Your Top-13 list of music shops in Navas

We have an extremely talented 10 year old bass player and we were ready to buy him his first quality bass. The store was clean, easy to navigate, the staff was all nice, knowledgeable and accommodating. And we accomplished our mission of finding the perfect bass! Great experience, great store!

My partner (guitar/bass) and I (drums, composition/film scoring, studio production) have been going to the New Haven Sam Ash store for four years now and we’ve had nothing but the best experiences. Between the two of us we’ve probably purchased equipment from every section of the store and along the way we’ve interacted with much of the staff. They’re always very friendly and knowledgeable, and a lot of them have used the equipment you might ask about, which gives you a great perspective before you buy. I’ve never had a single problem in four years with anything I’ve purchased here, and I’ve never had an experience in the store that I was unhappy with. On the contrary, the staff here consistently goes out of its way for the customer. If you’re going to drop hundreds of dollars on gear, why not do it somewhere where you, your work, and your business are valued to the highest standard of excellence?

I stopped in to check out your saxophones.
The two sales guys were both helpful and knowledgeable. I look forward to visiting your store again.

Lots of inventory, could use more staff to attend customers, but overall good location and parking

Good store, they low ball on prices for buys thou.

Good selection of musical instruments

Terrible experience barely any guitars and they were dirty

I went to Sam Ash music New Haven, CT, looking to hopefully purchase a banjo or gain some valuable information I might need to move forward. An employee named ”John” (Guitar department) was helping me through this experience. However, when I declined to purchase a banjo there due to several reasons, mostly their poor selection, he instantly became very rude and snappy and hastly ripped the instrument from my hand. This is definitely do to the fact these employees make their money via-commision. Guess John was just acting nice to customers and is not truly a sincere helpful guy…

Not what it used to be.

Brilliant craftsmanship. Passionate musicians.

This is my go to place for everything doubles bass related.

I recently sold an old Wilfer Bass on consignment through Upton Bass and I must say they made the process very easy and painless and got my bass sold for a fair price in a timely manner. All the staff were very helpful and Gary, the owner took the time to enclose a personal note with the check. Considering my bass was right at the bottom of the market these guys serve, I thought that was a real classy touch. I felt I was as important to him as any customer. If I ever buy a bass again, I will certainly visit Upton Bass first. Highly recommended.

I purchased a ply bass that had issues out the door. The geometries where all wrong (e.g., the neck was too thin and was not pitched to the back of the bass) and it had a buzz coming from the fingerboard and bridge setup. They were unable to resolve the buzzing sound and I took it it to a local luthier to have the problem resolved. I ended up donating the bass our school district and purchasing a Shen.
Also do not purchase bows from Upton. I purchased a $2000+ bow made by J.R. Silva, Brazil, which developed a splinter just above the frog within 6 months and Upton would not warrant the bow. I now have a $2000+ paperweight.

Update, 10/28/2023:
… as to your reply, yes, I initially thought this was a great bass until I started using it for rehearsals and the buzzing appeared. I thought it was something I was doing or even due to the new bow. I drove 4 hours one way to your location to have your staff address the buzzing issue and they shaved a high spot on the fingerboard near first position and the buzzing did not appear while I was there. When I returned home and started using the bass again for rehearsals the buzzing reappeared. I wasn’t about to drive an other 8 hours to give your staff a second chance at addressing this. Instead, I took it to a local luthier who fixed the buzzing through a combination of reshaping both the fingerboard and bridge (the bridge was set up for jazz, even though I had told your staff that I play mostly orchestral music). While working on my bass, the luthier pointed out the other issues that I mentioned in my review. I am not a luthier, so I would not have necessarily recognized these issues except that through pro-longed use I might have developed muscular issues.

It also wasn’t until your staff responded last week that they could not help me with the issues with my bow that I decided to post this. I don’t like to post negative comments, but I wanted to warn other potential customers of my experience. Your staff could not even help with how I might get in touch with Mr. Silva. If you sell someone’s product, I would think you would have some form of contact information. I spent a lot of money on this bow ($2000+) and NO I DID NOT CAUSE THIS SPLINTER TO APPEAR. I do not appreciate you implying so by your comment. Had your staff handled things differently, I would not have posted this review.

You, as an owner, could have handled this differently as well. You *could* have contacted me by phone about this, instead of responding to my review in the manner that you did, and I might have considered removing this review. You could have even contacted me directly before I posted this review, as several days had lapsed between my speaking with your staff and my posting this review. At this point, based on the content of your reply, I will not remove this review.

