# NAD: Ormsby Goliath 6 String - Review and Stuff



## diagrammatiks (Jun 27, 2018)

I've had my Goliath in my hands for a couple of weeks now. It actually shipped to my place about a month ago but I was away for work. Now that I've spent some time with it I can do a review.

Edit: I dunno why the pictures in thread are so tiny. If you open them in a new tab you can zoom into the full size pictures if you want. 

Disclaimer - There are some issues with this guitar. None of them effect the core playability but they are kind of annoying. I'm currently talking with Ormsby about fixing them. More on that near the end of the post.

tl/dr is that this guitar is like 90 percent good and 10 percent qa team wtf are you even doing.

First the guitar

Hey there it is







It looks really good from about this far away. The finish is really nice. The sparkles aren't as shiny or as complex as my Anderson but it's pretty good. The top coat also doesn't have the wmi disease that a lot of PRS SEs and cheaper guitars out of that factory have. I don't know if they do it by choice...but some of the PRS's feel just wrapped in layers of plastic finish. The color change effect is nice. The ebony board isn't straight black but the wood variation looks good.

Here it is compared to my Strandberg






The body is actually just a little bit bigger then the Strandberg.

Playability out of the box was decent. They had it set up for 11s in Drop C. The strings were a little high when I got it. I measured the six string at 2.2mm. I lowered it to about 1.6 on the low E to 1.4 on the high E. It resulted in a little bit of fret buzz but no more then any more my other guitars.

Ok let's review the relevant things.

General Playability - Very good. Neck is straight. No sharp fret ends. Frets are level.

Scale Length - This scale is a little weird. It's not bad but the huge fan makes it so that stretches on the first five frets take some getting used too. It's not too bad because I regularly play 28.625 scale guitars. But the fan and the angling make some of the string skipping stretches even wider on this guitar then on my baritones. I would personally never put this scale length in E. I bought this guitar specifically for Drop C. People have put it in E though.

Comfort - Now this going to be down to personal preference and body shape. I don't find this guitar as comfortable as the Strandberg for how I sit. On the Strandberg the horn of the lower bout rests on my upper thigh. On the Goliath the horn kind of digs into my leg. Normal position and standing should be the same though.

Fret Access - This will also have something to do with the size of your hands...Upper fret access on this thing for me is terrible. I have fairly small hands and the way the neck joint is shaped along with the extreme fan means I have no hope of reaching the last frets on the low strings without some massive hand gymnastics. Access is much worse then the strandberg. That being said...it's ok. Those frets are still reachable if necessary.

Tuners and headless hardware - Much much much better then the strandberg tuners. I still have skin on my fingers after tuning. The headpiece looks cheap compared to the individual strandberg pieces though.

Sound - it sounds like a guitar. I got the Katana upgrade in the bridge. It's the hottest pickup they make. It sounds really good. The guitar isn't as tight as my Warpig guitars but who knows why that is. The neck is their hot paf nunchucker. It sounds good but there's a bit of a tone mismatch between the two pickups. I might change this out for another of their pickups as soon as my other issue is resolved.

Value - this guitar is pretty cheap. The cheapest strandberg doesn't have a chambered body or SS frets. A kiesel is close in price but with a three piece neck and a chambered body will cost more then this guitar.

Now of the Bad and the LOLs.

The first three issues are things that I can live with. 1300 for a headless guitar with ss frets...I except something to go wrong somewhere. This guitar isn't perfect.






A little excess glue on the fret. No big deal.






A little chip on the side of the neck pocket. Somebody wasn't very careful putting this neck in.






this is a spot where there is just no paint under the clear coat. I'm not sure how something like this happens. It's just straight up missing. The clear coat was applied nicely though so you can't feel it. It's not bubbling or anything. But it's visually super annoying since it's right on the horn bevel. If it was on the back whatever. This is kind of annoying. But it's really only super annoying because the rest of the guitar is so consistent.


Bad stuff.

No two side dots on this guitar are in the same place. Now, I know side dots are hard and even great guitars are inconsistent. So I went and looked at pictures of tons of guitars, a number of Goliaths, examined all of my guitars....this Goliath I have has the worst side dots I've seen. Ever. In my Life.














seriously. Whoever did these wasn't even trying and whoever signed off on these wasn't even paying attention. I don't think I would be so annoyed if at least the double dots were right. But the 2 pairs of close dots are just so off. They are also luminlays so when they light up in the dark you get vertigo and throw up.

