If you have need of musical instrument repair, I STRONGLY recommend you stay away from this place! Customer service is horrendous. Our experience with lessons there has been ok, but definitely won't be back. As Mike Brady said, caveat emptor. Wound up filing a complaint with the BBB. Our sad story follows, if you're interested:
My son took up the clarinet. First we rented one, because we weren't sure if he'd like it or not. After a few months, a friend of a friend gave us a nice Selmer clarinet that was not being used anymore. However, it needed to be recorked, cleaned, and, according to The Music Place, completely repadded. So we went ahead with it, and also bought a new case. After all was said and done, we spent over $200.
I went to pick up the clarinet, opened it up, and looked at it. I took a finger to the inside and brownish-gray gook came out. I examined the rest of the clarinet and it was clearly not clean. Therefore I sent it back to be re-cleaned.
I went to pick it up and examined it again. It looked cleaner, but still not completely clean. I decided to give up on that part of it and took the thing home. My son excitedly put it together and found that he could not play it. It was difficult to get sound to come out. Not knowing anything about clarinets myself, I immediately contacted his music teacher. She came over and tested it. She confirmed it was not right. She wrote a note telling them what to take a closer look at.
I took the clarinet back. They had it out awhile longer and simply repeated that there was nothing wrong with it. We took it home, tried again, and it was just as unplayable as before. They still insisted their technician, Dave, was an "expert" (despite the fact that he does play the clarinet, but perhaps that is neither here nor there), had been doing this for 20 years, and services the local schools' instruments.
Since it was clear I was getting nowhere, I thought I'd take it to another music store. I took it to Pleasantville Music Shoppe because I'm familiar with them and grew up in that area. I thought a minor adjustment of some kind would be necessary. I told them what had happened and plunked down my $30 to have their tech take a look.
About a week later, to my great surprise, they informed me that they'd never seen anything like it. The pads were not "seated" properly. Excessive amounts of glue had been used. It was not sealing properly, therefore air was leaking out and sound was difficult to produce. For an adult or professional musician with experience, they might be able to produce sound, but basically it was a sloppy job and not acceptable. They said that The Music Place ought to repair the mistake. I told them that The Music Place in Berlin refuses to concede that there IS anything wrong with the instrument at all.
After several very sad and unprofessional conversations with Ken at The Music Place in Berlin (the next to last one left me in tears), I realized that I didn't want to put any more money into the instrument. Pleasantville Music Shoppe's tech felt that the damage was so extensive they'd need to strip the thing and start over again. It would cost me $250 to make the thing playable again. I asked if they wanted to buy it from me for anything, and they said that it is not resellable in its current state, without considerable work done on it, therefore it's not worth anything to them. The most they could do is salvage the parts.
I'm left with a useless clarinet I will sell for parts and an empty clarinet case. So I'm buying a brand new clarinet for about $700, including the new case.
What has made me very upset about this whole incident is how senseless it is. I am in the market for drums and a digital piano for another son, and The Music Place just shot themselves in the foot. For $150 they bought themselves one very jaded customer and lost thousands of dollars worth of my future business. I have also contacted the local schools to tell them of my experience, urging them to remove The Music Place from their list of recommended music stores. Interestingly, it seems that our local school's music teachers, though about 40 minutes or so away, patronize Pleasantville Music Shoppe. (The Music Place is only about 15 minutes from here, much closer.)
Worst of all, Ken accused my son's clarinet teacher of being inexperienced and not knowing what she's talking about (not true, clarinet is her instrument), refused to have their tech speak to the tech at Pleasantville (despite my urging them to connect), said the problem was solely due to my novice son's aperture/inexperience, and more than implied that I was making the whole thing up. To the last comment, I asked him what in the world I would gain from all this? I have four kids, including two toddlers, who I have had to drag around this whole time.
Bottom Line: Stay away. Also, be warned they really only deal in guitars. Go someplace where they know what they're talking about and value their customers! read more
