Duval County: Overview of the top 20 music shops

Отличный магазин

Very friendly and patient. Are happy to walk you through your purchase

Mr. Miguel is a genuinely amazing guy who is extremely resourceful and helpful to both student and advanced players of these stringed instruments. I really appreciate his generosity of loaning me one of his amazing Violins and Bows during the 1 month period that I was in Jacksonville at the USRowing Olympic Development Program. With his help, I was able to play Bach’s Chaconne, the National Anthem, Kreisler’s Praeludieum and Allegro, and Debussy’s Clair de Lune for hundreds of Athletes while at camp. Don’t hesitate to call the shop beforehand to arrange a pickup.
In short, I would highly recommend this Violin Shop to anyone out there 🙂

– Joshua Li, USA National Rowing Team (CJM2x)
p.s. big thanks to Aidan Andrzejewski, Ava Giangrasso, and Kate Hendershott for all of the instrument support!

The Violin Shop may know instruments, but they are terrible bookkeepers. We rented a violin for our daughter for a few months in 2014, and returned it when she didn’t show any interest. Now we’re getting notices from a bill collector –almost three years later– saying we owe The Violin Shop $583. We don’t have a receipt any more because, you know, almost three years…My wife tried to deal with the Violin Shop in person to help them correct their clerical error, and was met with rudeness. I would suggest buying a used instrument or a cheap entry-level instrument from an online retailer and not doing business with The Violin Shop.

Terrible customer service. Unethical and sneaky business practices. Completely disorganized bookkeeping. Owner is willing to lie to cover his own ineptitude. Disgraceful.

I have been a customer since 2011. I have brought dozens of students to his shop to rent or buy instruments. I myself had rented a cello from him in 2011 and had the payments on auto draft for a few years. I noticed that the payments were not being taken out, so the next time I was in his shop I asked him about it. He stated that I’d probably paid off the nakance so that’s why they stopped charging my card and kind of waived me off. Stupid me, I should have asked for a receipt showing I’d finished payments. Fast forward 3 years and a couple of days ago I starting getting calls from a creditor (a very belligerent person) stating I had stolen property…the cello from Miguel’s shop! So I called Miguel and asked him why I was getting these calls. He said he had no idea and he’d have to look up my account and call me back. Today I received another call from the creditor threatening to turn me into the police and I told them I would only talk to Miguel about it (I felt like I’d be a valued customer, so he’d get it straightened out with me, right?). So I called Miguel and he told me he had no record that I paid ANYTHING and demanded to know where the cello was. I told him I wanted to make this right, but I’d like to get a copy if his records before returning a cello that I’ve now had for 6 years and he hung up on me. VERY disappointed that he would treat a loyal customer this way. As a violin teacher I’ve brought many students to his shop to rent or purchase instruments. After consulting with the police they advised me to stop responding to the calls and if I get another threatening call, to file a harassment report.

Mike’s the best !!

These guys run a tight shop! Their amp and pedal selection is second to none, their guitars are well kept, and most importantly, the shop is CLEAN! Jack and Mikey are very friendly, and seen very willing to help find exactly what you need.

Handled my Vox AC30 beautifully. Thanks for the great work and customer service, guys!

Nice retro music storr

If you’re looking for a high end amp, a unique pedal, or an electric guitar that stands out in the crowd…Mockshop may have what you’re looking for. They are a niche store that’s geared towards tone tweakers. You won’t find any vintage or acoustic guitars there. It’s worth stopping in to see what they have.

Never open

Great people who treat their customers more than fair. Local and family owned business….support them please

Friendly family owned business with quality service.

Great resource for all styles of guitars and guitar equipment to include classical, jazz and heavy metal!
Phil

Dealing with the owner’s loud mouthed wife was nothing more than a big fat waste of me and my family’s time today.

Obviously from My approach I went and asked if they buy guitars they said Nonchalantly that they wasn’t That enough that they are receiving a big shipment in but they were buying something similar from a white couple this may not be what it look like it was I do not know I just know the website says they buy guitars and they refuse me almost immediately when I came in the door

Great price to deal with and the best equipment! They really know their stuff and go out of their way to help.

Top notch operator of arcade, pinball and other coin operated devices.

Great atmosphere, really delivers a family and friendly care and personalized service. If they don’t have a product or you require custom service they will still go above and beyond to meet your expectations. I highly recommend this store for all your music needs!

Great service from Shane

Very friendly. Great customer service and cheaper to get strings replaced here than other places I’ve been too.

Looking forward to actually buying a guitar.

Good people

This store is for guitars mostly. Well-stocked, they have acoustic and electric guitar products. This includes strings, amplifiers, and special effects attachments.