The lols

This guitar has no bridge ground. The wire is there...but it's not actually connected to anything. it's not so noisy you'll notice right away. But if you turn up the amp it's noisy as hell and the sound only goes away when you touch the pots. So ya, it's a 1300 brand new guitar that's not even wired right. Also if you look at the picture below the entire cavity is nicely covered in grounding paint....except the hole someone stabbed with a screwdriver or something.






I'm on the fence about how much this issue bothers me. On one hand I can fix this pretty easily. On the other hand...it's a brand new guitar that I basically have to disassemble in order to get at the wire under the bridge. This completely voids the stated warranty. If I were to charge bench time for this or needed this taken care of by someone else it would cost at least 100 dollars and a pack of strings. Kind of annoying.

Customer service - I'm in the middle of getting this taken care of. Ormsby has offered me a neck exchange but I need to pay shipping too them and they'll pay shipping back. I guess that's reasonable since the side dots are an issue that some people would be ok with. I emailed them about the wiring issue. Their email response time lately isn't the greatest. About 1 reply in 4 days.

So ya, that's that. Take all this in account if you are thinking about buying one. Or not.


----------



## Frey (Jun 28, 2018)

Thank you for the in depth review! I personally think the fact that there's no bridge ground is inexcusable.. Those dots are pretty darn bad too. I think the solution they offered is fair but it still sucks to have to pay extra cash after the fact. The huge spread is the number one thing that has me intrigued and also concerned about these guitars. Wish they had the zero risk return policy that Strandbergs do.


----------



## diagrammatiks (Jun 28, 2018)

Frey said:


> Thank you for the in depth review! I personally think the fact that there's no bridge ground is inexcusable.. Those dots are pretty darn bad too. I think the solution they offered is fair but it still sucks to have to pay extra cash after the fact. The huge spread is the number one thing that has me intrigued and also concerned about these guitars. Wish they had the zero risk return policy that Strandbergs do.



the stretch on the 6 is a little wide but it's ok. Are you looking at a six? I don't think the seven would be much of a problem at all.


----------



## slayer6699 (Jun 29, 2018)

First HNGD!
Second for 1300$ this guitar has issues that custom guitars should not have.
These side dots seem to have been made by someone who doesn't know his job right.
For the electronics the same.
Wtf you bought a new guitar and you need to pay that much shipping for their fault?
Send the guitar back and take your money!


----------



## I play music (Jun 29, 2018)

Thanks for this review!
So overall would you say the Strandberg Boden Original or the Ormsby Goliath is better value for the money?


----------



## Frey (Jul 2, 2018)

diagrammatiks said:


> the stretch on the 6 is a little wide but it's ok. Are you looking at a six? I don't think the seven would be much of a problem at all.



I've been looking at 7s good sir. Close to pulling the trigger on a hype but I am still concerned. If it's as angled as the bottom frets of the Ibanez RGIF7s (25.5-27 but parallel fret on 12..) then I definitely won't like it


----------



## Dust_to_Dust (Jul 2, 2018)

Jesus, same sort of problems with the Run 1 HypeGTR's too. The control pot on mine came bent, pickups needed repotting, or weren't potted at all. Bridge was screwed up, and a list of other things.

Hope you get it sorted.


----------



## crackout (Jul 4, 2018)

Man, those sidedots would kill me.
It is also evident from photos alone that these guitars suck in classical position. The long horn on the back of the body just screams "I pierce your leg and everyone you love".
Bodens have the same problem, however, far less drastic. This entire shape just looks like a silly Boden copy with the necessary 'design changes' that weren't even thought out well.

I also have a special kind of hate for the switch placement. Who thought that cramming it between the two pots like this was a good idea?


----------



## guitareddie (Jul 5, 2018)

@crackout: I have a Goliath and I play exclusively in classical position and I have no issue whatsoever with the body horn you mentioned. Have you ever tried one yourself? But I fully agree on that switch placement


----------



## Vyn (Jul 5, 2018)

guitareddie said:


> @crackout: I have a Goliath and I play exclusively in classical position and I have no issue whatsoever with the body horn you mentioned. Have you ever tried one yourself? But I fully agree on that switch placement



+1 on the Goliath being comfy to play in classical position. Then again, I'm used to having a full-sized classical guitar so anything smaller than that is pretty comfy.


