Premium music shops of San Jose: Our Top-20 selection

Very detailed , experienced

There’s always someone ready to help. Friendly and quality instruments…

They do fine work in repairing violin and cello. Very honest people.

This is kind of only place for repairing string instruments. Their customer service is not really good but no choice.

The wait can be long on the weekends but they take care of you and the know their violins and strings instruments. Prices are reasonable too. They have a pretty quick turn around time with service.

Atienden muy bien y tienen buen contenido de violines

Very bad customer service. No respect.

Waited for service for half an hour, and when I received service it was rushed. The instruments were mostly overpriced, damaged starters.

Worst experience during their partial closure. They keep send me one way mailed letter they will continue renewing while I call them and messaged them repeatedly to cancel and drop of instrument. No response back. They mail you whenever they want to charge you. Don’t give your credit card number. Shady business. Not acceptable.

Best selection of ukuleles that I’ve found in San Jose, ranging from inexpensive beginner models to $1000 beauties.

The best

Super friendly owners who patiently answer all of your questions. You can try playing the ukulele in stock too. They have Ohana, Kanilea, Koaloha, Kamaka and other brands. They have a wide range of accessories and provide info for local events.

Friendly shop owner. Unfortunately I came in during a time when it was busy and the owner was helping out a couple of families. This is the place to go to for ukulele equipment in the South Bay.

Very chill, homey kind of place. Not many places around south bay have a good selection of ukes. It was nice to try several different ones in one store.

Good place to buy reeds would come again

Beautiful store and amazing service. Owner goes out of his way to help out.

He was very nice and kind to me. There was a problem with my son’s trumpet. I brought it to this store, and he repaired within minutes.

I’m sorry to say that I took my business somewhere else because the customer service over the phone was not helpful at all. I had to pry information about their products out of him. At The Starving Musician they helped me figure out exactly what I needed over the phone so that I could put it on hold and easily go and pick it up the same day.

They have a great selection, and a very clean store, however their customer service over the phone is lacking.

Tl;dr -If you need something from them, go in because they will hang up on you whenever they feel like it.

I brought my instrument in for maintenance and was told I would receive a call later that day about the details. I never got the call, and when I called back, no one knew my request.

Also when I was talking with the repair person, the receptionist hung up on me before I could ask another question. When I called back, she claimed that I seemed finish, even though I hadn’t said good bye or stated I was done asking questions.

I do not think I will go back, and instead do my repairs else where.

Nice small music store that had a French horn we could rent. They were very helpful in helping to find a private teacher and have lesson rooms adjacent to them.

Waited 3 weeks for a trumpet mouthpiece for it never to ship. I called to get assurance I’d get it before my gig and when I called back they told me it still never left the store so I had to cancel the order. They didn’t even care to contact me to give me details about the issue. Save your time and buy elsewhere.

Park Avenue sells defected/used items as ‘new’. Do not buy an item from here and expect to return it if you find a problem with it. They tried to charge me over $500 in a ‘restocking fee’ for an item that they shipped. Claimed they had photos of it undamaged but they never provided them. Had to file a credit card fraud report against them to recover the funds they decided to keep.

Drove down to make a purchase, but the store decided to close early–even though we had discussed with an employee we would be coming down to buy a clarinet. I’d phone ahead and get strong assurances they will actually be open if you’re driving any distance.

I absolutely love this vinyl shop. It’s probably the best in the South Bay. Great selection of records from every genre and country imaginable, organized impeccably according to year, etc. A collectibles section is particularly rewarding to browse.

Staff is always so chill and helpful and the vibes are warm and classic with a great selection of records on rotation (twice I’ve been there Sgt. Pepper played, which is always “getting better all the time”.)

Has all the charm of a local hole in the wall with people who really care about music.

I am addicted. Will return often.

They have a lot of records from a wide arrange of genres for great prices. You can spend hours looking through boxes or what’s on the shelf. The staff is very helpful and kind.

A vinyl collectors paradise. Massive collection of rock, pop, jazz, blues and classical records. And some soundtracks too! Highly recommended record store in the Bay area.

Limited selection, prices were very high for what little they had. Probably will skip next time I am in town

Went with my son. A lot of vinyls and clean, organized and quaint little spot.

Nice store and decent prices.

I feel like I was ripped off a little……..

