American Music Store — Local services in Encinitas

The shop leaves a lot to be desired. I've only dealt with the repair side of the shop, and after the last incident, I won't be returning. The greying owner is of little to no value. Unhelpful. I brought a piece of gear to get fixed back in September or October of 2020. After about 4 weeks, I called the repair guy and he hadn't yet looked at it. Understandable as he said they were busy. Another 4 weeks go by and I still hadn't heard anything back, so I decide to call. The repairman had taken a look, couldn't quite figure out the problem and said he'd be able to drop it off in a week as he just did a drop off and told me he tried to call me. When? I received no calls from him, no missed calls, nothing! I called this shop multiple times. Showed up 3 times between December 2020 and February 2021 during hours posted and nothing. Lights out. No sign. Nothing. Finally, after roughly 6 months of waiting to pick up my still broken gear, I called and finally got through to someone. He stated they were open till 6 and I told him I could be there by 545 and he said, "Well, I have things to do later" as if he wasn't planning on even staying open that late.

Would've appreciated any sort of updates on the status of my gear instead of having to jump through hoops to figure out what was going on. Poor communication,...

The owner of this store is the worst I’ve ever seen at any music store I’ve been to. I asked him to setup my guitar specifically to a lower tuning which he had no problem with and a full setup. The thing was, I was considering selling this guitar and possibly trading in for another one. So this guy gives me the offer that if I don’t like his setup, and it’s not perfect, I could trade mine for one of his on the wall. I said that’s a good idea because I barely had any money at the time. After the job the guitar had horrible tuning stability, dead frets, and a notch in one of the frets he told me that made the guitar unsellable and he wouldn’t touch it. Unbelievable I try to take it over and over again to get him to do the job right and he says the guitar isn’t meant for lower tunings. Maybe it would’ve been better to mention that at first. Pathetic. Waste your money elsewhere if you’re a...

Place is cluttered with old equipment and guitars being worked on to the point where it feels unsafe to walk around to look at guitars on display. As for the guitars on display their all out of tune, dusty and not setup so they don't feel playable. The man working the front seemed knowledgeable but reluctant to try and sell anything or help find guitars that weren't up on display. Selection of gear seems limited/ used and or ill-maintained. Amps could not be tested because guitar lessons were taken place in the other room that must not have been sound proofed. I can't speak for how good the guitar lessons are but as for the rest of the shop it seemed neglected and appeared to have no interest in...