Nice place with plenty of guitars and accessories for them. Not much of anything else but the guy working there seemed friendly and knowledgeable.

I was really rushed the first time. And I purchased sound system now I am happy with it

Really busy place, and they buy used instruments. We went to sell a drum set. The owner said to bring it by the next day at the same time. We did, but he wasn’t there, and to please come back two hours later. So we did. Two hours later, and he still wasn’t there. We waited and his son came. He never looked at our drum set and said it wasn’t worth what his father had said it was

Limited variety in guitars and amps

What can I say? I love music and this is my place.

Service outstnding

The men assisted me with my new keyboard stand

I have bought a lot of equipment from them I do not have the misunderstanding that a lot of people do that they should get top dollar for their trade in. I always say if I wanted a top dollar for it I would just sell it myself and deal with the looky-loos and the people who don’t understand final offer. so for the convenience of having it done and over with, I think they do pretty well with the trade in. But once again to those of you who wish to complain try to sell it yourself and you will see at some point in time depending on what you’re trying to get rid of that no one likes it as much as you do.

Bought a used zilbel good price. The service wasn’t good. Took 30 minutes to get help and check out.

Good place to pick up anything you may need to go with you guitars or instruments. The prices can be poor depending on what you may be getting. The older staff has a certain respect for the store that the younger employees seem to lack it was very hard to get anyone to check us out and it ended up being an older gentleman who was helping others throughout the store. Overall easiest place to pick something up if you’re willing to put up with the wait

Been in here a handful of times with the exception of two employees this is not a place I enjoy going in. Slow unhelpful service and the policies are always changing. My son has changed his own bass strings for years and never had issues. He tried out a new brand and two strings in one broke, I took them back to see if they would replace them and even though they were just bought was told no. Defective or not they won’t swap them out. I have had great service from two employees so I hate to leave a negative review but today’s visit stacked on a few bad visits in the past leave me wanting to share.

MUUUUCH better deals with other online stores

Nobody there to do repairs

Friendly and fair! Chip earned my business

I had a fender jazz bass with a jack that was for all practical purposes removable only by cutting it out. I didn’t know the issue. I had the opportunity to go to 3 or 4 places that were closer. I remember Chip from 30 years ago taking our Church orders and giving us outstanding service. I thought I have to go to Chip, it’s the right thing to do. Once I arrived, Chip at the end of the day said I can do it while you wait. That really was awesome. We didn’t know what we were getting into. A few dremel cuts and an hour and a half later he got it done. No chance it could have been done that fast or that well or possibly at all any where else.
Go to Chip if you have a choice on where to go.
First class guy and first class service.
Thanks Chip.

A few weeks after taking my guitar to Chip’s it began to redevelop the buzz I was trying to get rid of.
I called and informed him of the problem and he reminded me of the warranty that comes with the service I paid for, and reassured me that he could fix the problem.
Today my guitar sounds better than it ever has thanks to Chip.
Honesty and integrity are hard to come by when taking instruments in for small repairs. I took my guitar to two other places before I took it to Chip’s. One place told me there was nothing more I could do to it. The other wanted to charge me double what I was charged by Chip.
If you’re reading the reviews for this shop it’s not by coincidence; this is fate!
Give your instrument over to the care of Chip.
I truly believe that you won’t regret it!

Took my guitar in to reglue the bridge, they didnt remove the bridge to reglue it, they just stuck some glue under either end, and of course it came up again. I took it back, asked Chip to do it properly, they did the same thing to it and it pulled up again a couple days later. I finally took it to Dale’s and he removed the bridge and glued it properly and its been absolutely fine for months now. Lesson learned. I take all my work to Dale now.

owners were cool dudes. good taste in krautrock

A lot of selections, perfect for music junkies!

Fun place to visit and browse. Super large inventory of cds, and records.

If you have time to go through it all wow! The most used records and cds I’ve seen in a long time.

Big collection, decent selection, no air conditioning though…

This is a nice record store, but not overly impressed with the selection. I found alot of music staples missing. I would classify this as a record warehouse, and not so much a record store.

My wife and I recently returned from a road trip to Jacksonville and visited Wolfson Equipment and Records. We always visit one or two indie record stores in every city we visit and after reading the online reviews decided to check it out. BIG MISTAKE!

Entering the store we walked in past a guy who was painting something who did not acknowledge us whatsoever (he did work there as we noticed once inside he was just fascinated hanging T-Shirts from the roof). Once inside the door we were greeted with a blasting of excruciatingly loud music. We walked past an office with a guy sitting there on the phone (assume it was the owner) and my wife pointed to him that the music was really loud – all he did was smile and wave. We both love loud music but the volume was just intolerable. The guy never came out of the office and obviously we were on top of the pay no mind list.

