You hit a lot of good points!! I agree with what you said if you get better deals online you’ll go online. My local shops act like they don’t want my money so I’ll go to Sweetwater or reverb. Not sure if it’s the area around me or what, but I prefer the GC over the mom/pop shops around here. Ngl my GC has some good employees although I don’t agree with them all the time with trade in value or how they price some gear frankly.
The hb 35 plus is the one that started the harley benton love for me. It is fantastic, the humbuckers sound great and it is a flawless great guitar. I would not have ever thought of buying a hollow body and for the price of one brand guitar I now have a great choice of form factors like tele, vintage strat etc. The cst 24 also is a great one. I would love to try a firefly but they are not available in Germany unfortunately. If you know otherwise let me know 😊
Dude, just this week I took my 2003 Ibanez RG1527 to get serviced on Wednesday 8/21, picked it the next day, the repair tech did an awesome job. When I went to talk to someone about ordering the Apex30, the dude talked way too much on trying to get me to apply for the in-store credit card. That card has a default percentage rate of 29.99 %. I told him I have the funds, I just had to wait for stuff to clear first. He was more concerned about his card bonus than he was the sale. And after watching this, I'm afraid to even order the guitar from them, as it could be a floor model for all I know. Grrrr
I graduated High School in 2000 . My youth “sweet spot” was 1995-2005 . During this time I got into Dance music, DJing and music production. My favorite stores to spend time in were Guitar Center, Barnes & Nobel, Best Buy/Circuit City and GameStop … It’s weird seeing all these stores either go away or in spot that’s a shadow of their former selves. 😢
I’ve spend a lot of time at the 3 GC in my area recently. My observations, almost no available employees. Horrible selection in the special Taylor / Martin room. And the set-up on those expensive guitars are horrible. Crazy observation, I had to wait for my receipts to be printed because they don’t have a printer at the front counter. So the staff has to walk across the store to get your receipt. Really? What I do like, online they have a large selection of used guitars, some at very good prices, and a 45 day return policy. The employees I have meet and spoke with seemed nice.
Here in germany we don't have a nationwide selling guitar store with shops in every big city... There is the big T (Thomann) wich is more like sweetwater, so no little stores around the country, just one online behemoth...
I agree with your take on GC but people will lament losing this store and I would be very sad to see it disappear from our mall. I have bought a few good things from them but I spend equally with the locally owned long time music store in my town also
You get what you pay for. With Harley Benton, you get a product that seems good at first but is made cheaply. And if you have a problem, you have to contact Germany to get it resolved. Good luck.
I agree with everything you said. They're on borrowed time at this point...they'll be joining Sam Ash. If you refuse to evolve with technology and be customer centric you won't last.
My buddy just bought a fake guitar made in china on their website in the used. Chibson 😂 He tried to call customer service and they hung up at every turn. But they have 45 days return policy. 1200$ for a POS fake guitar. They obviously don't hire people who know what they are doing... 😂
I bought a new D18 a few months ago and the bridge was defective. It is covered under the Martin warranty but I bought the pro coverage so I was going to let GC repair it. Turns out that it would void any future repairs in that area under the lifetime martin warranty. So I asked if they could trade it out for another D18. They didn't want to do that but they essentially totalled it under their warranty to pay me back so that I could buy another D18. When I went back to get the other "new" D18, it was covered in hand prints/smudges and the strings were corroded. I honestly thought they were trying to sell me a used guitar. It still sounded perfect, so I decided to get it anyway since the original one will most likely be gone for a couple of months. Oh and the manager wanted the original one back. Nope. That one is either mine or the insurance company's. A totalled car does go back to the dealer to be repaired and sold again.
I have access to 3 GCs, each one run very differently. Coming form decades of musical instrument retail, I had begged the GC management closest to me (which they FINALLY made the following change a few years ago) to understand that guitar accessories cannot be behind a counter where you have to ask a busy salesperson to get it for you- accessories must be on kiosks b/c older people (the people with most of the money) can't even see that far behind the counter. I'm still trying to get them to understand why it's bad for business to keep guitars up high so customers can't even see them. Also, keeping better instrument up high denotes "out of reach" for not only budding musicians, but for parents, thus helping to murder future clientele. It is better to keep them at eye-level behind glass which gives them more perceived value. Never mind having to ask a sales person who then needs to go find and climb "the ladder of shame" just to get it down and put it away. How demoralizing and anti-sales is that? I gave these suggestions without suggesting they were doing something wrong, just to offer professional help to pass onto upper management at corporate.