Shame on u for deleting comments

This store sold me two fake vinyls and I am extremely angry! They sold me a 2020 Cherry Bomb vinyl and a 2017 Flowerboy Vinyl (Both Fake Special Editions). He charged be 80 dollars for it and I was very happy because I woke up at 3 a.m. just to get this vinyl. Once I asked a friend he told me both were fake. I immediately confronted the owner ,but he tried to change the subject and told me there were more in the San Jose location. This store tried to scam me by paying full price for fake items. The store could easily get shut down. They last time deleted my review of this place so the stars are biased. Once I asked the owner where he got them he immediately gave my money back and tried to ignore me. Some service! I did not wake up at 3 A.M to get ignored and sold fakes!!

This facility is fantastic. Loved it when I was a patron love it even more now that I work here.

Very professional stage and music set up

Awesome studios.. loved the drum kit.

solid. my friend’s band rehearses here and has a lockout. it’s clean and does the job. soundproofing is reasonable. the insulation could be better as far as temperature but it does the job.

Super cute record shop. A low key chill place to shop.

Trying to rebuild record collection. Friends recommended On the Corner. SO glad I came by.
Jeff the owner knows his stuff. He waited for me to ask the questions and then he answered them well and to the point. Did not pressure me when I looked through the stacks, left me alone and just let me know where he was if I had questions. I bought a lot more than I had planned. Just because I did not feel a pressure to “buy and get out.” Awesome service!
Next called the store on a different day and spoke with Sebastian. Wanted advice on how to upgrade my deck and gear. Sebastian answered my millions of questions and did not pressure me in to spending $1500 (Which is what a certain record store in SF told me I HAD to spend as a minimum) but rather recommended that I come in to try out all the gear they had in store before I buy it.
This is the local record store I remember growing up. You know the one??….On the Corner!

The owner is friendly and helpful with a great selection of affordable vinyl!

They have an intelligent selection of LP’S at a very reasonable price. They also have vintage stereo equipment.

Love this place lots of vintage players owner is really reasonable and really nice i will always shop here as often as I can

Decent selection, prices were a bit out of whack. I found an out of print 2lp set the wanted $200 for at another shop for $35 along with it’s companion set.

That’s a good place

Turned to GigaSonic for a few items and each time they have blown me away with the customer service (Jeremy rocks) and the quick shipping. Never have had an issue and they’ve always answered my questions. Thanks!

After reading the reviews on here I was hesitant to do business with these folks but I decided to anyways. I had a very good experience with them. They were very courtious, thoughtful and helpful. I do not understand why there are some negative reviews. I would be very happy to work with them again.

Emailed them about a price match, and they ignored me.

This place is a joke. They are liars.

The 1 star review below about them being a shell buyer and resell things they purchased from reputable music retailers is true.

The owner is a liar! He responded to the below review saying they are authorized dealer. NO They are not. I did exactly what they said to go to the manufactures websites and verified myself.

EXAMPLE – Gibson guitars they are selling – guess what, THIS PLACE IS NOT A CERTIFIED DEALER!

Buy from some other place before you are burned!

This review is meant to steer people away from this company.

I was online and noticed an item I had been searching for with an out of stock sign on it. Next to this it had information stating that one could be pre ordered, so I bought one.

I knew something was wrong when money was taken out of my account right away instead of usually pre-order procedure which takes money when the product ships. I was concerned and used the website to try and contact them. After 2 hours I called the phone number only to have no answer and no voicemail. I called again from a different phone to make sure it wasn’t my phone that was the problem. After 4 hours I had no response so I sent an email. 2 hours later I received a reply telling me I should cancel my order because they weren’t getting anymore.

This was upsetting as they fully had the opportunity to cancel the order right there and did not. So I sent another email asking for order cancellation. This leads to extremely slow back and forth that shouldn’t have been necessary in the first place.

I received no confirmation that the order was cancelled and my last email went unanswered. I called the company and they did not acknowledge me beyond telling me it was taken care of as soon as the phone was picked up. I didn’t get to say my name or my problem and am confused how they identified me or if they just do that to everyone.

It has been 3 days without any sign of account activity and I am extremely angry at the lack of proactive revision of their website, difficulty of cancellations, and slow to non-existent responses to customer concerns. So do not buy from this company.

My advice is to the company to please remove pre-order notice information from being next to the out of stock sign. Put a script in to deactivate the buy now button if the product is no longer carried. Remove products you have no intention of acquiring. This situation can be avoided if the website is properly updated. I am not someone who usually has issues or complains but this needs to be fixed.

