Compulsive/ generated need buying from Das Musikding: was a mistake?

[cris_mas]

So, long story short, I needed a clean fender tube base preamp to stack my drive(s) on top, to send both direct and class d power amp. My Amt pre isn’t delivering the goods and I wasn’t convinced to use clean fet preamp (Indiana ppcb) so I wanted to buy a particle accelerator from c2c but they were in a recess. In a somewhat not reasonable thoughts I’ve remembered the Das Musikding website and saw they were selling Sushi Box kits and since I have some troubles sourcing my parts for these projects locally,I said what the hell and pulled the trigger. Back to present day, two weeks since I’ve made the order and not any news from them about my order. To make matters worse, I need to report the package to customs in order to make it available to be sent and see if I have to pay customs with the shipping number (which at this point is none existant).
What’s your experience buying on Das Musikding? Should I just wait or should I activate the panic button and email them right away?
I’ve seen mixed comments about their service, with the consensus that after c-19 they worsened their service by a lot but supposedly in recent days it was working “normally”; another issue was that sometimes they sourced the kits with wrong parts. I’ve read this all after the purchase (my bad)

Pd: please move this post if it isn’t in the right spot.

 

[tegendemuur]

So, long story short, I needed a clean fender tube base preamp to stack my drive(s) on top, to send both direct and class d power amp. My Amt pre isn’t delivering the goods and I wasn’t convinced to use clean fet preamp (Indiana ppcb) so I wanted to buy a particle accelerator from c2c but they were in a recess. In a somewhat not reasonable thoughts I’ve remembered the Das Musikding website and saw they were selling Sushi Box kits and since I have some troubles sourcing my parts for these projects locally,I said what the hell and pulled the trigger. Back to present day, two weeks since I’ve made the order and not any news from them about my order. To make matters worse, I need to report the package to customs in order to make it available to be sent and see if I have to pay customs with the shipping number (which at this point is none existant).
What’s your experience buying on Das Musikding? Should I just wait or should I activate the panic button and email them right away?
I’ve seen mixed comments about their service, with the consensus that after c-19 they worsened their service by a lot but supposedly in recent days it was working “normally”; another issue was that sometimes they sourced the kits with wrong parts. I’ve read this all after the purchase (my bad)

Pd: please move this post if it isn’t in the right spot.

No problems. Excellent service, though a bit slow due to it being a one-man show. Most orders ship after about a week; perhaps he didn't have all parts in stock? Got free transistors alongside an order after I fried two from a previous kit. Import duties are the responsibility of the buyer, never the seller.

 

[cris_mas]

No problems. Excellent service, though a bit slow due to it being a one-man show. Most orders ship after about a week; perhaps he didn't have all parts in stock? Got free transistors alongside an order after I fried two from a previous kit. Import duties are the responsibility of the buyer, never the seller.

Thank you tegendemuur, and yes, I’m well aware about the import duties run on me. The point is that our service relies on the shipping ID or number, and as long as I don’t report it to customs, all is delayed (they don’t make things fast anyway) and since they run their own way to tax the imports, you never know if they are in the mood to charge you and leave your package stored for long times before releasing it. That’s my main concern now.

Thanks

 

[Fama]

I ordered from Musikding last on the 30th and got an email that it was shipped on the 6th. But I also did have a kit that took a long time to get shipped a while back - I emailed them and IIRC there was a part missing which caused the delay. If it has been two weeks, I would suggest emailing them - I don't see it hurting anyone much (at worst they have to reply unnecessarily to one email) and you're entitled to that after two weeks IMO.

 

[Markus Kersius]

Klaus is very helpfull when mailing your questions to him.
I know that they make the shipping labels for orders pretty fast, but it can take a while to actually ship.
Maybe he accumulates the orders for, let's say a week, and then sends them out all at once.
I guess it's more cost-effective to do that instead of having DHL come by every day for maybe 1 or 2 orders.

 

[Einzeln]

Musikding is OK. Takes round 7 to 10 days between order and delivery. When there are mistakes Klaus solves them.
Would be great to be able to order just the ppcb's instead of a kit though.

 

[LukeFRC]

Musikding are good. Email and it takes a couple days to get a reply, but they will fix problems fine.

It’s best to think of them as a specialist one man retailer doing really good things - if you treat them like Klaus is Jeff Bezos you will be disappointed

 

[cris_mas]

Thanks for your input guys/gals. Yeah, I’m spoiled with how PPCB does things and I (wrongfully) asume most electronic sellers are the same. If nothing happens by Monday I will email Klaus and see what’s up.
I understand that if it is a one man operation things could take some time (didn’t knew that). I again state that reading opinions about an e store on the Interwebs might be unfair and that’s why I’ve made my question here before forming a wrong opinion-idea about das musikding or taking a bad choice on hurrying them. Again thanks for stating that this is a good store and I just have to be patient enough.

As a side note, I had a bad experience with another European pcb seller that had very long waiting times (2-3 months) and defective pcb’s (though in that case he made his own, he wasn’t selling someone else’s products) so I might formed a prejudice about those. My bad anyway.

 

[LukeFRC]

Musikding are under German selling regulations- I have no idea where in the world you are but the rules Klaus is under will be stricter. I’m not in the EU (any more, stupid Brexit ) but in most cases unless you’re building in bulk, in the U.K. musikding kits - which include PedalPCB pcbs, are cheaper than sourcing all the parts yourself.
I made a Aion L4 bass preamp and the ability to get a pre drilled enclosure was great!

For me, as someone sticking things together as a nice hobby (and building things that would be more expensive/impossible to buy) what Musikding does for us outside the USA is give access to lots of PCBs from the US and Europe, often with all the parts needed

 

[LukeFRC]

Also more practically if you log into your account you can see status of your order

 

[cris_mas]

You’re right @LukeFRC, that’s why I thought it was a good idea to buy from them, I live in Chile and I asume everything is more strict that what can be here lol.

Also more practically if you log into your account you can see status of your order

Yeah, the reason of my concern is that my order it just says “paid” up to date. Not “processing” or something alike.

 

[Einzeln]

The status gives little useful info, and will feed concern for no reason.

 

[tegendemuur]

Thanks for your input guys/gals. Yeah, I’m spoiled with how PPCB does things and I (wrongfully) asume most electronic sellers are the same. If nothing happens by Monday I will email Klaus and see what’s up.
I understand that if it is a one man operation things could take some time (didn’t knew that). I again state that reading opinions about an e store on the Interwebs might be unfair and that’s why I’ve made my question here before forming a wrong opinion-idea about das musikding or taking a bad choice on hurrying them. Again thanks for stating that this is a good store and I just have to be patient enough.

As a side note, I had a bad experience with another European pcb seller that had very long waiting times (2-3 months) and defective pcb’s (though in that case he made his own, he wasn’t selling someone else’s products) so I might formed a prejudice about those. My bad anyway.

I think everyone here knows which bad brand you're talking about here, even without saying its name.

 

[harmaes]

You’re right @LukeFRC, that’s why I thought it was a good idea to buy from them, I live in Chile and I asume everything is more strict that what can be here lol.

Yeah, the reason of my concern is that my order it just says “paid” up to date. Not “processing” or something alike.

You’re always entitled to cancel the order. Klaus is quite flexible but does not always provide enough insight into why an order hasn’t been shipped yet. Most of the times it’s lack of stock. Most kits have already been produced by him so these ship within a week.

 

[cris_mas]

You’re always entitled to cancel the order. Klaus is quite flexible but does not always provide enough insight into why an order hasn’t been shipped yet. Most of the times it’s lack of stock. Most kits have already been produced by him so these ship within a week.

Thanks once again.
I’ll wait. I want toobs !! And have a piece of sushi box history as well

 

[jwin615]

It's also vacation/holiday season here in the northern hemisphere. May e Klaus took a couple of days off from answering emails about "which capacitor is 10K?".
I e had a couple of usually fast shipping companies take longer than usual the last few weeks. I chock it up to vacations.
Hell, I placed an order with Stringjoy 5 days ago that hasn't shipped. They're 20 miles away and I usually get it next day. Hoping they took some time off and didn't get caught in the winders.

 

[cris_mas]

Howdy everyone! Good news here. My kit from Das musikding has arrived. I’m a happy lad now. I will check the components values to be sure all is good to finish this fella this weekend. Suddenly I want to celebrate in company of a pint.

 

[Fama]

Howdy everyone! Good news here. My kit from Das musikding has arrived. I’m a happy lad now. I will check the components values to be sure all is good to finish this fella this weekend. Suddenly I want to celebrate in company of a pint.

FWIW I've built I think 6 kits from Musikding, and I think the others have been flawless, one of them had a normal pot instead of a dual pot though (which I was fairly compensated for! so it was fine in the end too).

 

[tegendemuur]

9 kits, no mistakes yet. I do measure them, trying to turn this into a habit instead of a hassle.

I tend to grab the kits with weird components that I would otherwise need to order from multiple sources. If it's just typical stuff, I buy straight from PedalPCB.

 

[Fama]

9 kits, no mistakes yet. I do measure them, trying to turn this into a habit instead of a hassle.

I tend to grab the kits with weird components that I would otherwise need to order from multiple sources. If it's just typical stuff, I buy straight from PedalPCB.

Same here, the kits are great for more obscure stuff. I admit I haven't been measuring all of the resistors, but at the very least I haven't noticed any issues with those yet so I'm pretty sure they've all been correct.