Anyone buy musical instruments online?

OK, so I've been poking around, but I need to hear some personal experience. I'd like to know if there are any reputable places to buy musical instruments online for a good price.

See, my birthday is coming up and I said I wanted a professional electric piano. No, not a synthesizer. Those have 256 crappy sounds and drum sets and a bunch of useless sequencing features. An electric piano has 5-10 good sounds and a full-size board.

So then my dad goes and bids on a Roland EP5 on eBay. He said he "did his research". That means he looked for the cheapest thing that was sort of what I wanted and read the page over and over until he was convinced it was worth it. The thing only has 61 keys and it reeks of 1990's General MIDI. So now I need to hurry up and find a GOOD one that I can chip in a few hundred for before he sends off the check.

I've never done that, but I may suggest that you always do your own shopping and never tell anyone what you want, cuz they'll buy you the wrong thing and guilt you into keeping it.

AFAIK Roland digital pianos are high quality...

I'd look around for deals on XP80 workstations though.

Bucket said:

OK, so I've been poking around, but I need to hear some personal experience. I'd like to know if there are any reputable places to buy musical instruments online for a good price.

ebay vendors with ridiculous amounts of positive feedback are the only ones I've ever bought major hardware from online, and although I've not had a problem, it depends on the individual vendor so I can't recommend ebay as a whole. The last purchase was years ago though, so I couldn't refer you to the seller anyway.

Though I didn't really buy an electric piano (a black pocket trumpet), I would say Musician's Friend is reputable if the price isn't too steep, even the delivery was good too.
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/?src=00633/

If you're looking for online music (that's shipped to your house, not pdf) I hear hickeys.com has a great piano selection, but again, I've only bought trumpet stuff there too.
http://www.hickeys.com/

I shop at Sam Ash (in real life) but I assume they're online service is trustworthy. However I've only bought things in person.

Bucket said:

So then my dad goes and bids on a Roland EP5 on eBay. He said he "did his research". That means he looked for the cheapest thing that was sort of what I wanted and read the page over and over until he was convinced it was worth it.

Oh, and this is why I always only ever ask for money on holidays.

I would never buy instruments online without some kind of right of return if I don't like it. You can read all the reviews you want, but there's no guarantee you won't think it sounds like a drunk hillbilly blowing a jug.

I have bought guitars of the net. I the best way I have found is to go to the manufacturers web site and use one of there recommended dealers.

Its best way to get any gear of the net. Most manufacturers research dealers they use on there site. So they can be trusted .