----------



## crackout (Jul 5, 2018)

guitareddie said:


> @crackout: I have a Goliath and I play exclusively in classical position and I have no issue whatsoever with the body horn you mentioned. Have you ever tried one yourself? But I fully agree on that switch placement


If you spread your legs like a hooker from Amsterdam, then I'll believe you.


----------



## KnightBrolaire (Jul 5, 2018)

crackout said:


> Man, those sidedots would kill me.
> It is also evident from photos alone that these guitars suck in classical position. The long horn on the back of the body just screams "I pierce your leg and everyone you love".
> Bodens have the same problem, however, far less drastic. This entire shape just looks like a silly Boden copy with the necessary 'design changes' that weren't even thought out well.
> 
> I also have a special kind of hate for the switch placement. Who thought that cramming it between the two pots like this was a good idea?


honestly the switch placement isn't bad. It looks more crammed than it really is. I had more of an issue with the main cutout digging into my leg and the lower horn limiting upper fret access. I never had that problem with my bodens or vaders.


----------



## guitareddie (Jul 5, 2018)

@crackout : Did you ever try out a Goliath?


----------



## crackout (Jul 5, 2018)

guitareddie said:


> @crackout : Did you ever try out a Goliath?


I haven't because it would mean for me to buy this thing.
I played several Bodens though and judging from the resting point on the left leg, the piercing in the right is inevitable on the Goliath if you're sitting in a comfortable manner.


----------



## guitareddie (Jul 5, 2018)

@crackout : Seems like a short trip to Munich might be in order 
https://www.promusictools.com/catalogsearch/result/?cat=0&q=goliath


----------



## diagrammatiks (Jul 5, 2018)

guitareddie said:


> @crackout : Seems like a short trip to Munich might be in order
> https://www.promusictools.com/catalogsearch/result/?cat=0&q=goliath



Jebus. if I paid 1800 euros for this hot mess I'd be going bananas right now.


----------



## RiksRiks (Jul 5, 2018)

diagrammatiks said:


> Jebus. if I paid 1800 euros for this hot mess I'd be going bananas right now.



VAT kills, man :/ 

I would love to try a Vader and a Goliath, aesthetically I love neither but I have a Vanquish (talk about bad taste) and a Hype and both neck profiles are quite nice for my average sized hands... in OPs opinión what is (was) the strongest point of the Goliath?


----------



## guitareddie (Jul 6, 2018)

diagrammatiks said:


> Jebus. if I paid 1800 euros for this hot mess I'd be going bananas right now.


I did not pay that much for my Goliath (nor my HypeGTR). You can buy directly from Ormsby. 
Anyway, I would also be more than annoyed having to look at those wonky side dots while playing. Total dealbreaker for me. And about the bridge grounding thing...  This should not have happened and then slipped through QC. 
Let's hope their customer support is able to rectify the situation.


----------



## RiksRiks (Jul 6, 2018)

guitareddie said:


> I did not pay that much for my Goliath (nor my HypeGTR). You can buy directly from Ormsby.
> Anyway, I would also be more than annoyed having to look at those wonky side dots while playing. Total dealbreaker for me. And about the bridge grounding thing...  This should not have happened and then slipped through QC.
> Let's hope their customer support is able to rectify the situation.



I'm pretty sure buying directly from Ormsby + shipping + import taxes = roughly the price mentioned by the OP.

I agree with you in everything else :/


----------



## Sogradde (Jul 9, 2018)

I'm really torn. I wanted a Giloath 7 really bad and asked the EU distributor for a price. He quoted me at about 1700 and some change, which is alot for a WMI instrument but I was carefully optimistic. So I asked for a payment plan and he said "yeah, we can do that but you only get the guitar after the final payment", which defeats the idea of a payment plan for me. That's where I finally jumped the ship. Now I see these threads popping up and all the issues and it kinda breaks my heart because I really like the design and the specs but it's way too much money for what it is. I'm a little disappointed in how this turned out because the Goliath is by far my favourite take on the headless multiscale design.


----------



## Jonathan20022 (Jul 9, 2018)

You could pay via Paypal and use their Paypal Credit thing to get 6 months to pay it off if they accept that or buy via Reverb if they'll list it there and use their financing options.