Music & Arts is wonderful!! Everyone is so nice & helpful. They have an excellent deal going on when you sign up for lessons – you can get $100 off a keyboard or a Free guitar!! I definitely recommend taking lessons here, renting or purchasing an instrument. ★★★★★

If you want to take piano lessons you can go wrong by going here. The instructor is talented and is focused on music education not just memorization. We love it!

They had plenty of instruments, books, and other things to browse through. The atmosphere was pleasant and the staff was friendly. I will definitely be returning for musical purchases I need to make in the future.

Good music instructors, great service and great staff.

This store usually has my sax needs.

Music instructors are the best.

Buyer beware!! They charge you for lessons in advance! Staff up front can be RUDE! They give you give you misinformation and it costs you!

Be careful about their rental program. They will tell you that you can use the rental music towards an instrument, but the policy on this is excessively restrictive and limited to very few off-brands. Basically, the rental credit is worthless. If you want rentals, they are OK for that, but it is more or less money out the window. We kept an instrument for much longer than we otherwise would have after knowing that our child was going to stick with it with the plans on trading up. After accruing over $800 in credit, they said we could use it towards 2 different no-name brands or $200 of it towards a name brand instrument (which we ended up buying elsewhere for much less than that). You may be better served to rent briefly and return if your kid sticks with it after their 4 month promotion period, or pick a more local place and feel better about your money staying with local musicians and retailers.

they were nice and informative, but i returned something and they opted to send me a check. It’s been over a month and i still haven’t gotten my money back

Marissa is wonderful to work with. She is very helpful and knowledgeable – she is willing to go the extra mile for you.

Went to Music and Arts looking for a new guitar but not knowing exactly what I wanted, but thanks to Grant and his expertise and guidance I walked away with a guitar I’m super in love with!

I was looking to buy a higher end digital piano. This was the best instrument buying experience of my 65+ years. Grant and the women working in the store were very helpful in my evaluating different keyboards. They brought in additional keyboards more than once for me to try from the warehouse. I was not rushed in making a decision. Their feedback as to tone, feel etc were spot on. Great overall experience!

I whould l8ke to buy aking or yamaha euphonium

My son has been taking drum lessons with Keith for a little over a year. He started with Keith when he turned 5. Keith is AweSome all around and an Amazing drummer and teacher. He is super patient with children, he does a great job at getting on their level to learn and have fun. My son LOVES this guy and always looks forward to his weekly lesson. Also, the staff is great. Helpful, resourceful, talented and pleasant. We will be coming here for years to come.

Great establishment with a helpful staff and reasonable prices. I was here last week, and JC was very helpful walking me through all the options for a new set of coated strings for my acoustic guitar — they have a large selection of strings, so the guidance was useful. I hear the lessons here are high quality, and I plan to return here to get my violin ‘tuned’ up.

Kevin and Paul have been great to work with! My daughter loves her lessons and is really becoming a self described “band geek.” It is especially wonderful that she has been able to take piano and baritone lessons back to back, thus helping this momma reduce the chauffeur duties!

My grandson really enjoyed the music lessons and they are very professional and knowledgeable. Highly recommend them.

Would like to obtain some nice brushes and some type of top hat set used and very sturdy since I break percussion instruments all the time when I perform?

My son, Roberto Luis and Rosa live in Meriden. Are you far from the mall? I have spent a lot of time jamming in Puerto Rico to salsa, merengue, etc but my favorite is funk like Buddy Miles.

Never have any of the literature or instrument parts I’m looking for. Took 3 months to repair a trombone. I tried to return an item and they wouldn’t give me back the cash to go to another place. The owner has blatantly disrespected my mother on several occasions and doesn’t have much knowledge of much of anything outside of rock music. As far as i’m concerned, this is the worst music store i’ve ever set foot in and would not recommend to anybody.

Completely disappointed. I placed an order in store on a instrument that was never placed with JC music. The customer service was poorly displayed and the options they gave us was not acceptable. I asked to speak to the owner several times and would not get on the phone and made his new employee talk to me. I ended up going somewhere else that was amazing

This was a horrible expierence. They need to get their stuff together, they had already-sold instruments on shelf. They had an amazing guitar sale and when I went to buy, it was already sold! They got my hopes high and let it down and I will not give them my money any longer.

