I was impressed one time too (although a little miffed at the same time). I needed a replacement Tremolo for my EVH guitar, and went to my local Ernie Ball dealer to get a price. 3 weeks later I had no info, so I contacted Ernie Ball directly. They called the store and told them the price and to get in touch with me with it. They then told me they would sell to me directly if I wanted to. The tremolo from them was $250.00 US, and my store was going to charge me $400.00 after their mark-up

My only beef was that I had to send the original tremolo back to them before I could get my replacement one. Now, I understand about proprietary hardware, blah, blah, blah; but when I bought the guitar I bought the tremolo with it, and I wouldn't have had too much of an issue if they would have at least sent me back my original tremolo after they confirmed I actually owned it, but they wouldn't do that. Or if they replaced it for free I would have been fine with it :tongue: In the end I bought a Gotoh tremolo (the exact same thing without the Ernie Ball stamp) for about half the price of that Ernie Ball was charging, and I got keep my original. Still outstanding company with outstanding service and instruments.