats an insane markup. smallbear is very expensive comparatively  overall.
-mammoth site is a dream compared to smallbear. I HATE the chore of ordering from smallbear. sooooo time consuming.
-i hope to never have to deal with mammoth CS, sounds like they are hard to get a hold of
-mammoth labels all of the small parts bags. with smallbear i have to meter almost all passives to figure out what the value is. more time being wasted.
-smallbear cant be beat on the knob front. hes got the best selection. i will most always buy my knobs from him
-now that i have figured out my own personal stocklist in excel, i will never buy passives from anywhere but mouser. mammoths prices are nearly double on most resistors and caps than mouser.
-mouser CS is bulletproof. they refunded me 12bux in filter caps and still got to keep the caps once when they misspoke in a couple emails.
-steve is a super nice guy and i live around the corner from his shipping store so i frequently pickup my order. hes helped me with my first etching process via email.

its a shame the smallbear site is so outdated and mammoth has him beat on price and modernized packaging techniques (labeling parts bags) because i would love to deal only with him, but when your saving 5-10 dollars per effect, its a no brainer.

my 2 cents.....

[Strange]

You can source your hardware from many places - Tayda is just as fast and has similar prices yet far better than Mammoth for customer service.

[chromesphere]

-mammoth labels all of the small parts bags. with smallbear i have to meter almost all passives to figure out what the value is. more time being wasted.

I check values with the meter regardless of if they are labeled or not.  I've had stuff from futurlec "10nf" and it was "1nf" for example.  Same with resistors. That doesnt anger me.  I feel sorry for the guy packing my order.

I find product reviews are more helpful then customer service reviews.  No matter how tight a ship you run you will always have some unhappy customers.  I could start a thread about every shop complaining about what i dislike about their service.  They all have strenghts and weaknesses. Unless they are inherantly flawed or dodgy then by all means, post away!!  But when someone says "<this shops> knobs have really bad grub screws!" I find that more useful cause i can compare that to my own experience and get the knobs somewhere else.

All that said let me just say my worst customer service experience award goes to...... (drum roll).....FUTURLEC!!!  COME GET YOUR TROPHY!!  back ordering an order of 80 bucks worth of electronics, because 1 transistor isnt in stock (and probably never will be) is ridiculous CS.  No email.  No nothing.  On the flipside, I did have another order that took 3 weeks to show up, and they sent me the order again.  They both showed up at the same time.  So theres a 'good' experience with them.

Anyway, thats just my 2 Ohms.

EDIT:

You can source your hardware from many places - Tayda is just as fast and has similar prices yet far better than Mammoth for customer service.

I placed an order with tayda on sunday, for another 80 bucks worth of stuff.  Paid extra for express shipping.  Recieved it this morning.  2-3 days from thailand.  That is the fastest order i have recieved so far and that includes local orders.  They sent the order within 24 hours of submitting.  well done!
Paul

EDIT AGAIN:
Just went through the order, a HEAP of stuff on the order, not one mistake!!  Ok.  Im done now

[J0K3RX]

-mammoth labels all of the small parts bags. with smallbear i have to meter almost all passives to figure out what the value is. more time being wasted.

I check values with the meter regardless of if they are labeled or not.  I've had stuff from futurlec "10nf" and it was "1nf" for example.  Same with resistors. That doesnt anger me.  I feel sorry for the guy packing my order.

I find product reviews are more helpful then customer service reviews.  No matter how tight a ship you run you will always have some unhappy customers.  I could start a thread about every shop complaining about what i dislike about their service.  They all have strenghts and weaknesses. Unless they are inherantly flawed or dodgy then by all means, post away!!  But when someone says "<this shops> knobs have really bad grub screws!" I find that more useful cause i can compare that to my own experience and get the knobs somewhere else.

All that said let me just say my worst customer service experience award goes to...... (drum roll).....FUTURLEC!!!  COME GET YOUR TROPHY!!  back ordering an order of 80 bucks worth of electronics, because 1 transistor isnt in stock (and probably never will be) is ridiculous CS.  No email.  No nothing.  On the flipside, I did have another order that took 3 weeks to show up, and they sent me the order again.  They both showed up at the same time.  So theres a 'good' experience with them.

Anyway, thats just my 2 Ohms.

EDIT:

You can source your hardware from many places - Tayda is just as fast and has similar prices yet far better than Mammoth for customer service.

I placed an order with tayda on sunday, for another 80 bucks worth of stuff.  Paid extra for express shipping.  Recieved it this morning.  2-3 days from thailand.  That is the fastest order i have recieved so far and that includes local orders.  They sent the order within 24 hours of submitting.  well done!
Paul

EDIT AGAIN:
Just went through the order, a HEAP of stuff on the order, not one mistake!!  Ok.  Im done now

I had the same thing happen with Futurlec... Only difference was that they were holding my $100+ order for one resistor! 2 weeks went by and nothing, no parts, no emails just nothing..? So, I emailed them and a day later they responded and told me that the order was on hold for the back ordered resistor...! I emailed them back and told them to forget the resistor and just send the other stuff. I waited for about a week and nothing came so I re-ordered from Digikey and ThaiShine which came in about 3 days.. The next day the parts from Futurlec came lol. The parts form futurlec were real good quality but that was painfully ridiculous!!! Too bad because they have a lot of great odd ball stuff that is hard to find... Would be a great idea if the marked items as "out of stock" or "in stock" on their website! I really like ThaiShine! I think they are the USA based version of Tayda. I order from them and it says "in stock" and "out of stock" right below the part and they usually get the part if it's out of stock within a couple days. Another thing is that the shipping is always FREE and they send you an email as soon as they ship. I always get my orders from them in 4 days or less, I even got an order in 2 days one time! That really blew my mind! They don't carry some stuff but for the most part they have the larger part of what I need!   http://www.thaishine.com/servlet/StoreFront

