New Stage 3 shipping!!?? Very likely, yes.....

[Murphy]

Just ordered the compact from musicstore.de export. Shipping 8/14 and arriving by 8/28. Shipping was 60.00 and the price with shipping was a little bit less than what's on sweetwater and guitar ctr. Not afraid of warranty issues, I have other boards and even return shipping costs would be a small percentage of the instruments value.

I'll be curious about any import charges due upon receipt. I bet this works out well for you, and I bet the import fees won't be too much (if any). But I lack the courage you have!

[Gambold]

Well, I hope it works out for you. If you have to send it back for any reason, you will pay a lot more than $60 in shipping. UPS charges about $250 for a 35-pound Nord-sized package to ship by freight to Germany.

>Unfortunately, we cannot bear any returning costs for foreign shipments within our MUSIC STORE 30-days-money- back-guarantee. Claims have to be asserted within the period of warranty. The return of the goods have to be coordinated with us. The customer bears all shipping costs of the return outside of Germany. <

[SOULidarity]

Got cold feet after reading all about custom brokers and duty and storage fees so I cancelled

[Gambold]

You won't regret cancelling. It's worth waiting an extra month or so for guaranteed US service and support. And their "you'll have it in two weeks" seemed a bit unbelievable to me, given all that it has to go through to get to your door.

[SOULidarity]

Yeah I think the two weeks was Germany to the US only. I have one on preorder at Sweetwater anyway. Have waited this long.....

[Gambold]

Sweetwater is a good company and they will treat your Nord with extra-loving care. Plus they won't give you any grief if something is wrong with it. I buy from them a lot - their only downside is they are often out-of-stock on items and their website doesn't always say that.

Musician's Friend is pretty good with service too - they seem to be the market leader, and they carry almost everything, including more precious brands like Rickenbacker and Quilter (not QSC - same guy, different company).

I actually bought my Electro 4 from Kraft on a close-out deal, when the E5 had come in. Their big thing is "bundles," which don't mean much to me, since I have all the accessories I need and the stuff they bundle is pretty entry-level in quality.

[Quai34]

"Not QSC, same guy, different company":
What do you mean? Musician Friend is the same guy as Sweetwater?
"Bundles are entry level":
+1, I noticed that as well....

[SOULidarity]

And now I cancelled my Sweetwater pre-order (Oct 2) with musicians friend (Sep 18) and I'll get 28,000 backstage points

[stringtapper]

And now I cancelled my Sweetwater pre-order (Oct 2) with musicians friend (Sep 18) and I'll get 28,000 backstage points

I'm getting suspicious about both Musician's Friend and Guitar Center's availability date claims. GC still claims the Compact will be in stock this coming Monday (8/14), but other US retailers are indicating they're not expecting them until October.

I'm fully expecting that date to slip sometime before Monday, but I would love to be surprised.

[DanielD71]

The US distributor should have the exact date...
In Canada, it is Erikson (Jam industries), and the the US, it is American music and sound.

Regards