The End Records...How Far The Great Has Fallen

I used to love ordering stuff from this place, but over the past two years they have gone downhill steadily. It first started when they began adding all the mainstream screamo/metalcore bands; then they started adding indie rock bands and whatnot, while never stocking albums by bands they once would have stocked (like Bloodbound's debut, when it came out). The prices also creeped up a bit, but went up even further when they made their move to New York.

I appreciate that they want to sell what actually sells, but they're distancing themselves from selling what made them the best metal distro out there. Like 75% of the bands they sell are virtually unknown to me, pandered to the emo/screamo crowd that thinks Isis is a doom metal band. Now the prices are just retarded for some items. Their imports used to be $12! Now they're $20+ sometimes. There's a Krypteria CD there being sold for $36.99!

What the hell happened to this place? Am I the only absolutely disappointed in how they've changed directions?

Ahh, this makes sense!
I have never shopped there, but i noticed that a lot of metalheads highly recommended them.
So I have checked it out several times over the last year.
Just couldn`t understand what makes that shop so popular!
Guess you have answered that question Eyesore

Olafsto wrote:

Ahh, this makes sense!
I have never shopped there, but i noticed that a lot of metalheads highly recommended them.
So I have checked it out several times over the last year.
Just couldn`t understand what makes that shop so popular!
Guess you have answered that question Eyesore

It used to be killer. They would literally sell $30 imports for $12, with free shipping in the US. It was awesome! But then they became more of a label, and the product they sold reflected more of a mainstream appeal. And like I said, that's fine, but they also cut out a lot of the stuff they were built upon. I still order from there from time to time, but not as much as used to.

Meh, the end rarely has anything I want nowadays. Everything good and isn't a new release is always out of stockI recall it wasn't much different 2-3 years ago. Back then I preferred alldirect.com because it was quite a bit cheaper,had more in stock titles, and also had free shipping($99+ orders). Man, I miss that site. I know i'd still be using it all the time if it was still around.

One site that looks to be a frugal headbangers dream is sentinel steel. I say looks because they declined my order and i never got to purchase from them. so someone tell me about their sent steel experiences.

Sentinel Steel is/was good as well but they haven't updated their aite in a month or so. Yeah I can understand they are/were moving.
But lately they have lagged as well!

The End has great been getting a bigger head since their move I do buy from them from time to time. You can check out Lasers Edge but they are mostly progressive/power site with a few other genres.

Wargod48

I've used TheEnd rarely....I'm a big fan of CDINZANE. That guy will get anything for you if it's possible and he's very cool and reasonable to deal with. A fellow metalhead selling to metalheads so he knows his product and consumer. When he has a sale he has a SALE. The 10 CDS Momma's getting me for Christmas are from CDINZANE.

IF.....IF! You don't mind Russian/Eastern European label CDs (they AREN'T Bootlegs...they are real all the way around) I've found Nuclearhell.com to be a great resource. I've never ONCE has a problem with their product and often times their versions have content and packaging superior to US releases....

I too rarely order from The End anymore. I used to frequently but their selection has gone downhill.

Sentinel Steel is excellent. They just updated their site yesterday and they have some super obscure stuff. I have spent thousands of $ with them and I have never been disappointed. Order from them with confidence.

CDInzane - this place is very hit or miss. Sure, they claim to have tons of stuff but I have had numerous problems with them to include blaming me for a lost shipment, not sending backorders, shorting orders etc... They don' list what's in stock or not which is annoying too and their shipping is slow as all hell. I still will occassionaly order from them if they have some obscure release that I want but more frequently I see what they list and just order it from Amazon.

I still order from The End. Their prices are comparible, if not better than many other on-line sellers and free shipping, regardless of the size of the order is great.

However, I have seen their prices rise over the years. I purchased most of the Combat reissues on The End for around $10 each when they were released.

I also use CDBaby a lot. Not free shipping but I like supporting the independant artists and I tend to find a lot of stuff I like there.

ult

Never ordered from The End, but it sounds like I'm not missing much. I rarely order stuff thru the mail these days due to $$ being tight, but I usually use CM Distro (aka Century Media). Great selection and decent prices. I have ordered some stuff from Sentinel Steel in the past but it's been quite a few years now. Denis has got the good stuff!

I've only recently stating ordering from The End so I can't comment on their prices or catalog. My only complaint is that way too many items are out of stock.

I've also shopped from CM Distro, CD Baby and Open Grave Records without any hassles or major problems. However, as I've mentioned before in another post, when my order came in from Open Grave Records, the cd's, stickers and packing slips reeked of cigarette smoke. Ugh.

ensiferum2k wrote:

One site that looks to be a frugal headbangers dream is sentinel steel. I say looks because they declined my order and i never got to purchase from them. so someone tell me about their sent steel experiences.

Denis is a bit overprotective and is known to jump the gun and decline orders from unverified paypal addresses. Pay him via money order and you should be just fine. I always had only great experiences with him.

