Beware of D'Angelico Tammany Excel (Day 498)

Weekend guitar journal continues. This time it's about an unpleasant incident I'm experiencing right now.

I have been a loyal customer with Sweetwater for all my musical gears, and their salespersons are famous for being helpful. But, dealing with their repair shop is a totally different experience...

I saw some YouTubers review the D'Angelico Tammany Excel acoustic-electric guitar and all rave reviews. It has the top pickup gear and good specs, and I bought it. But in about a month, the strings begin to buzz at multiple frets, especially the F note on 1st string is buzzing so bad the guitar is practically unusable.

There's a 2-year warranty from Sweetwater, or so it claims. I showed them the video, and they asked me to mail the guitar to their repair shop. After about 2-3 weeks, I received a reply below.

We had the opportunity to bring your D'Angelico to bench. Unfortunately, we deemed the instrument to be unsalvageable. The tech found that the guitar was dried out, the bridge is lifting, the neck is separating, and the frets are popping out. The guitar being dried out as much as it is voids the manufacturer's warranty. Acoustic instruments need to stay with 45% and 55% humidity levels to avoid damage due to dehydration or over hydration. You can maintain this humidity level by using a HumidiPak system or a sponge humidifier with the instrument. You will also want to make sure to check the humidification system you choose to use to ensure that it is effectively doing its job.

First of all, I have two other acoustic guitars--one Yamaha acoustic-electric and another no-brand nylon guitar on the rack right next to the D'Angelico. NONE of them have any issues whatsoever. So to blame it on the environment is ridiculous. And educate me on setting up a constant humidity room for a guitar in order to keep the "manufacturer warranty"??? Are they nuts???

The simple matter of fact is that this guitar is made with INFERIOR QUALITY!

Stay away all you can, don't believe the YouTubers!

What is more furious is that the person acts as he is "courteous":

This is not something that we would normally do, but I would like to have this replaced for you as a one time courtesy since it was a very recent purchase. We are not scheduled to have any more in stock until September 9th. I would be more than happy to put one on hold for you and facilitate the exchange when the product arrives.

It sounds like he's doing me a "favor" here. Stop selling inferior and crappy products in the first place! And refund customers when it's broken due to the quality, not blame it on the customer's environment!