A short story of my experience in the last few weeks. It ends well, it's just to advise future buyers of used kit.
I bought a used Reverend Gristlemaster from a UK store.
Played it for a few days. Sounded and played great. Nice guitar and good value.
One night the signal cut out a few times and then died. The red battery indicator light was flashing, indicating a pickup battery flat.
I charged the rechargeable battery for the Fishman pickups via the USB cable. But the red flashing light wouldn't go out.
I called the store.
"Try charging it again and see how long the charge lasts". I did. Same thing.
The store said they'd check with Reverend. They did.
Reverend are not providing replacement rechargeable batteries or other replacements parts for the pickups. The store said that only the batteries supplied by Fishman can be used with the Fishman pickups and, as they can't remedy via Fishman, the store has now arranged return at their expense and are refunding me.
Comments
I am not certain it is true either of course as I wasn’t in that loop, but it’s in the store’s interest to resolve rather than refund of course.
It’s a highly reputable big guitar store and I attach no blame because they refunded fully so I’m not naming them as in any way at fault.
Thanks very much for the heads-up.
I'm all for new technology when it improves things and doesn't cause more problems than it solves, but this seems like a prime example of the opposite. If you want active pickups, a standard PP3 or two will last months, years, or even more... I've come across several where the battery is so old it's started to physically leak but actually still powers the pickups OK.
So why bother with something which seems to be significantly less reliable?
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein