Don’t sleep on zZounds

Scribbled by Lethal Illness @ 7:51 PM on May 5th, 2011.

zZound's Logo

zZounds (pronounced zaʊndz) is one of the leading professional audio dealers on the web. They have a reputation that precedes them, according to both BizRate and Amazon. One of the things they take pride in is that all of their customer service representatives are real musicians. In fact, these musicians don’t get paid commission from what they sell you – because they aren’t salesmen. This is an extremely positive aspect to the way their customer service is structured, that means the customer will never be pressured into buying something that they don’t need or be swayed into something when there are cheaper alternatives. To top it all off, since they are musicians they will [mostly] know what they are talking about (they have every time in my experience), unlike some other “centers” – if you catch my drift. Why all this talk about an online professional audio retailer? Because I had a real positive experience with them in which I received great customer service and satisfaction. In order to show my appreciation I thought I would spread the word.

It all started two weeks ago, when I was pricing out some mixers for Desoulbel. I was almost positive on a Presonus StudioLive 16.4.2. Knowing about zZound’s “Play as you Pay” program I figured that would be the first place that I’d look, especially since I could split the cost up in four monthly payments and better budget other life expenses that are boring. Being lazy, I just typed StudioLive into the search box at zZounds. There were multiple results for accessories and such, but oddly, there were two results for a Presonus StudioLive 16.4.2. The difference in the two were price as the descriptions and pictures were all the same. So I emailed zZounds about the error as I was confused. They emailed me back within a few hours, which is almost impossible for online retailers. They started to tell me that these are in fact two different mixers. Being the bright person I am I figured out that the urls are different and indeed this was for Presonus’ new upcoming StudioLive 16.0.2 and they probably just duplicated the 16.4.2 page to save some time, though someone must of accidentally hit the publish button. I thought they should know about this error before other people confuse them and demand the price which is significantly much lower. They recognized the error and not only corrected it but offered me a much nicer break on a Presonus StudioLive 16.4.2 after explaining the benefits and disadvantages to both of the StudioLives. So I proceeded my order with zZounds. There was free UPS ground shipping since my order was obviously over $49, which is pretty standard for big orders at most places. Admittedly, other retailers that do the free shipping have a cap of $99 rather then $49 and also ship it via SmartPost, which sucks. Being they are like the only professional audio online retailer on the east coast (New Jersey) I received my order overnight. In addition to that great service, I’ve seen something on their site about a free Presonus Faderport if I bought a StudioLive within the month of April. So I called up zZounds and got a real person instantly, something else that is impossible with other retailers. I asked the guy about the details and he sent me everything I needed and even told me how I should fill it out. I mailed that form to Presonus and should be getting my Faderport in 6-8 weeks provided everything checks out fine.

StudioLive 16.2.4

Needless to say I’ve been using the shit out of this beautiful StudioLive and indeed been having a wonderful time mixing on here, all thanks to zZounds! Lesson learned! If possible, all my professional audio needs will be ordered from zZounds! There will be a joint review of the StudioLive and Pro Tools 9 to come in the next few weeks.