SO, Sam Ash is closing not 18 stores
- Thread starter teleman1
- Start date
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Painter644
Tele-Meister
Bought some things from them over the years and found them to be far superior to GC, for sure. Too bad.
memorex
Poster Extraordinaire
Maybe Guitar Center will buy them. Maybe not, I don't care because I buy music stuff mostly from Sweetwater and Amazon these days, although I did buy an octave mandolin from Eastwood Guitars recently because nobody else carried it.
I don't go to guitar stores anymore, but Sam Ash was a favorite of mine when I did. I used to enjoy going down to the Hollywood Guitar Center, then going up the street to Sam Ash. There was, maybe still is a nice cafe near both that is elevated above the street where you could sit outdoors and take in the scenery of folks strolling by.
bendercaster
Friend of Leo's
Dang. That's a bummer. I was in New York a few weeks ago and stopped at the Manhattan store. It was starting to look a little picked over, but there weren't any crazy deals yet.
Musekatcher
Poster Extraordinaire
I had great luck with Sam Ash. I got my 60's Tribute Les Paul there, and my Martin D Jr there online. What happened?
ChicknPickn
Poster Extraordinaire
One has to think that online purchasing is devastating to yet one more brick-and-mortar industry. Admittedly, I've done my part to make that happen.
Me too. It’s the convenience factor. I love our Sam Ash store, but it’s 40 minutes away on the other side of town. It’s extremely rare that I get over there. I dislike dealing with GC but there’s one less than ten minutes away.
Sweetwater gets the majority of my business.
It probably did not help that there is a Guitar Center a mile and a half away from that store - although this is more than a store level issue.
SixStringSlinger
Poster Extraordinaire
Sam Ash has also had many, many years to improve their website, which has always been crap, as far as I can remember. It's just so difficult to find any information you're looking for.
Guitar Center's website isn't much better, but it is definitely better.
Guitar Center's website isn't much better, but it is definitely better.
Truth. The Sam Ash website is absolutely awful. I don’t even bother with it. They’d have probably gotten a lot more of my business if it had been at all useable.
rghill
Friend of Leo's
I was going to go to my local Sam Ash to see if there are any good closeout deals. Probably not, but the Phoenix location usually has some interesting used gear.
I'm also guilty as charged. In an odd way, the closing of big music retailers has opened the door for smaller specialty shops. The small guitar/music stores in my area that sell high end used and custom guitars, or that offer lots of lessons and repair/maintenance services are doing relatively alright.
On Sunset, you had Sam Ash and then Guitar Center directly across the street. While I bought two guitars at Sam Ash and none from the Hollywood GC location, I much preferred the vibe of the GC. And Carvin's on the corner, towards the Ocean.
I've been in Sam Ash locations with GCs somewhat nearby in Texas, in Florida, elsewhere in CA, but never up in the NYC area. I'd suggest, further you get from NYC, the less impressive the Sam Ash brick and mortar locations probably were. New York decision makers just couldn't be bothered. Most of the stuff I bought from SA was in Orlando, and none of those sales would have happened except for the GC price match thing.
The best thing I guess, about SA, was they gave employment to some musicians I knew. Otherwise, won't be missed.
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Thanks for the info. I remembered the two stores being close together I was thinking Sam Ash was up the street, but it's been more than ten years since I went there. I did go several times. Took mountain man brother in law there one time. My son and I went I think more than once. I enjoyed sitting in the outdoor cafe as much as anything.
I bought a Martin D-28 Marquis from the Guitar Center there. Man, I blew a lot of money on guitars that are now gone!
It was a great trip though; my oldest son was with me for that trip. What was once a burning desire to find that special guitar is now just a burnt-out cinder. I guess I have had a lot of company blowing money on stuff that in the end didn't matter at all.
I just don't know what Sam Ash owns or has, that GC or its parent company would even want. Perhaps at one time, the two chains competed against one another for market share and economies of scale, but it seems to me the last 10-15 years, GC has just acted as though Sam Ash didn't exist and in some respects, they didn't exist.
But it DID matter, at the time. We're different people now than we were then, but IMO you can't get to where you are later in life..........without the travels.
You know, as soon as I posted the post about my burned-out search, I realized I would probably do it all again. Man, if I could only have one more day, when my son and I really loved shopping for gear together.
I helped my young son find a classical guitar at the local GC. We even managed to get a bit of a discount for him. It brought back a lot of good memories.
You are dead right on the fact that we are the sum total of all of our experiences along the way. One of my old school chums worked almost his entire life for the same company. When I would tell him about the different kinds of work I'd done he's say aww TD you're just making that up. I'm glad I had the life that I did, and at the time I did.
Musekatcher
Poster Extraordinaire
How was it less profitable, for me to buy online, than in their store? I didn't realize they were a brick and mortar, I only knew of them as an online retailer?