It's a bummer that one has those issues, I was looking forward to picking up a used Red/Gold 6 eventually.


----------



## yellowv (Jul 9, 2018)

You can’t use PayPal credit on Reverb.


----------



## Jonathan20022 (Jul 9, 2018)

Weird I used it just a few months ago on a purchase, didn't know they changed it.


----------



## yellowv (Jul 9, 2018)

Guess so. I actually was going to use it on my Goliath and couldn’t. Looked into it and reverb said they don’t accept it.


----------



## Flappydoodle (Jul 10, 2018)

I think those things would bother me too. The guitar isn't cheap really. It's actually quite expensive compared to other Korean-made guitars.

And the fact remains, those manufacturers make things overseas because they're trying to cut costs. And when you cut costs, you almost always get sloppier work, mistakes, "good enough" QC. QC and fixing issues is really time consuming and expensive, and will destroy their profit margins, so of course some contractor in Asia is going to wave things through that the original manufacturer wouldn't.

Also, not trying to shit on you here, but why do you need multi-scale for Drop C? Let alone such a large scale difference.


----------



## A-Branger (Jul 10, 2018)

Flappydoodle said:


> but why do you need multi-scale for Drop C?



because you can?

allows you to use thinner string gauges and still have better tension on the low strings, which by default results in a better tone.

I have my 7 string in standard B. Love the tension. And I dont feel anything wrong on the E string. If not my upcoming hype would be a 6 string to be kept at E standard. Lots of folks do that. I could have my 25.5" with 10's, or have my multiscale with 9's and better tension on the low strings

At the end of the day it might seem like a overkill, but everyone taste is different


----------



## diagrammatiks (Aug 20, 2018)

Ok sorry I haven't checked back into this thread.
Dealing with this shit killed my desire to play guitar for a few weeks.

Ok here's tl/dr 
1. Guitar gets returned for having the worst side dots I have ever seen in my life plus a number of other issues.
2. ormsby cs takes ages after you've given them your money
3. basically paid 350 dollars to test out a guitar and find out their quality control is a joke. 

long version. 

So I'm e-emailing them about the problems with this guitar and their responses are just slow. 4-5 days in between emails while I'm just sitting on this thing. 
They initially offer a neck swap which I'm cool with. But then I find out the guitar isn't even wired correctly. Nothing I can't fix. But between the dots, the wiring, and the finish flaws I figure I should get some discount. 

So I tell them about the wiring and they just say hey return. Shipping and insurance has to be at your expensive. Now, if I just didn't like the guitar that would be understandable. But there are things wrong with this one. So I email them back and ask for confirmation about the defects saying I would ship it back at my expensive but I wasn't happy about it.

Radio silence. 

Ok, I was originally going to ship it the next day but I couldn't find anyone on the mainland to ship it for less then 500 dollars. So I email them and say I need a bit of time to find a carrier and work everything out. 

Radio silence.

I finally get a chance to go to hong kong for a business trip and ship the guitar out on august 7th. Email them the tracking number

Radio silence. 

The guitar arrives on August 13th. Nothing from them. 

I send them an email on the 18th saying hey the guitar arrived. What's going on guys?

Radio Sience

Opened a paypal dispute this morning and got my refund 2 hours later minus the initial cost of shipping to me. 

great so I paid ormsby to ship me a flawed guitar. 

I guess I could email them and be like wtf but at this point I just don't want to deal with them anymore. 

After everything is said and done I'm out 350usd. 

I've purchased so many guitars site unseen from forums and reverb in the last 8 years. Never had a problem this annoying. 

I definitely will not be buying anything from them in the future.


----------



## Sogradde (Aug 20, 2018)

Whelp. I guess that cures my GAS then.


----------



## I play music (Aug 20, 2018)

Sogradde said:


> Whelp. I guess that cures my GAS then.


I still remember how I almost (luckily I didn't in the end) jumped on the bass run YEARS(!!!!!!) ago. I think those basses still have not been made. That kind of killed my GAS for pretty much everything preorder already...but it looks like I'm in the minority here. I see more and more preorder runs and it always surprises me how people throw their money at such risky (and often overpriced) things. 
Now this case shows me that not only should I avoid anything preorder but also anything without a European return policy...