Edit: I have had pretty good luck with Mammoth and they have some good quality parts and everything is marked really well.. They did short me on some stuff one time but sent me the parts in about 3 or 4 days, no biggie! He did keep asking me for the number in red ink from the top right corner of the packing slip included in my shipment and I told him 2 or 3 times that there was "no number in red ink"... I think the number he was wanting was the employee ID of who ever filled the order and he wanted to go rip somebody a new ass

Edit Again: I have never purchased anything from smallbear mainly because the website and the ordering process is horrible! I started to one time and I just said forget it! I just want to find the stuff, add it to my cart and be done with it, not make a career out of it! 

[Colonel Angus]

Nice reco's guys !!! Tadya and Thaishine look awesome, I want to order something pronto. $2.99 3PDT...NICE

[kodiakklub]

yeah ill def give the thai shops a try. thanks for those links. its so sad, yet hilarious, that stuff coming from the other side of the globe is more accurately pulled/packed and shipped faster than anything from within the US. we're (americans) doomed

[StereoKills]

its so sad, yet hilarious, that stuff coming from the other side of the globe is more accurately pulled/packed and shipped faster than anything from within the US. we're (americans) doomed

I don't know about that. Small Bear orders sometimes get to me in 2 days.

[kodiakklub]

I placed an order with tayda on sunday, for another 80 bucks worth of stuff.  Paid extra for express shipping.  Recieved it this morning.  2-3 days from thailand.  That is the fastest order i have recieved so far and that includes local orders.  They sent the order within 24 hours of submitting.  well done!
Paul

apparently so!

and I live in the zipcode next to smallbear. usually takes 3 days with them.

[Strange]

Tayda's express shipping is great but beware - you may be dinged hefty with brokerage fees.

[J0K3RX]

its so sad, yet hilarious, that stuff coming from the other side of the globe is more accurately pulled/packed and shipped faster than anything from within the US. we're (americans) doomed

I don't know about that. Small Bear orders sometimes get to me in 2 days.

I have heard nothing but good things about smallbear where quality, accuracy and speed of delivery are concerned!  Their website and ordering system however, is in serious need of update! Not customer friendly at all  and generally a huge pain from my experience... I could be wrong?

[StereoKills]

Well, I don't find their ordering system very intuitive, but as I scour parts websites (digikey, mouser, newark, etc) a ton at work, I can find my way around it just fine. Love Steve's customer service though. Top notch.

[robmdall]

As much as Steve and Aron have supported this hobby over the years it just makes good sense to support them when you can. I agree with the Smallbear web site requiring a facelift. However the site is very usable.

As for the shipping times, I always figure if I don't receive my order in time, I didn't place in time 

Some of us can think back to the 70's and 80's when any mail-order took WEEKS to deliver.

[CodeMonk]

I've always gotten my Mammoth orders quickly. Usually in a few days.
Futurelec is another story as far as speed goes.

[kodiakklub]

Someone needs to start a kickstarter for a new smallbear site. Pronto.

And i would like to clarify an earlier statement: Smallbear is not INaccurate when it comes to filling orders, nor has anyone else shipped me the wrong thing. What i meant was that its a pain in the A when ordering from smallbear a ton of passives and nothing is labeled. But now I only buy passives from mouser, so that solves that.

I am all for supporting smallbear and ALL american based shops, however, I will not spend 5 dollars extra on a single part (3PDT FSW) just to support someone over anybody else.

But seriously steve, if youre out there, get a new website. it's literally costing you money NOT updating it.

[Govmnt_Lacky]

But seriously steve, if youre out there, get a new website. it's literally costing you money NOT updating it.

Didn't Steve just update his website? Or was it just a move to a different server? 

[Strange]

Small Bear's site is certainly not the best of the lot but I have difficulty understanding why people have such a hard time using it.

[robmdall]

I dint mean to imply that Steve's site is hard to navigate. I just feel it could be a heck of a lot easer and faster. Maybe start excepting major credit cards too?? Yeah, PayPal is almost as easy.

[lonewolf]

mammoth beats small bear on most prices...ships same day...usps ...tried to order some caps from small bear..out of stock on every one....placed order on a wednesday
recieved it following saturday...thats fast..always prefer mammoth over anyone else

[smallbearelec]

I wanted to thank all of those who offered feedback on the site and service--it does matter to us.

It is true that I have not updated the look-and-feel of the site in some years, and I'm aware that it could use a face-lift. While I would like to do this, the site has grown to the point where I would need major professional help. Even then, I would have to give a lot of my personal time to working with a designer to figure out what I want. For now, my priorities are in other areas, like designing pedals and kits. More of that will be happening this year. Similarly, I know that labelling of bags is something that many people want to see. Please realize that implementing this would be a fairly major investment of time and money. Right now, a fair chunk of my capital is going into another project, the result of which you'll see later this year. The labelling issue does remain on my long-term "to-do" list, and it will eventually happen.

Yours In Growly Noises
SD

[Colonel Angus]

Thanks for sounding off Steve ! I'm excited to see what you have on deck. Folks can say what they will, but I haven't found a wider selection of NOS Ge stuff anywhere else.