Great

So thankful to Greenwich Music! I went in to “rent” a drum set for our musical at Riverside School last weekend. On a limited budget I went in hoping for a “deal”. Joe, the owner, did not hesitate to loan us the drums for our practices and all three performances! Peter Pan was a wonderful performance- the music added to the greatness!

I was considering the purchase of a guitar for my grandsons birthday. I found the staff at Greenwich Music very helpful and courteous. They even offered a free lesson with the purchase. I would not hesitate to recommend them to anyone looking for a musical instrument and/or music lessons. I did purchase a guitar, and his first”free” lesson is next week! Great place to shop.

We were kindly helped in the store, but we were buying a guitar for our son and we don’t live in the US. We were having problems with internet so we couldn’t research correctly at the moment, but they assured that the amp could be used in 220 current. We arrived home and we connected the amp and it didn’t work. So the amp was burned. Apart from that the price was a bit higher than the same thing in other stores, it’s not nice to pay 50 dollars more, but that is just business and anyone can charge what they want. It was our fault that we didn’t do a good research before buying. But the very kind person that assured us that it would work because he used to be an electrician, and it only needed a basic adapter, was totally wrong and now we are home and we lost an amp, so we paid extra for the set and it didn’t work. You were very kind indeed, but please if you are not sure about something, don’t sell it. Because we lost money and we can’t go back because we don’t live there.

It’s a nice place! It’s a bit small but otherwise it’s nice.

Terrible customer service. Called and said I would be by in 10 minutes for an emergency repair. Guy was nice on the phone. When I arrived 5 minutes early they had closed up and locked. Super helpful…

Their hours aren’t very convenient and I was having a guitar strung and I dropped it off and I didn’t get a call before the store closed and then they were closed the next day Sunday so I didn’t get my guitar until Monday and that was extremely inconvenient. They also have a very small selection of basses.Update, they aren’t even open a couple hours on the 4th of July so I won’t get my guitar till Tuesday I am very upset with this store.

Rudest customer service I have ever encountered. The man I spoke to on the phone yelled and hung up on me. When my daughter went in person to drop off the instrument for repair at the agreed upon time, he remained upset and kicked my daughter out of the store. Strongly encourage anyone looking to have their instruments fixed to look elsewhere. Disappointing experience to say the least.

Friendly, knowledgeable staff. Great for helping kiddos when mom and dad are not musically inclined. Highly recommend.

Thanks to Sarah, I was able to get a mouthpiece while being 2.5 hours away from home on a gig where I left my mouthpiece pouch. Came through in the clutch for me with a shew lead piece.

Cool

Just stopped by quick. Had a great hour. They are the best

Instrument rentals are great for their prices

Good info from employees

Good service fair rates.

Great small business with all sorts of instruments for sale and rent. Sheet music as well. Support your local!

During this Virus Lock Down and sitting home in NJ playing guitar, I decided to buy a new guitar. I searched for the dealer’s carrying the guitar I wanted and came upon “A Sound Choice”. How lucky I was to come upon such a wonderful experience. Working with Ken, the store’s owner was a pleasure. Ken was what a retailer should be. The price and service were excellent. I received the guitar 24 hours later via UPS. “A Sound Choice” should be your choice.

Cool little music shop. Worth going and especially if you need a setup on your instrument.

When I can I prefer to spend my money at mom -n- pop businesses and A Sound Choice is a great guitar shop. Knowledgeable and they have a great selection of music making products. The corporate guitar stores don’t always hire staff that even know what a treble clef is so my advice is spend your money here.

Ordered a guitar on Reverb and Ken always answered the phone and was very helpful throughout the process. I ordered a Larrivee OM-40 and it was listed as brand new but definitely had a dent and 2 scratches which was disappointing but overall a good experience with the process.

The guitar however has a terrible extreme buzzing noice, especially when playing on the first 7 frets of the 4th, 5th, and 6th strings…even when playing a single note and strum lightly…a terrible buzz. I can’t seem to figure out where it is coming from. I will have to take to a luthier which is unfortunate given that it is a brand new guitar. He did say he sanded the saddle down before shipping to lower the action, suspicious that is the problem.

Update: Took it into a luthier. The saddle had been sanded down, action too low, poor job with the setup. Had to build me a new saddle. New strings, and adjusted trust rod as well. Buzzing gone. Sounds and plays like a dream!