----------



## Sogradde (Aug 20, 2018)

I always imagined Ormsby as a reliable builder, I wasn't aware of his shady business practice.
I feel the worst part about the entire thing is that the PayPal refund went through immediately, they didn't even contest it or anything. If that's not an admission of guilt I don't know what is.


----------



## Vyn (Aug 20, 2018)

There's two sides to a story so I'm going to reserve judgement for now. 

FWIW this is the only poor customer service experience I've seen from Ormsby. There have been QC issues with some guitars that Ormbsy have dealt with ranging from new parts to full swaps and/or refunds with both parties being satisfied with the exchange. 

I can understand why it would be daunting buying a guitar directly from Australia as it's expensive shipping (heck we have the reverse issue buying stuff from the states). If I were going to purchase an Ormsby from overseas, I'd spend the extra and buy it from a dealer because then if there are any issues, shipping and returns is on the dealer, not you.


----------



## KnightBrolaire (Aug 20, 2018)

Sogradde said:


> I always imagined Ormsby as a reliable builder, I wasn't aware of his shady business practice.
> I feel the worst part about the entire thing is that the PayPal refund went through immediately, they didn't even contest it or anything. If that's not an admission of guilt I don't know what is.


that's not even on ormsby, paypal almost always sides with the buyer in the case of refunds. i've seen a few shady people get called out in the gear exchange and ormsby group that buy something, get delivery of said item and initiate a refund.


----------



## diagrammatiks (Aug 20, 2018)

That's true. And I wouldn't have used PayPal disputes if I wasn't annoyed. It was all fine when I had the guitar and they had the money. But, when they have both my money and the guitar for a week without any word, that's no good. Keep in mind that PayPal could only refund the last payment of 614 aud. They could not refund the other payments because those were made over a year ago. They also didn't refund my shipping when they said they would in the original emails.

Here is the full email transcript. I think I got all my personal information covered. Don't dox me. This has all the pictures I linked too and videos I recorded as evidence.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/j0q3579ab0coquk/Gmail - Goliath Issue.pdf?dl=0

Look at the end of the day the guitar played fine I actually did like it. But it's 1500 dollars and it should have been as good as any other guitar in that price range. I looked around the web. I asked other owners. I compared it to a lot of guitars. Simply the worst side dots.

Now, I didn't really need a full refund. I would have been happy with a neck swap. Or no neck swap and like 15 percent off the cost of the guitar. That's what B-stocks usually sell full.

And, I needed them to just say sorry we goofed instead of implying that I was only returning the guitar because I was unhappy with it.

I would have been extremely happy if they had just said ok swap the neck and we goofed so here's like 45 dollars to cover you.

I'm not vindictive though. All the information is out here. Plenty of their customers are happy with their guitars. If you are in a position where you can see them and return them easily then it's all good. I have 2 kids, a full time job, and I live in a ridiculous country. This is just way too much hassle for me to gamble with.

edit: they still owe me 200 aud.


----------



## Sogradde (Aug 20, 2018)

KnightBrolaire said:


> that's not even on ormsby, paypal almost always sides with the buyer in the case of refunds.


 I know, I made a PayPal dispute once but it took almost two weeks because they gave the seller all the time in the world to answer the dispute. I believe if it went so fast, the seller had to agree right away, didn't he?



diagrammatiks said:


> [...]


Hang on, I might have misunderstood this but you only got the last payment back AND they kept your guitar? How do they only owe you 200 Aud and not 1200.. ?


----------



## diagrammatiks (Aug 20, 2018)

Sogradde said:


> I know, I made a PayPal dispute once but it took almost two weeks because they gave the seller all the time in the world to answer the dispute. I believe if it went so fast, the seller had to agree right away, didn't he?
> 
> 
> Hang on, I might have misunderstood this but you only got the last payment back AND they kept your guitar? How do they only owe you 200 Aud and not 1200.. ?



no PayPal refunded the last payment then Ormsby refunded the previous 4 payments minus the shipping. sorry for the confusion.


----------



## KnightBrolaire (Aug 20, 2018)

Sogradde said:


> I know, I made a PayPal dispute once but it took almost two weeks because they gave the seller all the time in the world to answer the dispute. I believe if it went so fast, the seller had to agree right away, didn't he?


depends on what kind of evidence the buyer presents. I ordered a tshirt from china (it was a random online store, I didn't know at the time that it was being shipped from china since they don't advertise the fact). It took 6 months for the t-shirt to arrive. I put in a dispute after 1 month because they gave me fake tracking numbers twice, and when I sent the screenshots to paypal they basically refunded me in a day.