Great reviews! I picked up the slash Epiphone without the amp and this guitar is fun! Well built sounds great too and even has an onboard tuner on the pickup 🫠 the sustain is forever! I’ve been playing since I was 16 I’m 62 now 🥶 so I’ve had a few guitars 🎸 Anyways just wanted to put that out there, it’s a great guitar for the price 🤙🏾
Seeing the Kaman name reminds me of a different form of corporate consolidation. Kaman Aerospace in Bloomfield, CT primarily does vibration analysis of helicopter blades, going back to before corporate raiders tore apart United Technologies with Sikorsky, Pratt & Whitney, Otis, and Carrier, and mixed in former Raytheon. Kaman owned Microtime (NTSC video time base correctors), a home medical electronics company, and several brands of drums and percussion on top of the guitars line. That positioned them to do serious acoustic analysis by audio vibration and stroboscopic high speed photography, using military and aerospace tools, from sister companies on site.
The biggest drawback I've found about Harley Benton is that the Reverb store doesn't offer everything in the line up. I've been trying to get a hold of a DC Junior, but they only seem to be offered on the Thomann website. The other drawback is that that every DC Junior I've seen detailed in RU-vid videos seems to have the intonation be just slightly off. Maybe that's what's coming through on the video, but something about it just seemed not right. By they way, I'm really looking forward to part 2 of your Hamer documentary.
Guitar Center also charges $120 for a full guitar set up. I found a guy at local shop that's been around for 40 years set up my new Fender Custom shop for $30! He did an excellent job!.
i love Guitar Center. I have friends that work there, and I love going up there to hang out and jam with the guys. That being said, I only buy high end guitars at this point of my career. I will not buy one from Guitar Center. Their high end guitars are in the Platinum room hung on locked hooks. People try to turn the guitars in the locked hanger messing up the neck and headstock. They rarely have more than couple high models and they are already on the floor. You can't order it online because 90% of the time your order will be shipped from another store where the guitar was treated the same. When I spend $5K+ on guitar I don't want 50 people to have touched it and played before I did. I still go to Guitar Center and hang out occasionally. I try out guitars, and then I buy it from Sweetwater. There's a $11,000 PRS Private Stock on the wall at my Guitar Center I've lusted after for 3 years. The price was finally reduced to $8,000. I was tempted, but it they dropped the price because everyone and their brother played it and now it has wear. Who on Earth buys a $10K Floor model??? Blows my mind.
Better than either fender or Gibson. Not as good. Better. Gibson and fender sucked 70's-80's into the 90's even. That kind of money for a guitar they should be zero warrenty repairs.
Over 20 years ago, I went to GC with 1500$ in cash to by my first Les Paul. There were 3 asswipe salesguys looking at me like yeah right your gonna buy it. I was 22 and assume these pricks thought i wasnt worth getting off their ass to get the lp down from the top row. So i found the head douchebag who acted worse. I then pulled out the cash waved it around and walked out asking if they knew how late sam ash was open. They all followed me as i pretended my car was half a mile away. Then they followed me begging back to gc where my car really was.💩
My daughter sold guitars at the LA store. The pressure to sell the pro coverage was brutal. She HATED working there. Having said that, I do believe they have provided a valuable service in that you can actually see and play guitars you are considering. It’s more and more looking like the future will be watching online reviews, comparisons, testimonials, and making your decisions sometimes without ever seeing or holding the instrument in person. Alamo music does a great job of providing demos and comparisons, but they will probably end up succumbing to the pressure of trying to make it as a brick and mortar.
I first heard of Hamer Guitars when Glenn and KK started playing them in Priest. Kk's red and white custom v was was sick that he started playing on the Defenders tour i wanted that guitar so bad and i always ❤ Glenn's custom black and white and his white and black guitars they made for him on the Turbo tour. They also made KK's mini V wich he played for a long time. I didn't really like the mini V. I was happy when he stopped playing it. More happy when he got rid of that perm. 😂 🤘🤘
Brian does interview Rick. Those clips in particular are from Brian's show "Rather Have The Story" RU-vid channel. I've linked the full episode below. Brian was nice enough to allow me to use the footage for this video.
