Walden or Larivee Guitar? Which iBetter?

Subject: Walden or Larivee Guitar? Which iBetter?
From: wilco
Date: 01 Mar 07 - 12:28 PM

I have a small acoustic music store in East Tennessee (USA). I don't do any internet sales. I'm considering two different guitar lines, that would retail between $400.00 and $1000.00. I've settled on two lines, larivee and walden. Any opinions? I'm replacing Blueridge.

Thanks!!

Wilco in Tennessee

Subject: RE: Walden or Larivee Guitar? Which iBetter?
From: JedMarum
Date: 01 Mar 07 - 12:32 PM

Larrivee, hands down!

More of 'em - and they just make the best guitars around. That pricve range is their lower end - BUT these are the same designs, same woods, same good electronics. I just love their guitars!

Subject: RE: Walden or Larivee Guitar? Which iBetter?
From: catspaw49
Date: 01 Mar 07 - 01:03 PM

I'm with Jed of course, but why are you replacing Blueridge. For its price we have generally heard nothing but good things about them.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Walden or Larivee Guitar? Which iBetter?
From: Mooh
Date: 01 Mar 07 - 01:14 PM

Larrivee, without a doubt or hesitation. One of the best factory guitars available.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: Walden or Larivee Guitar? Which iBetter?
From: JudyB
Date: 01 Mar 07 - 01:49 PM

Larrivees are wonderful - as a smaller person, I really love their parlor guitars! But I don't see anything on their web site for under $1000.

Subject: RE: Walden or Larivee Guitar? Which iBetter?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 01 Mar 07 - 03:13 PM

At the cheaper end I like Indie - but a L'Arrivee for under $1,000?????

Subject: RE: Walden or Larivee Guitar? Which iBetter?
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Mar 07 - 06:09 PM

Yes, L'Arrivee for under $1000. Go to Elderly Instruments (for example) and check out the OM series and the L series. You can get a decent ax for roughly $900. And no, I don't work for them, and I didn't even get mine there - it's just the first place I thought of to look up L'Arrivee online.
I have the OM-03 - small, sweet, and worth every penny. I love it!!
L'Arrivee guitars at Elderly

Subject: RE: Walden or Larivee Guitar? Which iBetter?
From: wilco
Date: 01 Mar 07 - 07:55 PM

Catspaw49 asked way I'm replacing Blueridge.
SAGA Instruments, which has Blueridge, Kentucky Mandos, Goldstar Banjos, regal Dobros, etc., has seperated the Blueridge guitars from their product line. You have to apply seperately to be a Blueridge dealer, and order twelve more guitars. This would be fine, but Blueridge undesells their independent dealers through places like Elderly and all the intenet dealers. SAGA has developed a bad name among the independents, and many of us don't want to deal with SAGA anymore. On many many occasions, I've had people come into my store, play all the Blueridge guitars, pick-out the model they want, leave without buying anything, and then buying it from a net dealer, with no overhead. Also, SAGA would sell to places like Elderly cheaper than to the independents, and you would find that Elderly was selling it for what you paid for it!!!!

Subject: RE: Walden or Larivee Guitar? Which iBetter?
From: Mooh
Date: 01 Mar 07 - 07:57 PM

I've never seen it spelled any other way than Larrivee (accent over first e) until now, have I been wrong?

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: Walden or Larivee Guitar? Which iBetter?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 01 Mar 07 - 08:00 PM

the thing that put me off the the l'arrivee was that the battery for the pre amp was on the inside and only accessible through the soundhole, which is pain the arse if you have fat hands - I had an Ovation like that.

the neck on the l'arrivee is rahter thin - a bit like an ols Martin. Nice guitar, but theres a lot of competition out there. Have a good look round.

i just love the new Faith Jupiters and they are cheap, but very good. I also have a Cort Parkway 360 M. Take a good look around. I broke my heart because a guitar shop suddenly hiked the price of a Taylor at the last minute. A friend counselled me - look around. I bought three guitars for less than the price of the Taylor - two faiths and a Cort. there really are some very fine solid wood guitars around at the moment. terrific value for money.

Subject: RE: Walden or Larivee Guitar? Which iBetter?
From: Big Mick
Date: 01 Mar 07 - 09:52 PM

No question about it, Larrivee would be the choice if your desired market is the good to great player.

Want to see and hear how good these babies sound? Get a load of Mudcat's own, and Larrivee artist, Jed Marum playing one of his best songs. Here is another wonderful cut.
Mick

Subject: RE: Walden or Larivee Guitar? Which iBetter?
From: GUEST,DonMeixner
Date: 01 Mar 07 - 11:50 PM

A friend of my son Greg worked for Walden doing set ups in their Plattsburg, NY facility. He spoke quite well of the Walden and Hagstrom guitars he worked on. Personally I wouldn't trust this kid to know the truth if it fell out of his mouth and hit the floor. But he does know guitars.

Me, I'd go for the Larivee.

Don

Subject: RE: Walden or Larivee Guitar? Which iBetter?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 02 Mar 07 - 05:18 AM

Saga suck bigtime. Never ever buy anything from Saga.

I bought a Saga mandolin with a "lifetime" guarantee to the original retail purchaser (which I was). The soundboard split. Would they do anything about it? No. Why? Their excuse was that I was not an American in America.

Never ever buy anything from Saga.