----------



## Sogradde (Aug 20, 2018)

diagrammatiks said:


> no PayPal refunded the last payment then Ormsby refunded the previous 4 payments minus the shipping. sorry for the confusion.


Ooh, I see. Still kinda stupid on their end. I'd like to give them the benefit of doubt and assume they mixed up a "refund this" and a "fix this" case but I heard weird stuff about their customer support before. 



KnightBrolaire said:


> depends on what kind of evidence the buyer presents. I ordered a tshirt from china (it was a random online store, I didn't know at the time that it was being shipped from china since they don't advertise the fact). It took 6 months for the t-shirt to arrive. I put in a dispute after 1 month because they gave me fake tracking numbers twice, and when I sent the screenshots to paypal they basically refunded me in a day.


That makes sense.


----------



## diagrammatiks (Aug 20, 2018)

Sogradde said:


> Ooh, I see. Still kinda stupid on their end. I'd like to give them the benefit of doubt and assume they mixed up a "refund this" and a "fix this" case but I heard weird stuff about their customer support before.
> 
> 
> That makes sense.



I mean I'm confused as to why this is happening, but there's really no confusion. just take a glance at the emails. It's a quick read.


----------



## Siggevaio (Aug 20, 2018)

Very poorly handled by Ormsby. I don't understand why some companies take shortcuts with QC, it's like they take their chances with the guitar not being returned. And what's up with not responding to emails? You should have been a prioritized customer by that point, the first email I can understand, but having to remind them to respond? WEAK.


----------



## bostjan (Aug 20, 2018)

According to Forbes magazine (https://www.forbes.com/sites/amymor...logy-behind-email-response-time/#1d743f4a9755), if a business doesn't respond within two business days of receiving an email, they are not likely to ever respond.


----------



## Bearitone (Aug 20, 2018)

I wonder why side dots are an issue for some builders. I feel like they could make some fixturing and throw it in a CNC


----------



## KnightBrolaire (Aug 20, 2018)

kindsage said:


> I wonder why side dots are an issue for some builders. I feel like they could make some fixturing and throw it in a CNC


shit if I can hand drill side dots in a relatively straight line then there's no real excuse for a factory with drill presses and CNCs. If they're drilling them by hand then I can understand the variation, but it's absurd to see the difference between how my side dots looked on my goliath/diagrammatik's goliath if they're using a CNC for that process.


----------



## Shoeless_jose (Aug 20, 2018)

I must suck at life. The 12th fret dots and the grounding are only things i'd be bothered by/notice... And tbh just the grounding would make me upset. But sorry youre having so many issues. Hope you get that happy feeling.


----------



## diagrammatiks (Aug 21, 2018)

Final Update 
They refunded me 105 dollars for shipping. Which is still 45 dollars short. My total payments to Ormsby in my PayPal was 2015 AUD. My total refund after conversion is 1964. Whatever. So my total out of pocket expensive for this guitar is about 200 usd. Which is I don't know how to describe it. I'd rather just have a good guitar you know? I'll just fondly remember the 30 minutes the cute girl at the packaging store helped me wrap the damn thing for shipping. 

Keep in mind that they have not responded to an email since the original response of just return it. No confirmations, no verifications, no attempt to sell me a different guitar. Just nothing. 



Dineley said:


> I must suck at life. The 12th fret dots and the grounding are only things i'd be bothered by/notice... And tbh just the grounding would make me upset. But sorry youre having so many issues. Hope you get that happy feeling.



I would not have returned this guitar for just the finish flaws or the wiring. Finish flaws are whatever. I'd do worse to the guitar in a year. The wiring would suck for a new guitar player but that's something I could have taken care of in 10 minutes. 

But the side dots, only they can fix that at a reasonable cost. 

It's the side dots plus the other issues plus the fact that they were totally uninterested in even saying lol we goofed and offering some sort of resolution other then returning it. 

That's why it got returned. 

I'm also annoyed because I just asked for a few points of clarification about what to expect from my neck swap which was followed by radio silence. Meanwhile the entire Ormsby staff is posting in their facebook group every single day. 

