Count To Five

[$harkToootth]

I have one so what are we at now? 4 have been sold?

[multi_s]

It's all good, i don;t mind hearing what people have to say but what would you suggest as solution? it seems raising the price is business 101 here supply/demand but then it seems like you don;t enjoy that either based on the spaceman comment . Originally this is part of why they went form iirc 225 to 250 a ways back but in the end it did not slow sales at all so maybe we should have moved it higher ....

You could take to conducting telephone interviews (à la Klon) to determine if applicants are "well qualified" (or perhaps in this case "well quantized") to own this pedal.

ya, no we just put what we have in the store, the end.

we appreciate everyones support over the last 3 years on this device.

s

[mathias]

we appreciate YOU for everything

[Chankgeez]

ya, no we just put what we have in the store, the end.


s

I respect your decision, but I think we're all missing out on comedy gold here.

[$harkToootth]

I liken multi_s to Luke Wilson in IDIOCRACY (of which I count myself in the main population).

[multi_s]

I respect your decision, but I think we're all missing out on comedy gold here.

(:

[DRodriguez]

Make it a twitch game show and get that sweet streamer ad revenue.

[JonnyAngle]

I'm funding my retirement account with ct5s

Are they still like $500 on reverb?

Edit: $275-$375 is the sold prices

[multi_s]

iirc the highest selling one was actually i think a certain ilfer on an old rev h/i, maybe even the black text bare one, but quite a ways back. it's too bad they cut the graph in the price guide on about a year of data bc you could actually see it bend the data point from one sale. (~500?). You can see distinctly on the graph the last 2 times we had them for sale though (dips to ~ retail) . and the more recent hike is likely due to reverb themselves mentioning the ct5 in a few articles, the most recent of which was the 19th place delay, there was another one a bit ago about "weird" pedlols" it has certainly increased the number of inquiries i get, so hey free publicity/can't complain.

s

[jrfox92]

it's too bad they cut the graph in the price guide on about a year of data bc you could actually see it bend the data point from one sale.

This is one of the reasons I really dislike Reverb nowadays.
It definitely looks like they did it for the sole purpose of being able to sell pedals for even more than they're worth (as I noted when they claimed the CT5 retailed for $300).

[multi_s]

in reverbs defense on that one i think the reason they have that number is because some people sell them as "new" on reverb, so that is the retail price to them in that article. however you could also look at it and say hey if they put the retail price as 250 and used on their site is 350 how does that look lol. I dont think it was intentional though, given that reverb categorizes all items as used or new. its just a another piece of data they ahve on record etc.

and also teh retail price will soon be 500 on our own website as discussed above so... ymmv.

personally i am pretty neutral on reverb. i mean its not much different than a guitar magazine used to be, an article about metalica mentioning ESP guitars 100 times then oh whats this an ad on teh next page for ESP guitars and then an entire directory of stores in the back few pages. the web has just made it more direct/ sort of a guitar world meets ebay. not a terrible idea really but ya, its not hard to find other threads of people describing reverb so i ill leave that topic to other places. that site seems to polarize people somewhat.

s

[$harkToootth]

I just said that to someone regarding Reverb's content "It's like I'm getting Guitar World again!".
As someone who works with a lot of data and some stats, you can pretty much make it say whatever you want it to.

[multi_s]

yes looking at it as guitar mag makes you understand why you see what you see imho. The slight difference is instead of the magazine making money of ads, which are paid for by stores/companies that make money throughsales, reverb just makes money themselves off the sales and so they make articles quickly to promote items that are actually currently on the site, such as "top 10 weirdest guitars" all 10 will be for sale at that moment, maybe one will even sell, probably no one was searching for "shark shaped electric guitar" the article takes care of that.

it's not a criticism, i think it works well, a slightly more curated amazon, just that's why the articles sometimes seem a bit absurd/fluffy/ probably not always entirely researched. its naive to think that anyone questioned "oh is this actually teh new retail price", who would care really, its actually more informative to list what they can be had for on reverbs direct market place.

anyway im not here to critique reverb.com but that is my 2 cents on the info given in the article.

[thesneakup]

It's all good, i don;t mind hearing what people have to say but what would you suggest as solution? it seems raising the price is business 101 here supply/demand but then it seems like you don;t enjoy that either based on the spaceman comment . Originally this is part of why they went form iirc 225 to 250 a ways back but in the end it did not slow sales at all so maybe we should have moved it higher ....