I bought a Maton Mini from Blue Bus – great service, price and product. Will definitely go back to them again!

A great local music store with a variety of Maton guitars, occasional performance showcases, and fab music teachers available for lessons.

I bought a Maton guitar from Blue Bus. Excellent service, excellent product. I am highly satisfied and will go back to them for my future purchases.

Nice looking small shop with an interesting selection of off brand guitars. I always like when the smaller shops aren’t afraid to stock higher end gear. The selection of acoustic guitars especially. The pedal section could use some fleshing out.

Needed one string for my son violin rental. The lady was trying to sell me on a pack of strings that I do not need.

Bought a Maton guitar ….. company doesn’t have a clue on how to set a guitar up….. I have purchased no less then 50 guitars been playing for 50 years…. this company shouldn’t be allowed to sell guitars much less Maton .

Amazing service! I went in with my acoustic guitar to get restrung after I tried it myself and failed. They were able to find out what was wrong with the guitar and fix it and get it re strung very quickly and very inexpensive!

Awesome place, great staff, very knowledgeable

Mike, owner, is knowledgeable, professional and friendly. Instruments, music sheets and lessons at affordable prices. Repairs also done in house. Drop in to day hi and take a look around.

Ordered instrument for my son, was told to pick up the next day, went the following day to pick it up and it wasn’t there. Also bought a box of reefs for the instrument and was given the wrong kind. The gentleman that waited on us was polite, although he didn’t recognize us even though we had just been in the day before!

Staff is very friendly and knowledgable.

excellent store, good Fender Selection, nice acoustics, lessons, and school instruments.

Great store! Love the selection of Ernie Ball Music Man instruments.

Phenomenal shop that really personifies customer service! Pete is a great guy to deal and talk shop with. My guitar arrived safe, secure AND quickly. I can’t recommend DuBaldo enough, just give them a call or stop by already!

I’m not sure how long this review will be, but I will say upfront that buying a guitar from DuBaldo Music was a great experience, from day one until I took delivery of my instrument, and beyond!

I ordered an Alvarez-Yairi Honduran series (FYM66HD) guitar from Pete at DuBaldo music in April 2021.

For those reading this review in the somewhat distant future, allow me to set the scene a bit:

There was a LOT going on in the world during this time. The COVID Pandemic was still raging, and supply chains were snarled at every turn.

Ports were closed, dock workers and truckers were striking or working limited hours under delayed timelines. Parts availability was questionable at best, etc.

VERY long story short: The guitar had to be hand built in Japan, then shipped to the west coast, then shipped to St.Louis, MO, then shipped to DuBaldo Music in CT before I could take delivery. All the while, considering the conditions of the world as described above.

Pete, Lisa and everyone else at DuBaldo music helped me along at every stage, kept me updated, empathized with and tolerated my frequent calls for updates, contacted the distributor in St. Louis on my behalf, and were generally very pleasant to work with over a period of just over one full year.

I will not pretend that I wasn’t itching to receive my guitar, or that the extended delay didn’t bother me. It was a maddening wait!

But I want to make it crystal clear:

DuBaldo music did their absolute best to get it to me as quickly as possible, considering the extremely challenging circumstances. I can’t say enough about their customer service. It was exceptional at every stage!

When I made my order over the phone, Pete answered all my questions and made sure I was comfortable with what I was ordering as far as the specs were concerned. We made a deal on a VERY good price, and the wait began.

I won’t bore with the details, but between Japan and Connecticut there were numerous significant delays. Mostly unavoidable and one or two caused by decisions that St.Louis Music made, and/or failed to communicate ahead of time.

Pete and Lisa worked through all of this for me deftly, and professionally.

I am not local to the store. I live in DC, about 6 hours away. When the guitar finally arrived, there were 3 in the order, and Pete and Lisa let me know that I could have my pick of the three. Instead of having Pete play them for me over the phone and choosing from pictures, I decided to drive up and try them out in person, and drive it home myself.

Lisa and Nick were more than accommodating, and I was made to feel very comfortable while taking my time to decide. All 3 guitars were incredible instruments and it was a tough decision. Nick provided periodic feedback and assistance as I tried them over a period of about 3 hours. I never felt rushed, bothered, or unimportant. They made sure I was attended to but was not hovered over.

They knew exactly how to help a musician pick an instrument, and it is clear that they wanted to make sure I was equipped to make the right choice, and leave satisfied.