I quickly scanned the shop for a new release section / rack (couldn’t find anything resembling new releases) and went to the record bins. So many were empty and the ones that had vinyl in them contained a lot of used tired old records that I’ve seen so many times in other stores normally found in the bargain bins. For CD’s, just a mess piled up one on top of another against the back wall. Pathetic excuse for a “music” store.

In over 50 years of travelling the world and visiting hundreds on indie record stores, this one was ABSOLUTELY the WORST. Save your valuable time if you are looking for music, don’t bother with this place. If you are looking for a black T-Shirt, then this just might be the place for you.

I would give this place ZERO stars if possible, you must provide at least one to post a review.

The Owner of the establishment is not only poor on customer service but actually had to have the nerve to come out and put a note on my car where i parked saying NOT TO PARK HERE WOLFSON RECORDS CUSTOMER PARKING ONLY!…He does this while i am shopping in the store. When i confronted the man that is heavy set with no hair he looked at me like i was crazy for coming in to confront him on why he went out to put a note on my car. The funny thing is there are no signs stating which parking is for whom and when i contacted the property manager he was already aware that this nasty man does it on a daily basis to any vehicle parked outside of his establishment. The owner was so nasty that I will no longer go to this establishment ever again and will be sure to tell everyone in my network to not deal with this company. Next thing you know you will have a flat tire because your car was parked in a free parking space for to long. He has no legal right to classify any parking spot as “HIS” and the Property Manager will not give him the right to label any parking space as “HIS” for Wolfson Records…This was an absolute horrible experience. DO NOT GO HERE YOU WILL DEAL WITH AN OWNER THAT HAS NO CARE FOR CUSTOMER SERVICE AND NO CARE FOR PEOPLES ABILITY TO PARK IN A FREE AND UNMARKED PARKING SPACE!

Basically a warehouse overflowing with albums nobody wants

Awesome place

Very good place to shop for records. Owner very nice.

Decent prices, most of the records are in great shape. An old building, but they’re making the best of it; it’s very nice inside. On the rare occasion you find something that looks warped or moderately scratched, you can give it a spin on the equipment they have set up. The owners know their stuff.

I love looking through old CDs. This store has a large collection of record albums and a smaller selection of CDs. There wasn’t a lot of organization to the CDs but that’s usually the case. Prices were ok too.

Nice little shop, somewhat overpriced at times.

Good variety of albums. Some CD ‘s. Also some signed memorabilia , posters, lunchboxes,etc.

Place looks much bigger in the pictures. Tried to sell the cashier some hard to find 12 inch singles and the guy offered me an unbelievably low offer. The guy claimed that no one would be interested in these records, but doing research on the internet tells me otherwise. Cashier was very pretentious and claimed he knew a lot about music. I was not impressed by there personal selections of Elvis records and k-tel compilations. Complete waste of time going there. If you are a serious record collector, music producer, dj, avoid this place. You will be more lucky finding something at your local Goodwill store. Records were also in poor, beat up conditions. You could not pay me to take any records from there.

Real bummer on the quantity of actual records on record store day available. Called in advance this week to be told atleast 3 of a record my brother was interested in would be there. Showed up right before 6:30 am to be early for the day, only to be told there were no copies to sell. Also had 6 additional records on my own personal list with not a single copy available. With only a few people in front of us it was simply that they didn’t have them. Walked out empty handed and disappointed.

These people are vampires who will only pay the most minimal amount for good records – and then sell them for hgh prices. The seller deserves a fair offer for his records instead of the ludicrous $1.00 or $2.00 offers they make for records that are sought after and desirable. These people are dishonest and without integrity plain and simple. Will never visit their store again. Don’t try to sell your records there, their offers are insulting and they are purely there for themselves and don’t care about buyers or sellers.

Super awesome, Jordan’s one of the most helpful people ever!

Staff is attentive & knowledgeable. Better customer service experience over the competition. I like this store!

Great customer service, excellent prices, best staff in town!

Staff was cool, but the store kinda sucks. None of the guitar strings I use were there and also had a very limited selection of Remo drum heads and an even lower selection of symbols. Not worth the drive I had to go to get what I needed. I guess if you want a new rig then yeah they had a large selection of guitars, bass, and some drumming stuff. But I’m probably not going back, oh yeah, guitar center across the street wasn’t any better…..

Stopped into the Jacksonville store and was surprised by how organized the store was. Every item was price marked. It was smaller than my local Clearwater store but way more organized.
For this – 5 Stars.