I think I took the conversation a bit off-track, which wasn't my intention. If there is a problem in the gear world that needs a solution, it's not with you/Montreal Assembly in general or your pricing in particular. Likewise, I have no qualm with mtl asm or the way you do business – some small part of me might have wanted you to be more accurate with projected availability dates in the past, but that's water under the bridge – and I hope that nothing I wrote implied that. I don't think it did. As has been said, you and your work are appreciated.

On the whole, the independent pedal builder-pedal buyer relationship is something I can neither fault nor thoroughly comment on because I don't know the perspective of a builder or what is involved in the maintenance of such a business. Proof: If every one of your devices sells like hotcakes with no "advertising" besides gear forum participation and second/third-party demo videos, I don't know why you would want to slow your sales. Every business should wish for such popularity! I might say to myself "don't mess with success" and keep on truckin', all the while striving to strike an optimal supply/demand balance. A builder builds an original thing and sets its price, and if buyers want it after running a personal cost/benefit analysis, transactions occur – that's legitimate (if too-simply-described) business, an exchange made on a relatively level playing field... but fair dealing wasn't my original topic...

If I myself have a problem with anything/anyone, it's with unscrupulous people – in this case, individual operators flipping recently-released, builder-direct pedals for ridiculous prices, taking advantage of artificial conditions and trading on someone else's work/ingenuity. These guys make exchanges on a field tilted in their favor; they have what desperate people want, and their game is to wring the maximum amount out of anyone who can be swayed by terms such as "rare," "sold out," "limited edition," "only X in existence," etc. Unfortunately, I don't think there is a solution when it comes to them – whatever a builder charges for a popular pedal, especially something considered "boutique," for better or worse, they'll try to get double that amount, all the while giving every excuse possible for the price hike except their own avarice.

I have a low tolerance for people and actions that a reasonable community would call shitty, especially if they tilt a field I want to play on fairly, but other people may deal with them if they ultimately get what they want. How do reasonable communities deal with ticket scalping, for example? In the U.S., some states have made it illegal while others let it go unchecked. Some states allow it but within certain guidelines. Some pro sports teams allow the resale of season tickets if they get a cut of the profits (!) while others revoke season tickets completely if a mere attempt to sell them is discovered. Meanwhile, a kid who scraped to afford a $30 ticket to a show he really wants to see will be shut out by a guy who bought that ticket for the sole purpose of reselling it for $60. Legal? Maybe, depending on the place. Shitty? Yeah, pretty much.

So, in this case, the price a person will pay depends on their level of desire and their tolerance for bullshit. In the same way I would not pay a scalper any more than face value for a ticket, I would not pay a second party any more than the builder's price for a CT5, even if I could afford either. If that means I have to wait for the next show or the next batch of pedals, I'm fine with that. I'm not parading any high moral standard – I might've really wanted to see that show or play with that pedal but not at the cost of feeling bad about making a deal dictated by an unscrupulous person. (On another note: Whether or not a $400+ reverb pedal based on a $10 spring assembly or a $333 boost built after the previous $219 version was declared the last ever are items that I think are conscientiously conceived and reasonably priced is beyond the point I mean to make. Wealthier folks than I evidently jump at the chance to buy such things, and I don't care to participate in a market that I think is artificially inflated. People also buy shiny rocks mounted on rings for many thousands of dollars, the entire industry for which is generated by hyperbolic advertising. The parallels between jewelry and "vintage" jewel lights are pretty clear, but whatever sense it makes to decry status symbols, bullshit marketing, and price inflation based on artificial scarcity, "there's a sucker born every minute.")

TL;DR: Not only am I eminently qualified to own and operate a CT5, but I pledge not to flip it if offered any less than five figures. That's for the diamond-studded edition, mind you.

Personal disclosure: I own a Saturn V. $170 before the boom – the guy couldn't get rid of it. To my ear, a tc Spark can get 92% close to it, but I'm a snob who likes being 8% better than the plebeians. Trades: a roomy garden shed in suburban Los Angeles, a burial plot next to Jim Morrison, an actual rocket ship

[D.o.S.]

Solid 11th post.