Don't get me wrong, The End still has some good deals, but in the past I'd spend $100 there easily. Now I buy one $15 CD at a time. Like last night, I bought the new Gates of Slumber split (even though those guys are dicks). In the past my order would have five or six CDs in it.

It's all preference of course. I see someone doesn't like Sentinel Steel, but I love them, and I've never had issues with them. Den is a great guy, knows a TON about metal, and his used section is killer.

On the other hand, I hate CD Inzane. Every time I've ordered something from them it's taken months to arrive, and not once has any import with bonus tracks shown up as the import with bonus tracks! So I wait months for the domestic version. Really annoying.

Another good place is CD Baby, like Ult said. Their $5 can't be beat. Right now I've $110 worth of $5 discs in my basket there. Haha. Great site.

stormspell wrote:

ensiferum2k wrote:

One site that looks to be a frugal headbangers dream is sentinel steel. I say looks because they declined my order and i never got to purchase from them. so someone tell me about their sent steel experiences.

Denis is a bit overprotective and is known to jump the gun and decline orders from unverified paypal addresses. Pay him via money order and you should be just fine. I always had only great experiences with him.

I wouldn't call it jumping the gun, nor would I blame Den. Too many people are theives out there. He probably got screwed over by too many people with unverified addresses. If you ship to one of those buyers you don't have the Seller Protection. I know Devin Townsend and his wife had this same issue a few years back; people would place a big order, and then claim it wasn't received or whatever it is they do, and they would lose the money and the merch.

By the way, old Stormspell's prices are great as well!

Yeah...I haven't gotten anything from Stormspell....yet....but I love to just go there and wish and browse. It's one of my favorites distros just aesthetically!!

Eyesore wrote:

Don't get me wrong, The End still has some good deals, but in the past I'd spend $100 there easily. Now I buy one $15 CD at a time. Like last night, I bought the new Gates of Slumber split (even though those guys are dicks). In the past my order would have five or six CDs in it.

I see that The End has changed their policy recently and now ALL their stock shows like IN STOCK, but when you order it, some of it is not... it is bloody annoying not only for the buyers, but also puts a lot of strain on small wholesalers like me. For instance I supply The End with releases from our comrades from Metalism Records. How it works is, I send The End wholebuyer with the upcoming Metalism titles - he tells me what and how many he wants. Then I call Metalism (which are located in Moscow) and they ship the stock on spindles to me. I jewelbox and forward to The End. It always worked well so far, but now the moment I sent the list to The End, and the titles are AVAILABLE on their distro, while in reality it takes at least a month to cover all logistics and transportation time before The End will have them... and if there is customs delay/label problem, it may take even more time (as it happened with the new ALKONOST - a title which has been on their caltalog for over a month now, but I'm yet to receive due production delay...). I dont know how they are gonna handle this, but I suspect there would be tons of angry and dissatisfied customers at The End soon.

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It's all preference of course. I see someone doesn't like Sentinel Steel, but I love them, and I've never had issues with them. Den is a great guy, knows a TON about metal, and his used section is killer.

Denis is a great guy. The only suggestion (and I've told him this many times) is that his site doesnt reflect the real availability, and if yu go to his Regular A-Z CD catalog, it is VAST, but only like 10% of those are in stock, with the majority already oop. So this could be quite dissapointing experience for someone who goes, sees 10 CDs he wants, and 24 hours later Denis e-mails him and says 9 titles are out of stock... Other than that, his customer service, shipping time, and packaging are simply unbeatable.

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On the other hand, I hate CD Inzane. Every time I've ordered something from them it's taken months to arrive, and not once has any import with bonus tracks shown up as the import with bonus tracks! So I wait months for the domestic version. Really annoying.

Seconded. I had placed only one orders with them and experienced all you mention above. Never again.

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Another good place is CD Baby, like Ult said. Their $5 can't be beat. Right now I've $110 worth of $5 discs in my basket there. Haha. Great site.

I was very annoyed with CDbaby at one time coz tons of bands would make DIY dirty-cheapo looking CDRs and put them there. I could live with the ones I got for $5, but there were bands like Graven Image who put their smurf poo for $15+ and it felt like a bloody rip-off to me.

I guess I wasnt the only one dissapointed, coz CDbaby has changed their policy since and now clearly label CDR releases as such and I will go hunting for some cool bands again.

Eyesore wrote:

I wouldn't call it jumping the gun, nor would I blame Den. Too many people are theives out there. He probably got screwed over by too many people with unverified addresses. If you ship to one of those buyers you don't have the Seller Protection. I know Devin Townsend and his wife had this same issue a few years back; people would place a big order, and then claim it wasn't received or whatever it is they do, and they would lose the money and the merch.

I'm not blaming Denis for doing it, it is his decision and obviously it works best for him this way.

I personally prefer to take the risk and accept all PayPal payments. A lot of people are just too lazy to verifytheir paypal address, and with international buyers, except for countries like Germany, UK, and Japan, the rest simply does not have an oprtion to verify with PayPal yet, so you either have to cut them completely off, or take the risk.