But, this particular saga is over.


----------



## bostjan (Aug 21, 2018)

Thanks for updating. I hope you find a guitar that meets your needs without all of this sort of drama. I also wish Ormsby the best, and hope they take this as a learning experience on how to better communicate with a customer.



diagrammatiks said:


> Meanwhile the entire Ormsby staff is posting in their facebook group every single day.



I think this is why people hate facebook so much. No one seems to truly realize that it's a public forum, and anything you post there can be seen by anyone in the world, unless you specifically tell facebook to limit who can see it. So, where we had no idea what people were doing in their private lives in 2002, everyone knew what everyone else was up to by 2012. Just last week, I observed a heated incident between two parties, all because someone posted something on facebook about someone else being somewhere that person was not supposed to be, because they were supposed to be somewhere else and with somebody else... too much drama, and it all unfolded right out in public view for everyone to see.


----------



## crackout (Aug 22, 2018)

Every time I watch a factory tour of a guitar brand and have the feeling the presenter (in most cases the owner) is an arrogant asshole, I find people having issues and drama with the brand's support.


----------



## Slaeyer (Aug 22, 2018)

Vyn said:


> FWIW this is the only poor customer service experience I've seen from Ormsby.



I know of several people having trouble with their GTRs. Me being one of them.
I had issues with my GTR Hype 7, cosmetic finish issues, slopply replaced nut, extreme feedback of the pickups, sloopy routings, et cetera.
Writing a mail to them and trying to resolve it didn't help. They were basically saying everything was all right. However they were asking me to get the pickup wax potted and that they would cover the costs. But they didn't.
Because after that mail I never heard anything from them. They went:


diagrammatiks said:


> Radio Sience






diagrammatiks said:


> I'm also annoyed because I just asked for a few points of clarification [...] was followed by radio silence. Meanwhile the entire Ormsby staff is posting in their facebook group every single day.


I basically sold the guitar quite fast because of the same reason
If I look back I really liked the guitar, but the whole damn situation made feel pretty pissed. I'd still possibly by a GTR one day an Ormsby again some day. But I'm not going to buy directly from him, not every. I was also tempted to order a CS from him, but with handling customers that way I simply don't trust him...


----------



## MaxOfMetal (Aug 22, 2018)

Vyn said:


> FWIW this is the only poor customer service experience I've seen from Ormsby.



There's a reason Ormsby doesn't really post here anymore...


----------



## Vyn (Aug 22, 2018)

MaxOfMetal said:


> There's a reason Ormsby doesn't really post here anymore...



Might do some forum searching for old threads, see what comes up


----------



## Slaeyer (Aug 22, 2018)

Vyn said:


> Might do some forum searching for old threads, see what comes up


I had the review for my GTR deleted as the thread turned into a rant...


----------



## diagrammatiks (Aug 22, 2018)

So check this out just for funnies. I haven't gotten any Ormsby group updates like I used to the last few days. Been busy at work didn't think too much of it. 
Checked right now and...

They have banned me from the group. That's fair. But while doing that they haven't responded to a single email from me since one month ago. 

winners.


----------



## MaxOfMetal (Aug 23, 2018)

Vyn said:


> Might do some forum searching for old threads, see what comes up



The worst of them were nuked quite some time ago, but there should be some left.


----------



## Vyn (Aug 23, 2018)

MaxOfMetal said:


> The worst of them were nuked quite some time ago, but there should be some left.



Most of the ones I found were complaining about the wait times on the pre-orders for the GTRs being delayed and delayed again which is valid complaint. Apparently the first few runs had issues with not enough wax-potting done on the pickups or grounding issues which I note in the cases I found the owners were offered a replacement/fix/refund, only they had to cover shipping back to Ormsby (which is fair - that's how it would work for a dealer shipping back to a distributor/suppler, they'd be out for the shipping). Couple of finish flaws (not uncommon for imports).

The major issues I see are that people had purchased directly from Ormsby, meaning any issues required to be fixed meant they would be wearing a shipping cost of some description, and then being upset about that; and that old man Ormsby can be rather 'rude' I guess in the eyes of anyone who isn't Australian (not trying to be rude myself here either, I'm fully aware that we have a very blunt way of saying things at times).