Bought an Electribe 2 that was factory refurbished, listed as like new (No Problems). When it arrived, No Original box, Broken Headphone jack, dent on the right corner, dark spot on LCD, wobbles on table due to being bent, and last I put fresh batteries in and it died in 2 minutes! Have never experienced such problems from a retailer before. Buyers beware!

Ако търсите пиано или роял…тук ще го намерите.

Прикольна

Great customer service. Ulysses was of great help to help us find the best piano for our family!

It’s a pretty nice place, the people are nice, and every once in a while you get to hear some mind blowing pieces. The financing is good if your credit is good.

My husband likes going here

Shop is not bad but there are not a lot of cheaper instruments. This isn’t a place you would go to get something small. There are a lot of high end pianos. No basic midi controllers.

rude sales man. Worst customer service. No business with this store any more.

The website doesn’t match the inventory for the store at all. I went to the store, stayed for 30min and was entirely ignored by the staff that was too busy selling an overpriced U3.

Was just there and Ann wasted my time; should’ve gone to SF or other locations.
So the model I wanted was just got sold according to her. I asked alternatives for similar models and she kept one asking “What you want, what you want?”
I gave her my phone number so she can call me when the model is available and when I asked her the price, she could’ve just said the price but said ” you write down, I give you pen.”
Haven’t seen this rude person in a long while.
While in the store, I noticed over-priced used pianos including the brands that I checked out new yesterday. Buy new elsewhere if you were to buy used here.

Amazing pianos at great prices! Great owner made sure we got our awesome item!

Great shop with really friendly staff, highly recommend!

Excellent teachers and staff

Great place to get an honest answer and music repairs

Helpful staff. Good vibe. Massive selection of sheet music books and I saw books on topics like electronic music production. One wing of the store is a music school.

Great customer service. Knowledgable and helping staff

When dealing directly, the gentleman at the counter was cool. However, overall customer service could improve. I came into the store and stood second in line behind a customer who needed some repairs on 2 instruments. No big deal, that is what they do. I think though to be efficient they may want to ask if anyone in line has an item they want to pay for quickly and leave. Instead, the string replacement proceeds with folks in line. After that repair was done I walked up assuming to be next. Nope, instead another customer was motioned to go ahead of me because they were in the store first. Not in line first, but in the store browsing first. Never knew until now this is how it works. Come in and browse and when you are done you go ahead of any customer in line so long as you came into the store before them. On the positive note, large inventory and staff was very helpful retrieving and holding my book in front for easy pickup access.

I recently rented a flute for my son. My son tried the flute at the store and it seemed ok. My son came home and practiced it and it had problem. We went back and they tried to repair. My son went to the class and the Flute teacher said that the Flute is leaking and asked us to return it. I rented it on Sat. and returned it on Monday. The still charged even though we mentioned that the flute was bad.

DO NOT RENT FLUTE FROM HERE. Also they charge very high for repair charges. I compared our son’s flute for repair between their shop and another shop. They were expensive by $200.
I will neve go back there.

Wow, this place is awesome. It was a total happy accident that we found it. Carlos was super friendly and very hospitable. We came for my husband and normally music stores are all the same for me but Guitar Wars was a very pleasant surprise. My daughter and I were totally engaged in all the Star Wars stuff while my husband could enjoy the wide assortment of guitars and gear. A must see place if you love guitars or Star Wars!

There a amazing good price there service are amazing I’m going to start going there again there deserves more then five stars

My wife and I went to this shop after seeing some beautiful vintage Japanese classical guitars on their Reverb page. I asked to demo four different ones, and the staff were very helpful and friendly. I had brought two electric guitars with me intending to trade one or both if I liked what I played, and we ended up making a deal I was satisfied with. The owner, Carlos, is a great guy. Thanks again! Will definitely be back if I’m looking to trade something else.

Very small guitar shop, but friendly owner and fair prices. Came across some nice Teton guitars in here and had to pick one up. These guys are the only local Teton dealer.

Really diverse selection of mostly used equipment. Old and new, some good or interesting finds. The staff was friendly and helpful. The store has star wars themed decor throughout–not just a poster or millennium falcon model here and there, but really well done doors, panels, counters with lights and effects built in and hiding all over the place, some was near movie set quality. It’s a fun visit. There’s quite a bit of stuff around, so you have to look hard to find the gems. The strip mall it’s in had a very sketchy feel, but I’m glad I went in.

They sold me a amp on reverb in “excellent condition” covered in dust scratches and buzzing sound and denied me a refund not trust worthy and doesn’t knew what excellent means.

