"Below is a copy of my email to Sonic Sense. I think it'll get the point across. First up, is the poor support guy at sonic sense. Made to lie for some manager.

SONIC SENSE TO YOURS TRULY:

"Greetings,

I have word from our purchasing manager that we are unable to receive these in stock any time soon, i have cancelled and issued process for full refund. I apologize for the inconvenience, please allow 2-3 business days before your receive your funds.

Best regards,

J at Sonic Sense"

MY REPLY:

"So, if I was to order this same set of DT 990's today at a price of $379. According to your website they would be shipped tomorrow? That is what was claimed when I ordered them at $239! If your going to lie to me, at least make up something I cant just hop on your website and negate with a few clicks of a mouse.

From my view, it appears that Sonic Sense would rather save ~$140 on not honoring your original sale price than secure my future business. Given the price, I had fully intended to get a FiiO headphone amp from you after I had a chance to test the 990s alone. I had also wanted to use your services to restore a set of failing DT 770 Pro headphones. An intention made clear in a message I left on your voice-mail, and received no communication back from. Hell, I had to call into your support line to find out the headphones hadn't even shipped after better than a weeks wait!

Now here I am after the TWO WEEK+ wait time with 0 communication, followed up by a lie and a cancelled order... This kind of thing adds up in more ways than today's $140 and my 2 weeks of time wasted waiting while listening to failing DT 770's. I should have paid more attention to the negative reviews you had already garnered than place an order. None of them seem all that surprising to me at this point!"

Listen to the bad reviews for these people, their unreliable and dishonest."

"I ordered a $1920 schoeps cmc641 micorphone from them. After the initial response stating they received the order, I heard nothing from them. Later into the week, I emailed them twice regarding the order, still no response.

Then 9 days later I called them up ready to cancel the order. The phone is dead on the first call. I call again. I get someone who puts me on hold for 5 minutes, so I hang up again.

I call a third time and get someone. They redirect me to someone else, and then they tell me the item is being "drop shipped".

Well what does that mean? They say it means that it is being sent directly from Schoeps to me, except they don't have a tracking number and they don't know when it will be shipped out?!!

Right at this point there is a real problem here. This website said they had this exact microphone in stock, but they didn't. Now other websites like sweetwater.com at least are honest. If they don't have something in stock they openly admit it will have to be special ordered, aka delays are unavoidable.

These guys here at sonicsense seem to think its okay not to volunteer that information and send out an item whenever they can get it. Not so. If they dont have it they need to be honest about that and say its going to be a special order. Customers can't wait around for weeks going into months to get something without knowing that is whats going to happen?!!


I told them I can't wait around for all this. Either I know Im getting it this week by form of a tracking number or I have to cancel the order right now.

They said they would call up schoeps and call me right back within 20 minutes to let me know what's going on.

We'll see if they really do call me. Since they couldnt even bother to email me, Im not holding high hopes on this, but I definitely will cancel this transaction on my credit card if they don't.

Well close to an hour passed and they never contacted me so I called them and of course there was no response. So I left a message cancelling the order.

My recommendation is do not buy anything from this website! If they are out of stock on something, they'll just take your money and send the item out whenever they get it or maybe they wont even do that!

6/28/13 ADDITION

A few hours after I called them to cancel the order. The owner of the store contacted me directly by phone and profusely apologized for how my order was treated. He seemed to realize there was a serious problem with how this order was handled.

They couldn't do anything for me that day since business hours were already over on the East Coast where the US distributor for Schoeps microphones is but I did get an email the next day letting me know that my order had been shipped out directly from the distributor.

And ultimately I did actually get my Schopes mic 4 days later.

A few days after that they sent me a $100 coupon for future purchases at sonicsense.com.

So at the end I have to admit they were not guilty of fraud but were guilty of being disorganized, first on my order and second on phone and email queries thereafter. But ultimately the owner did call me up and apologize and I did ultimately get my mic.

My only reservation is that other websites like bhphoto.com and sweetwater.com will openly state whether they have a schoeps microphone in stock or not and if it is not in stock and you order it anyway, they warn you right on the front page that it will be a special order and could take 7-10 days to get it.

I still feel sonicsense.com needs to do the same on their website.

Had they stated on the order page that the mic was not in stock and would have to be special ordered directly from the schoeps US distributor and thus there would be a 7-10 day delay, then we would not have had this many problems.

Part of the reason why I ordered the $2000 Schoeps mic from them was because I am in Nevada and Colorado is close by. So I assumed they had it in stock and it would be a pretty fast delivery since these states are closeby relatively speaking, but again it had to be sent out from the distributor on the East Coast, so there was a 7-10 day delay.

The thing is had this been a small order for an item which costs $20-$50 and I chose free or extremely cheap shipping then I would expect delays and I wouldn't have sweated it.

But with a $1,920 order for an item apparently in stock that is another matter.

Again they were not guilty of fraud but guilty of being disorganized and not being completely straightforward about the immediate availability of the item in question, but again I did get my order ultimately.

It was nice of them to offer the $100 coupon but I basically bought everything I need for the time being.
"