On the way out, as they knew I was a visitor, they even provided local restaurant recommendations, since I had mentioned that I was making my best effort to eat at great places while I was on the road.

I was, and am still, very happy with the decision I made, and with the entire experience of buying from DuBaldo music.

I cannot recommend them highly enough!

My only disappointment was that after a year of talking to him several times a month on the phone, I didn’t get to meet Pete in person, since he was out sick the day I visited.

Hopefully he’s feeling better now, and if I’m ever back in CT, I’ll be sure to stop in and thank him personally!

Thanks again to Lisa, Nick, Pete, and everyone at DuBaldo for a trying, long lasting,, but ultimately completely satisfying experience! The guitar is utterly amazing and will be with me forever, as will the experience of shopping with you.

Great service

I like this place because Fred Pedemonti does NOT work there. Fred is scum.
However everyone here is polite and talented.

Excellent service from Peter. I need to return!

We are new to the area and we’re pleased to have found this music store just around the corner. The customer service by telephone and in person was excellent; I spoke to a Chris and a Ruben, both of whom were gracious and helpful.

I had my 40-year-old folk guitar re-strung and re-conditioned for $25! To boot, Ruben was kind enough to tune my guitar on my way out of the store.

It’s rare to find a Music store these days. It’s even more rare to find a store whose staff provide such professional customer service. Will definitely bring our other two guitars in for servicing.

I have condensed my original rant down to the following- we really like our children’s teachers- but the front desk needs saving

Limited retail space, but the staff is helpful and knowledgeable. Music lessons are offered on site.

Yeah it’s good!

JUST HIT BACKSPACE ON YOUR BROWSER AND PICK ANOTHER COMPANY. YOU’RE WELCOME.

Called your West Hartford CT store early today, after calling around to several other of your stores, to see if the had a certain string for my cello and if they could fix the one string today. Was told yes on both. My husband drove 25 min there to find out they did not have the string. Drove to the nearest store that had this string (which was an additional 15 min out from my house) and they had no one to help with the cello. My husband ended up purchasing the string. Had I talked to him I would have told him not to make the purchase. Now every place is closed so tomorrow I have to go to another store to get this string put on. We needed the cello for tomorrow so you guys were literally no help. I will be returning the string and doing my business elsewhere. I should have listened to the other bad reviews. First time customer turned into last time customer.

Very poor service. I had gone few days ago to order a rental violin size 1/16 according to my son teacher recommendations, and a violin for my wife. This week I received a call letting me know that the violins were ready for pick up.
First thing I was told when I arrived was that the violin 1/16 was not there, after I told the associate I have received a phone call, he went to check again and sure enough he found it.
He mentioned that the violin ha a tag outside saying it was 1/32, but that it was a size 1/16 because it has been measured.
He proceeded to fill up a rental contact that I signed, however I suspected the violin was indeed a 1/32, I then open the violin box and inside the violin there was a mark for 1/32 size.
I mentioned to the associate that I thought the violin was a 1/32 not a 1/16. He was visible frustrated and said that his manager had I don’t remember what degrees in music and that he had measured the violin ant it was a 1/32, he then told me that I could check online the dimensions for a 1/16 violin, which I did, and sure enough the violin was a 1/32 according to the measurements they have online. I told the associate that I preferred to wait, he replied that the contract was already done, I said that I did not care, because I wanted the right size violin. All along this discussion the associate attitude was extremely rude.
I would not recommend this store, however unfortunately there aren’t too many options available.

My child joined band program at her school in West Hartford. Using their online system, I placed an order for instrument rental and a book for the program. The date I placed my order, they charged my credit card.

However, they never delivered the instrument until I called and confirm the status. The book was never delivered with the instrument. A week later, I called them to confirm about the book. They told me that it was back ordered. Since the book was available in Amazon for next day delivery, I asked Music & Arts to cancel my book order.

After few weeks, I still did not have my credit back for the book. I called them to ask for the refund, and the customer service told me that I have to return the book (which was never delivered!) in order to get the refund and hang up on me. I used the chat function on their website to explain the situation. Here, the customer service told me that they would never charge the credit card unless the item is delivered, and conversation did not go anywhere. (Again, my credit card was charged on the date I placed order!) Not knowing what to do, I called the store in West Hartford, left my phone number with an employee so the manager can call me back. No one called me back. I sent polite email to the manager, and also emailed the customer service. No response from anyone.

I will NOT order anything from this business in the future.