Subject: RE: Walden or Larivee Guitar? Which iBetter?
From: catspaw49
Date: 02 Mar 07 - 06:00 AM

Well Richard, they were right. You're not an American in America......for which many of us are extremely thankful. Saga also has a clause voiding any warranty on an instrument sold to a Brit lawyer so you're actually lucky they didn't make you split the back as well. Yeah, I'd count my blessing if I were you.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Walden or Larivee Guitar? Which iBetter?
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Mar 07 - 12:41 PM

Mooh writes:
I've never seen it spelled any other way than Larrivee (accent over first e) until now, have I been wrong?

You're right. I don't know why I mistakenly assumed the apostrophe after the L.
I knew Larriveé was the last name of Jean Larriveé.
Mea culpa!

Subject: RE: Walden or Larivee Guitar? Which iBetter?
From: GUEST,Stew
Date: 02 Mar 07 - 01:08 PM

Don't know much about Walden, but Larrivee is a quality instrument at sane prices. I've had 3 and loved 'em all.
Stew

Subject: RE: Walden or Larivee Guitar? Which iBetter?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 02 Mar 07 - 01:53 PM

Well, spaw, if you could read, which it often seems you can't, and if you'd seen the label in the instrument, which you haven't, you might not be talking from a position of total ignorance (which would then probaby be the first time in a lifetime) and you'd know that the label said that there was a lifetime guarantee in favour of the first retail purchaser, with no mention of the nationality or jurisdiction.

And in that context it would be right to include the rest of the world, unlike so many of the other respects in which neo-colonialist redneck imperialists like you (the type of person who make me so glad that I am not an American in America) seem to assume that what goes in the USA (unlike, usually, Detroit cars or US software, most of which spend less time working than not working, in that respect like Detroit workers these days) also goes elsewhere.

So stick your head up your arse and breathe deep. Keep your flatulence, literally and figuratively, to yourself. The world will then smell a little better for the rest of us.

Subject: RE: Walden or Larivee Guitar? Which iBetter?
From: catspaw49
Date: 02 Mar 07 - 02:36 PM

That was a pretty decent post Richard except for the spelling errors. "Probaby" was "probably" a simple typo but once again you Brits persist with that totally incorrect spelling of ass. It ruins the color and flavor of your message as would continuing with your usage of the equally incorrect spellings of flavor and color.

I am glad that in spite of all else you realize that to be American is to be always right. We have the money along with the greed and gluttonous habits to be the kind of world leader we have always been. Thank you too for sending Tony Blair to be our prison bitch as it is always better to have someone else to eat part of any blame we might incur.

I have to go blast one now.

Spaw----Super Patriot

BBBBRRRRRAAAAAWWWWWWMMMMMPPPP

........poit.....poit.....

.........aaaahhhhhhhh

Subject: RE: Walden or Larivee Guitar? Which iBetter?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 02 Mar 07 - 03:07 PM

Learn to read, learn to think, you bigots stink, you are the baby, probaby.

Subject: RE: Walden or Larivee Guitar? Which iBetter?
From: SharonA
Date: 02 Mar 07 - 03:31 PM

If the thread hijackers would please sit down and put their text box cutters away, we can return to the subject of the original discussion...

My vote is for Larrivee. I have one of their parlor guitars, strung with Nashville-tuned strings, and I'm very happy with it.

On the other hand, I don't know anything about Walden guitars. No one I know has one. No shop around here sells them, but checking the Walden site I see that there are only 3 dealers in Pennsylvania, none of them anywhere near Philly. No entries for "Walden" come up at the Mandolin Bros and Elderly Instruments sites.

Wilco, maybe you could tell us why Walden is one of your two choices. What is it about the Walden guitar that tempts you to offer it to customers instead of the Larrivee?

Subject: RE: Walden or Larivee Guitar? Which iBetter?
From: Ebbie
Date: 02 Mar 07 - 03:33 PM

Lost your sense of humoUr, Richard?

Subject: RE: Walden or Larivee Guitar? Which iBetter?
From: kendall
Date: 02 Mar 07 - 04:33 PM

Larrivee, hands down.They will sell themselves.

Subject: RE: Walden or Larivee Guitar? Which iBetter?
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 02 Mar 07 - 05:46 PM

What have I been missing here ?

Is the Bridge-Patterson feud of long standing, and what was the original bone of contention ?

Subject: RE: Walden or Larivee Guitar? Which iBetter?
From: bubblyrat
Date: 02 Mar 07 - 05:53 PM

The Larrivee is undoubtedly the better instrument . You can bet your arse ( or ass ) on that.

Subject: RE: Walden or Larivee Guitar? Which iBetter?
From: GUEST,dax
Date: 02 Mar 07 - 08:50 PM

I vote for Larivee over Walden and for arse over ass

Subject: RE: Walden or Larivee Guitar? Which iBetter?
From: bflat
Date: 02 Mar 07 - 11:40 PM

Don't know the othe but I love my Larrivee.

Ellen

Subject: RE: Walden or Larivee Guitar? Which iBetter?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 03 Mar 07 - 03:20 AM

The whole question is difficult to answer for us Brits. The prices of guitars are so different in America, I think also it depends on how and who you are intending to sell to.

The Walden reviews are very exciting, but obviously Larrivee is th one most people have heard of. Which guitar do you think you could make a an appealing demo of?

Also if you have new shop - look hard at back up. How approachable are the two companies. If you get shafted with a real dog of a guitar - you want to be able to send it back rather than pass on a world of trouble to a customer.

On reflection, I'd say develop a feel for the company. Who gives you confidence?

Subject: RE: Walden or Larivee Guitar? Which iBetter?
From: GUEST,rootbeerclub
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 11:13 AM

Both Larivee and Walden are swell...And one of these git makers ought to name a model after Tony Blair...