Rudy's Music Soho — Local services in New York

Had a rather unpleasant shopping experience here recently. I was greeted nicely by a store employee and I indicated that I was in the market for a Lefty Acoustic guitar. I went to the upstairs Acoustic area and I asked if the store had any Left handed Martin Guitars. I was shown two guitars and I reached for one I was interested in. By mistake, the top of the guitar hit the ceiling where it was mounted--- I didn't do this on purpose, it was accidental. The store employee told me that I should ask first before taking down a guitar -- a reasonable request. What I consider rude and inappropriate is this person telling me to put down my "bag" and that he had to "talk" to me. By this time, I could tell he was really angry at me, so I gave him back the guitar and said that I am not interested in being talked to by him. I left and when the person who very nicely greeted me initially, asked me if I found anything I was interested in, I told him I was not interested in being treated rudely by the Acoustic department employee. If you don't want people picking up the guitars to try them out, just lock them up like Guitar Center does.

I went to the Union Square Guitar Center and I found the same Guitar, locked up, as it should be. I asked to try it out and was treated very kindly.

I understand someone being upset, if their $1700 guitar gets bumped, but if you don't lock the Guitars up, and not mount them properly, what to speak of having NO signage to indicate that you must ask to play the instrument, well, isn't that partly the store's fault? Needless to say, I ordered the guitar I wanted from Guitar Center and I should be seeing it in three months. Rude people don't deserve my hard...

Went out of my way to come in here after work to try out an Eastman guitar and compare it to a similar shape Martin. The people I talked to on the phone and downstairs when I arrived were very nice, but then I was sent upstairs where I sat in a small area, trying to play the two guitars, while being essentially lectured off-and-on by the Martin sales person. He went out of his way to tell me that the Eastman was basically junk. I asked very simple questions, like “why is the Martin lighter than the Eastman, is it the different woods?” He proceeded to not answer that question and say “let me teach you something…” was overall very condescending in the way he talked to me and I felt like I was being lectured like he thought I was an idiot. I asked if there was a quieter room I could play in, to which he responded “ see all these price tags? These are all the guitars I’ve sold up here this week. None of those people had any problem playing up here.” Seriously?! He also referenced the fact that he owns a $10,000 guitar which 1) is totally irrelevant to my trying out the guitars there and 2) is very intimidating borderline shaming toward a potential customer who is on a budget, and for whom Eastman might be a lot of money. Beautiful shop and guitar selection, but a very unpleasant experience. :(

The only reason I’m giving 2 stars instead of 1 is that the other people seemed nice...

Short version: shop does have a few cool photos of celebs/famous musicians who have visited but it's a very unwelcoming shop for regular players. Majority of the guitars are $3,000+. The employees aren't interested in you unless you answer yes after being directly asked if you're going to purchase one.

This is my first trip to New York so I wanted to find a cool guitar shop to visit while exploring the city. What I had hoped to be a fun little break from sightseeing turned into one of the worst experiences I've had at a music store. I asked to play one of the guitars as per the rules of the store, I played a minute or two, even had a little conversation with the employee about how long we've been playing music. Then he explicitly asked if I was going to buy a guitar. I answered no, since I'm just visiting, at which point I was told that I could play a guitar any day that I wanted to and that I needed to make room for another customer who had come to the store to purchase a guitar he had called about.

*Changed to 1 star after reading how the owner responds to reviews from customers who have shared similar...