This is completely anecdotal but my own interactions with him have been rather positive - In one instance I was ordering a guitar from him and fell short on cash at the time, he offered to hold it until I got my shit together if I was still committed to buying it. He didn't have to do that, he could have given me my deposit back on the spot and sold it to any one of the thousands of people in the group but he didn't.


----------



## MaxOfMetal (Aug 23, 2018)

Vyn said:


> Most of the ones I found were complaining about the wait times on the pre-orders for the GTRs being delayed and delayed again which is valid complaint. Apparently the first few runs had issues with not enough wax-potting done on the pickups or grounding issues which I note in the cases I found the owners were offered a replacement/fix/refund, only they had to cover shipping back to Ormsby (which is fair - that's how it would work for a dealer shipping back to a distributor/suppler, they'd be out for the shipping). Couple of finish flaws (not uncommon for imports).
> 
> The major issues I see are that people had purchased directly from Ormsby, meaning any issues required to be fixed meant they would be wearing a shipping cost of some description, and then being upset about that; and that old man Ormsby can be rather 'rude' I guess in the eyes of anyone who isn't Australian (not trying to be rude myself here either, I'm fully aware that we have a very blunt way of saying things at times).
> 
> This is completely anecdotal but my own interactions with him have been rather positive - In one instance I was ordering a guitar from him and fell short on cash at the time, he offered to hold it until I got my shit together if I was still committed to buying it. He didn't have to do that, he could have given me my deposit back on the spot and sold it to any one of the thousands of people in the group but he didn't.



It's like some other builders, Kiesel would be a good example.

When there's a hit there's a hit, and where there is a miss there's a miss, and not a bunch of middle ground.

Either way, even with heavy moderation (nobody was banned), Ormsby still decided to pretty much take his ball and go home. Make of that what you will.

As an aside, one of the reasons I try and preach to go as local as possible when picking a builder is that you typically get far better service when you're down the way, versus accross the Earth. You can run from someone on the other side of an ocean, next door is much more difficult.

Again, not saying Ormsby is a bad builder or a scammer, I don't think he's entirely either, but to say there has been zero negative chatter in regards to both the import builds and general customer service is not accurate.


----------



## Vyn (Aug 23, 2018)

MaxOfMetal said:


> It's like some other builders, Kiesel would be a good example.
> 
> When there's a hit there's a hit, and where there is a miss there's a miss, and not a bunch of middle ground.
> 
> ...



Kiesel is definitely a good analogy, there's a lot of similarities between the two - massive online following and constant engagement with said online following, new models/finishes regularly released/teased and customer service experiences ranging from positive to outright clusterfucks.

I can see both sides of opinion in response to Ormsby leaving the forum. Not too bothered by it/can't be bothered reading into it personally.

With regards to local builds, it's actually rather funny/ironic - the issues people have with Ormsby on this forum are the exact issues that I personally wouldn't order a Kiesel:

- Too expensive for the feature set
- Some bad customer service reviews
- If there is an issue, I'm up for $200-$300USD to ship it back to the states to get fixed.

Difference is, because Ormsby is local, I've personally had good customer service from them and the dollar-to-feature ratio makes sense in Australia. Multi-scale aside, there isn't a company making a guitar with stainless steel fret and lumen-lay side dots for anything less than $1900 RRP AUD here (an Ormsby 6 without a nuts finish will set you back just a touch over $1600 AUD including shipping).


----------



## diagrammatiks (Aug 23, 2018)

Almost forgot In the Facebook group perry had told me I couldn’t get a direct exchange because there were no more 6 strings available. There was at least one listed by him in reverb store at the time. 

How can a business be this bad at doing things.


----------



## I play music (Aug 23, 2018)

diagrammatiks said:


> Almost forgot In the Facebook group perry had told me I couldn’t get a direct exchange because there were no more 6 strings available. There was at least one listed by him in reverb store at the time.
> 
> How can a business be this bad at doing things.


Lying is already one step further than ignoring emails...

I think Max has a very important point with the local thing. I will not risk buying anything from outside EU. Either European company or through a European dealer.


----------



## Slaeyer (Aug 24, 2018)

I play music said:


> Lying is already one step further than ignoring emails...
> 
> I think Max has a very important point with the local thing. I will not risk buying anything from outside EU. Either European company or through a European dealer.



I came to the same conclusion, after having to deal with Ormsby.


----------

