Awesome Power

Every now and again we get a product that is just so incredibly good at its job, you just smile.

The AER Compact 60 Acoustic Amplifier is a mere 10" x 13" x 19" and weighs just 8kg (approximately) yet it produces 60 watts of pure undistorted power through two channels. It is a seriously powerful piece of kit in a tiny box. It's just unbelievable that such a tiny box can produce so much powerful undistorted sound.

It's ideal for acoustic guitarists, in fact any acoustic instrument will work well with it, as will digital drum kits. There are digital effects on board in case you want to play around with the sound, and it comes with a specially designed carrying case. Yes, a sixty watt amplifier combo that you can sling over one shoulder!

It's hand-built in Germany, so don't expect it to be cheap, but the sheer quality -- stunning!

Phone Trauma

Many thanks for the messages of sympathy and support.

We've almost got it sorted out now - but we're still finding odd things that have been affected. Voicemail to the workshop doesn't seem to work at the moment, and for a few days we weren't able to recredit the franking machine because it needs to (automatically) call a premium number to perform the transaction. We'd put a block on all premium line calls as soon as we found out what was going on, not imagining for one minute that regular activity would be affected. The result was that we had to queue up at the Post Office every day to get the internet and mail orders sent off. It was like going back to the stone age. How does the Post Office get away with making so many people waste so much time queueing? Answers on a postcard.....

Now comes the row about who pays for the three days of phone calls to premium numbers. I'm just relieved we weren't hit as badly as one victim, who was apparently taken for £18000 !

VAT Rise Non-News

The good news this January is that printed music and books are completely unaffected by the rise in VAT - because they've always been Zero-rated for VAT. It always surprises me how few of the general public realise that. There isn't VAT on fresh food either.

Lots of our products are not increasing in price- in particular Naxos CDs - still great value at £5-99. Inevitably a few of our suppliers have taken the opportunity to issue new price lists, incorporating the new VAT rate, but on the whole the effect on our prices will be barely noticeable. Not really surprising, as the amount of the increase is only one forty-seventh of the original price. Perhaps it's not such a big deal after all.....

Our Phone - Stop Thief!!!

If you've been trying to ring us in the last few days and not been able to get through, it might be because some nasty little villain has hacked into our phone system, and been phoning all over the world on our (pirated) phone lines. It turns out that this a huge racket, so big it appears to be automated!

This has created a number of difficulties for our business which we are working to resolve as quickly as possible. We are still able to receive most calls, but if you can't get through, please try again a few minutes later. We hope to have things fixed tomorrow, fingers crossed.

Happily our email - sales@balaamsmusic.co.uk is still working and should elicit a reasonably quick reply !

Matt or CATM?

Well, here we are faced with a dilemma - go with the local support for former Stoke College pupil Matt Cardle, or make it a vote against Simon Cowell and support Cage Against The Machine - the campaign to get the celebrated four minutes and thirty three seconds of silence downloaded enough times to make Number one in the Christmas Charts.

Well, however it goes, you can now buy the printed score for 4'33" from us, and - wait for it - we can also supply the Tee Shirt. Quite a good quality one too, as you'd expect from Peters Edition, but sadly, not in my size, or at least, not yet.

RATS !

We've just received some amazing music stands into stock. They come from a company called RAT manufacturing, who are the market leaders in professional quality music stands in this country, having equipped most of the major concert venues and theatres in the UK - and many overseas too.

It was Robert Hodge the conductor who recently reminded me about them, saying how brilliant their Jazz stand is. You just get it out of the bag, pull it up to the height you want and there you are. All done in three moves. No knobs, screws, nuts or bolts. It will go to any angle. And more or less any height from the youngest cellist upwards. Beautifully engineered and incredibly practical.

As you might guess, the Jazz stand is not "cheap and cheerful", but we have another RAT stand, their "Scherzo", that is - only it too oozes quality. It's an incredibly lightweight folding stand in a bag, beautifully made, and weighing in at a mere 742 grams including the bag ! All that for less than twenty quid.

Oh, and one more thing....RAT Manufacturing = British Company !!

Another Flute Giveaway !

Every now and again we have to have a move-around of stock, making way for new lines, featuring different instruments, and just creating a bit of space. This can result in some of our demonstration instruments needing to be sold off at very low prices.

Today, fortune smiles on Flute players. We have just ONE Pearl PF-525 flute for sale at half-price, that's £249 instead of £499 !

The PF-525 is a high-quality silver-plated flute with precious metal lip-plate and riser. It features French-pointed keys and pinless mechanism, which reduces the likelihood of corrosion in the mechanism. Pearl Flutes are renowned for good intonation.

This is a seriously good flute at a bargain-basement price!