I've taken the risk and for the last 5 years I got only two chargeback attempts - both from lying eBay cheaters (domestic form USA). In both cases after I supplied PayPal with the delivery tracking numbers, both guys magically found their packages (one of them even send me e-mail congratulating me on keeping good shipping record, haha!).
Anyway, I know the day will comer when someone will stiffen me over paypal, but I think its worth the risk and give chance to all.

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By the way, old Stormspell's prices are great as well!

Thanks for the nice words man! I'm way overdue with site update and have tons of smurf poo lying here waiting to be put on. I will make the maximum effort to do it over the weekend and have some sort of x-mas sale over next week (free priority shipping or something similar) /end of shameless promotion

By the way your ARKONA Digibook ships today, in case you havent gotten the paypal shipping update yet.

I still check in with them from time to time. I remember reading a business article from a newspaper about a year ago on them, and I guess the move they made to Brooklyn plus the digital download has really been the factors in them raising prices and looking at different types of music that sells in order to stay in business.

scottmitchell74 wrote:

Yeah...I haven't gotten anything from Stormspell....yet....but I love to just go there and wish and browse. It's one of my favorites distros just aesthetically!!

Hehe, why thank you man! You make me feel uncomfortable as I trully believe the distro is but a shell of what it used to be and needs very serious updating... I've been giving a serious consideration of abandoning my pathetic feeble attempts of constantly rewriting the chaotic and barbarian PHP code my distro is based on, and switch to one of those customisable eCommerce platforms. The only problem is, it will take a lot of work, and I'm not up to it right now.

Or perhaps you are talking about the label portion of the site (http://www.stormspell.com/label)? It is plain old-fashioned html, but it does the job and I'm somewhat fond of the design and will keep it this way for a while.

Both....but maybe I'm just sucked in by the Wizard!

I like The End records, mainly because its one of the only distros that has both secular and Christian releases together. The prices are good and they ship quickly.

The End just doesn't have what I want anymore. I used to order from them a lot a few years ago. I agree they've gone downhill.

I ordered Skeletonwitch's new one from them recently and it took WAY too long to get. I had to email them and everything just to make sure they sent it. Lame. I hate waiting for more than one week for stuff. Especially when it's in this country.

Plus that they just don't have what I need most of the time. Last Saturday I wanted to order the new Pagan's Mind. Sure enough The End didn't have it. They used to have all the good imports. I went with Laser's Edge instead, and will probably do that from now on with all my prog/power stuff.

Mostly though I just stick with Amazon.com. They have what I need most of the time. Their selection is great, and sure their prices are more, but I'd rather pay a bit more and have great service. It usually takes my cds just 3 or 4 days to arrive from them.

I also use CDUniverse quite a bit.

stormspell wrote:

Denis is a great guy. The only suggestion (and I've told him this many times) is that his site doesnt reflect the real availability, and if yu go to his Regular A-Z CD catalog, it is VAST, but only like 10% of those are in stock, with the majority already oop. So this could be quite dissapointing experience for someone who goes, sees 10 CDs he wants, and 24 hours later Denis e-mails him and says 9 titles are out of stock... Other than that, his customer service, shipping time, and packaging are simply unbeatable.

Doesn't it say to e-mail him about availability first? I know it does with the used stuff, and to be honest, I mostly buy the used stuff from him since, as you mentioned, his prices are fairly steep.

And yes, I got the notification about the Arkona CD. I can't wait, man. Those samples were killer!

blackieboy wrote:

Plus that they just don't have what I need most of the time. Last Saturday I wanted to order the new Pagan's Mind. Sure enough The End didn't have it. They used to have all the good imports. I went with Laser's Edge instead, and will probably do that from now on with all my prog/power stuff.

I love Laser's Edge. Ken Golden signs some great bands and he's super honest. I love how in the album descriptions he'll write a negative review about the CD, even though he's trying to sell it! That takes some serious integrity, but I really respect it. I do wish his prices were cheaper, or he did free S&H or something. His used/clearance stuff is great, too.

This thread is making me realize I spend too much money on music. Haha.

blackieboy wrote:

Mostly though I just stick with Amazon.com. They have what I need most of the time. Their selection is great, and sure their prices are more, but I'd rather pay a bit more and have great service. It usually takes my cds just 3 or 4 days to arrive from them.

I also use CDUniverse quite a bit.

Very good place to by new mainstream releases is overstock.com - those guys have very good selection, GREAT prices, and shippipng is always flat $2.95

Eyesore wrote:

Doesn't it say to e-mail him about availability first? I know it does with the used stuff, and to be honest, I mostly buy the used stuff from him since, as you mentioned, his prices are fairly steep.

And yes, I got the notification about the Arkona CD. I can't wait, man. Those samples were killer!

Yes, the ordering is the same as with the used titles. What I mean is that people tend to get dissapointed if they ask for 10 CDs and get told half or more are not available...

I for one get very dissapointed and cancel orders, coz what I usually do is pick 2-3 CDs I REALLY want, and then add 5-6 cheapos more just to get advantage of the combined shipping cost. And if my main picks are N/A then I get sad and dont want the rest either