Wizard Electronics, Inc. — Local services in Atlanta

Despite my initial thoughts on Wizard Electronics, I must say... my experience was the WORST. I don't normally write reviews and NEVER a bad review. It took a long time to get my studio monitors back and I was fine with that because I was told I was getting brand new woofers from Event in Australia. Okay, that was cool, I was pumped! I finally got my monitors about a month later while I was in a rush. Picked them up and really didn't process what the tech said to me until I left. He stated that the woofers were Pyle! WHAT! That's NOT what I agreed to receive! Plus he states that a screw is missing on the front panel and he'd have his intern look for it! So... my professional mid-level monitors were in the hands of an INTERN!!!!!!! If I knew that was going to happen I would've ordered parts myself and took a MONTH to install everything. If you know engineering, you know that if a screw is missing from the front of your monitor, air is going to escape causing a crazy noise and disrupting the pattern of the woofer as it moves back and forth. Of course that's what happened and now that particular monitor sounds blown or something. If the volume is turned up to 70% it sounds like I need to buy a new pair. Being that I normally operate them between 50 and 60% with the attenuation at half way on the rear of each. There's no way my speaker can be blown unless it's the screw issue and the fact that it's some Pyle speaker that almost looks like a high end home speaker as opposed to a studio monitor. I mean, the look is nice, but come on. I guess I got short-changed. You live and you learn. And to top it off the rep there kept telling me he sent me the screw 5 different times as if the mail just kept getting fouled up or something. I didn't want to speak with him and wanted to speak with the OWNER, so I called as if it had nothing to do with their service. The guy then looks me up and says "I see you do websites, we don't need that." That's not what I was calling about and being that the website looks like something from the time when dial-up was first established, yes you do. So, from now on I guess I'll have to take my business elsewhere. And I have a GREAT vintage keyboard that I was going to have them restore. I'll just find the parts and do it myself. I'm good on Wizard Electronics. That guy treated me like some non-technical fool. I'm far from that. I just don't have the time to quickly work on my...

I have owned an early 70's Fender super reverb since 1977. It was already modified to run with two 12" speakers instead of the four 10". The tremelo has never worked. I had it modified in the mid 80's to run with reverb in both channels instead of just the 2nd channel. It became very sickly a few years ago. I thought there must be a bad tube or something. David the tech at Wizard knew I was on a budget as they took my amp in without the $65 deposit. David called me after looking at it to inquire what I knew about the modifications. Things just didn't make since. I could tell he had already spent a good bit of time on my amp. I was getting a little nervous about the cost. I told him what I knew and the he called me late the next day. Oh jeeze...how many labor hours had he spent on it? He told me that all the tubes seemed good, and that the tremelo was now functional and the amp was putting out 40 watts per spec. He told me the bill was for 2 and a half labor hours so far. The amp works, but there is a 60 cycle hum. He stated this was probably due to some bad filter caps ($70) and would take about an hour of labor. I told him thank you but I was up to my budget, bat asked if he could just leave a note if the filters were the problem, so I could take care of them in the future. David called me back a little over an hour later and told me that he found some filters in old amp at the shop and installed them no charge for the parts and asked for just a half hour labor. These guys know their stuff, and provide the kind of personal service Chick Fil a is famous for. I can't wait to pick up my amp. Maybe I'll pick up a Chick Fil a for...

I met Cole Harrison 40 years ago when he first started Wizard Electronics. Cole was (and still is) an electronic genius with a passion for music and the people who make it. Besides keeping the Atlanta music community's gear working back then, he was also recording many of us for free after hours in the back room of Wizard to help us realize our musical dreams. (The demos he made for me put me on the path to my first album, "Lost At Sea," which led to a deal with Virgin Records -- Cole is as brilliant a recording engineer as he is an electronics expert).

Reading the negative reviews here doesn't bring to mind at all the Cole Harrison that I've know for 40 years, although as Cole mentioned earlier, he actually tried to track down the complaints and discovered that only one was real, and it was due to a communication error with a new employee who's no longer with Wizard (the other negative reviews were posted either by competitors or fired employees, which is unfortunately all too common on the internet). Nonetheless, I should mention that since Wizard first opened in 1974, there was a period of a few years when Cole took a break from the business, and it wasn't as tight a ship without him at the helm -- he's not any easy guy to replace. But he's back now and fully committed to Wizard and its adjoining recording studio, and they couldn't be in better...