Now I purchased a Katana 100 amp, new in box. I prefer to buy in the box because there are usually items missing from display purchases and I like to get what I pay for. While I was looking for other Christmas items the amp was moved a couple times not knowing the employee set it aside for me while I shopped. Well that being said when I got back to Tampa and opened the box, the amp was damaged. It must have taken a hard hit because the Tolex covering was ripped in a few places.
For the experience – 1 Star. I didn’t bother plugging it in.

I’ll be exchanging it locally this morning. So for now 3 stars. Let’s see how the exchange goes.

Sam Ash used to be a fun place for me and my boys to visit. We have purchased several instruments from here before. We always interact with Zach, he’s the best with customers. Today unfortunately, my son was there playing and trying out the drum set and was told rudely by the broke Jack Black look a like in the store, that there was a 10 min limit to play the instruments. However, there were several people playing other instruments in the store and were not told the same. Fortunately, there is a guitar center just across the street. I will take my business elsewhere.

Just

Disappointing experience here. They had a guitar listed on Reverb. It was $200 cheaper. I called to verify they had the guitar for which they said they did. Drove an hour to purchase it. It was marked higher for which they told me was a different guitar. The nice salesman asked to match the price for which they didn’t. $200 cost them many many more dollars in several thousand dollar guitars. Cheers

Very friendly staff. Only issue I have is their buy back policy. Purchased a Gibson Les Paul Classic 2019 in Jan 2019 for $2200.00. Just had it for 3 months in new condition, they only offered me $1000.00 with non- negotiable policy.

The music was absolutely beautiful! It fit the mood and they can play any song! Walking down the aisle to Blackbird- by The Beatles made my dad waking me down the aisle even more special. 100% recommend having the violin and cello

Absolutely perfect. They played so beautifully which only added to the perfection of our ceremony. Would 100% hire again.

Hello Viktoriya, I apologize I haven’t written to you sooner. It has taken me a few days to get myself together after the wedding.
We were so happy with your music! It sounded spectacular at the ceremony. Like you said the music carried well in the Lightner Museum. The music was perfect for the girls that sang during the ceremony. You were excellent during the cocktail hour it was the perfect background music just like we asked for. I cannot compliment you enough!! You were always so professional everytime we spoke or met. I really liked how detail oriented you were and always asking very specific questions on what we wanted. That quality of service is exactly what we were looking for. Thank you for the wonderful job!! Please know you can always use me as a reference if needed. I will make sure to tell our wedding planner how happy we were with you and to recommend you for future clients.
Thank you again!!
Maria Domingoes (Mother of the bride)

In the past, I have always built my own tube guitar amplifiers. After selling a lot of gear before moving to Florida, I found myself in need of an amp but not having my tech bench setup or the time for the build. It literally took me four (4) attempts over as many weeks to get what I needed due to vendor issues.

Attempt 1 was via Reverb, where the contracted seller backed out without notice (and no negative action by Reverb), adding a full week’s delay. Never again.

Attempt 2 was a Laney amp via Amazon. It functioned for exactly 30 seconds before failing. Laney refused to allow me to purchase a service manual for an amp design from 1967 (not exactly cutting edge technology). I returned via Amazon, only to be told my funds would be returned within 30 days AFTER the vendor received the amp back. After a lot of complaining, that process took another 2 weeks.

Attempt 3 was my first attempt at a major purchase via Walmart plus in an effort to swear off Amazon. All looked well, though shipping would be a little tight for when I needed the amp. Later the same day, however, I got an email stating Walmart security/fraud department found “strange” activity on my account (because I actually ordered something perhaps?) and cancelled the order. Again after complaining, the issue was resolved and I was told I could reorder after about 4 hours. I politely declined, but at least received an instant refund.

Fourth time was the charm. I found Mason at Liberty Music up the road a few hours from me in Jacksonville, FL. Great communication, fair prices and handled my shipping/delivery timeline perfectly. Truly wonderful to be able to order online from a local merchant without having to deal with the mindless, “customer service” contractors employed by big online retailers.

Looking forward to my next purchase with Liberty!

Mason has a great new business there at Liberty Music Inc. His knowledge and level of customer service are qualities that musicians at all levels can appreciate.

I bought a 3 pack of phosphorus bronze strings from Amazon that were shipped to me from Liberty Music Inc. in Jacksonville, Florida. Unfortunately, it was the wrong type of strings. I quickly notified Liberty, they immediately sent new strings, and told me to keep the incorrect set. There was no hassle, they apologized profusely, and sent out new strings immediately. I wish all customer service experiences could be like that from liberty. Top notch!

Recommended

Absolutely loved my new strings

Shipping took a little longer than my usual purchase from Amazon