Do not trust this shop they sell broken gear online and deny refunds even though the items are described as working. Horrible shop.

They sold me a $60 guitar amp for $135. Then they forgot to send me the chord that comes with it. Then they have the balls to send me a chord that won’t even reach my wall outlet.

I started with Rodney in December of 2019. Within a year I’ve been able to learn music theory and learn to play Melody on the ukulele. I really gained a lot of value both musically and theoretically from Rodney’s instruction. if you want to learn to play the ukulele as well as learn music theory that I would highly recommend Ukulele Jams.

My flute was brought back to life! Wonderful work, explanations about the process and great communication.

Sam provided excellent customer service

Ivy replaced a broken guitar string for me, free of charge. She also gave me some advice on how to properly tune the strings. She did it out of the love for music. Definitely I will go to guitar center for my future music needs.

Went here for the first time yesterday and had a good experience. The employees were super helpful and showed me what I asked for right away. The guys I dealt with were also understanding and were friendly to my toddler son who is only 3. Ended up buying more because it was a nice first experience, I’ll definitely be back!

Selection isn’t great. Service is not what guitar center used to be. I wouldn’t say the staff is knowledgeable about product.

Excellent inventory and helpful staff, but sometimes understaffed during busy times (weekends).

Everything musical you could want

very rude young lady in keyboard area. knew absolutely nothing about products, inventory, or any questions i had for her about using Guitar Centers website. I believe she was just sent over to get me to stop playing the keyboards on display. Probably because I was just dressed in work clothes and didn’t look like a buyer even though I was. That shows more about the management than her individually. There’s plenty other places to go buy musical equipment. It doesn’t pay to judge a book by its cover.

We came to buy a talking drum . When asking questions the guy with the semi long boy band haircut was very rude . We are a drum team and will not be back here .

They say curb side pick up yet they wont answer phone or door when you have a question very rude absolutley zero customer care

Best way to describe Maxx Cabello Jr’s music is to tell you to see him live in concert. YouTube is just a video. Live and in concert he is a fantastic guitarist.

Excellent guitar player and band. Love his style of the Blues.

Marc Cabello jr is the father of my best friend. Kind heart and great music

Killing it today at the Bones ‘ Brew festival at Eagle Iskand park, Idaho.

Resectful kind good people fix my speaker right away

I have been going to this man since 1993, and he has never steered me wrong! I remember when he was located in the back of a pro audio store. From then on, I have brought everything from home audio, to pro audio to this man, and he has properly repaired it every time. The fact that he is factory authorized to repair a lot of audio products makes me feel at ease.

There is really only one place to bring your gear, and its here! Good honest people.

I was given his info by QSC but he told me he no longer works on that brand.

I had him service my XV-88 Roland Keyboard. He diagnosed output failure and fix that problem.
He also kept some of the screws that keep the keyboard together and left some kind of object inside, under the low range of the white keys.
Can’t trust this place.

I’m sorry to say it, but the repair shop owner is pretty dishonest and kinda rude. After some miscommunication, my unit got returned in worse condition, with dust and scum everywhere, scratched, and some authentic parts had been replaced by knockoffs. He quoted me a price I knew was very off because even I could find the parts for way less than he claimed he could find them. When I came to pick up the unit I asked about the worse condition, and he got upset and defensive. Communication throughout the diagnostic process wasn’t that great either. Since I wasn’t willing to deal with this anymore, I took my unit and left. I really had hoped there was someone local with a small shop that I could trust, and it seems like others have had a better experience than me, but I won’t be returning

Not really sure about this place. I called about a half hour before I arrived. No answer. And no return call. I’m not sure if this place is even open at all.

Vance did a great job repairing my son’s cello. His communication was timely and turnaround time was quick. And best of all, he restored the sound quality back. Would definitely recommend for repairs!

Stevens Violin Shop is the most trustworthy stringed instrument shop in the Bay Area. Vance Knudsen is an excellent repairman, with the best rates anywhere. Vance has helped me find fabulous violins and bows throughout my career as a professional violinist and teacher. He goes the extra mile for his customers!

My family has been long-time customers at Stevens Violin Shop, and every time we bring in our instruments, we know they’re in good hands. Whenever we’re looking for a new instrument, Vance, the owner, is very patient and allows us to try everything. He has a fabulous selection of instruments and is very knowledgeable on all things music. He is extremely passionate about music, provides a lot of great advice, and offers the best instrument for the best value. Our family has purchased several violins and cellos from Stevens’, and it’s the first place we go to if we need anything!