Alto Music — Attraction in Town of Wallkill

"The Mystery of the Waldorf Kyra"

I ordered a Waldorf Kyra, it arrived super fast. That was great, what wasn't: I ordered a new unit and clearly received a b-stock complete with a missing power supply amongst other issues, like the unit having zero packing supplies to stable it during shipping. I knew these things were missing thanks to the Waldorf site, and a few unboxing videos.

So, very distressed, I reached out to Tom F, my agent at Alto Music.

He quickly responded to me apologizing for the mix up, then after we got off the phone, he lept from his chair grabbed his duster, hat, and loaded his pipe of yesteryear, taking a brief puff before getting on the case to figure out what foul play had befell Alto Music.

In the shadows of the early morning he collected various clues, interviewed the usual suspects, and enlisted his most trusted partner, his Watson you might say, the keyboard warehouse manager, who is unnamed in this story because you know detectives have got to play things close to the chest, and keep his partners safe from potential threats, but Watson, deserves some recognition here too.

After reviewing all information, cross referencing subjects, and pulling all the the Kyra units on hand, he came to a startling conclusion. The new Kyra units in stock were all...B-Stocks?!

Bewildered and confounded by his discovery, he rang me up, and we discussed his findings, we resolved my issue, Tom was going to send out a power supply so I could test the Kyra out as I waited for a new one to arrive from the Deutschland. We agreed on this resolution and parted ways.

Tom sat back in his desk, the air was still, too still, something was a miss. He knew it. Deep in his bones, he knew something was off, he felt it knocking, that surely there was more to this than it seemed, why would these be marked as New if there wasn't a New unit to begin with...

The adrenaline began to take hold, and Tom was not going to let "good enough" stand in his way on his quest for the truth.

He dialed Watson, demanded that the darkest depths of the docks be scoured, and any missing suspects be brought to his quarters immediately!

When Watson arrived moments later, fresh out of breath from his journey from the docks, Tom saw what he was looking for, it glimmered, it gleamed, it was the missing piece of this twisted jigsaw, he found the one. The new one.

Frantic and feverishly mad with this success he rang me, sharing the good news, in a most humble way, that he had gotten to the bottom of it all!

I knew he would, Tom isn't the kind of guy who settles for "good enough" or second best. He is the top of the class by a long mile.

Tom is amazing. I've never had an agent go to the lengths that Tom did for me, and I've been buying gear for a long long time. I also have no doubts that if he went this far for me, he does so for many other valued customers.

Alto Music is lucky to have him, and I have no doubt he will continue to go the extra mile in ways many customers never expect.

It's because of this that I cannot recommend Alto Music enough to all that will listen.

Thanks for reading my praises for Tom, his Watson,...

Purchased a set of "refurbished" headphones for $180 as I had paid an international audio lab $200 to measure and calibrate them for optimum flatness. They arrived in a timely manner, but just before my local UPS store closed - so I trusted they were in fine condition and shipped them to the lab for ~$60.

They took over two weeks to ship, and the lab immediately contacted me during their initial calibration to let me know that the left cup had a blown driver. The bass in that cup was too distorted to even calibrate them properly, let alone mix and master - their primary uses.

Alto Music agreed to replace them with their last refurbished unit, that had a beat up box and was missing the original case, but did not agree to ship them straight back to the lab - giving responses like, "that is a completely separate transaction" and that the issue wouldn't have occurred had the headphones not been shipped internationally.

Oh, so rumbling around in a box for 2 weeks blew one of the drivers to blow? That's quite funny since it didn't happen while shipping to their store and isn't really physically possible (not that I would expect these rocket scientists and brain surgeons to know that).

The issue wouldn't have occurred if they tested them beforehand, and the "separate transaction" became a part of my transaction with them the moment I trusted them to ship me some equipment that wasn't broken. I've tested these replacements myself, but that still doesn't fix the $60 hole in my pocket from having to ship this new unit out again. Thank god the lab agreed to do their $200 calibration service again for free, since they understood exactly what was going on here.

Let that sink in. The headphones cost $180. Shipping cost $60. The calibration service I purchased cost $200. That initial investment is $440. Because of their error, it is now $500. Had the lab not agreed to do their service on a second set of headphones for free? $700.

You may be surfing the web looking for some used or refurbished gear to save a buck. You may stumble upon a listing from Alto Music at a fair price. New gear is new gear, and any moron can throw a factory sealed piece of gear in a cardboard box and take it to UPS. But before you purchase any used or refurbished gear from Alto Music, consider my experience. I hope you've read my review very thoroughly before you finalize your purchase. Don't trust any of those apes to test or inspect your item before they ship it out to you, or give you a proper compensation for any wrongdoing.

You've...

I typically don't write reviews, however, I felt more than inclined to do so. I decided to see what this place was all about as I have heard rather good things about Alto before. My wife and myself are staying with friends for the holiday weekend which is only about 20 mins from this place. I apologize ahead of time if my words are all over the place, but this place blew my mind, and it's hard to describe how good this place really is. I am from the Buffalo NY area, and we most definitely have a selection of music stores .What I will say is that, none of them combined come close to how spectacular Alto is. This place is absolutely massive in size. And their inventory is out of this world. I myself am a guitar player, but you can get pretty much anything music related here!!!! For me as a guitar player, most music stores have such a stale collection of almost always the same things. Almost everywhere I go it's always Gibson, Fender, some small amounts of Jackson's, Ibanez, and ESP/LTD. Alto has a refreshing stock of just the opposite, they have a huge selection of Ibanez, Jackson, and ESP/LTD. they also have a good selection of the normal Gibson and Fender stuff as well. I was, and am truly blown away by their selection and layout. The staff was absolutely wonderful to talk to, the first 5 minutes I was there, I must have had 6 associates ask me if I needed any help looking for something, or getting something down to try out. I was told I was able to try anything I felt like playing. Truly truly truly one of the best music stores I have been to!!!! Guitar Center doesn't have a thing on Alto!!!! In my own opinion, Guitar Center could learn a thing or two from the fine folks at alto. I will be returning in the spring with my father whom is also a guitar player. I have zero issues with driving 5 hours to go back to Alto. I wish I had a fat stack of cash to blow, because, I probably would have walked out with over 10 guitars!!!! If your a muscian of any sort, and you find yourself in the area, you owe it to yourself to stop in and see what an amazing place this really is. I honestly can't think of much else to form into words, you will just have to come see for yourself. This place is truly...