Herb David has a great reputation in Ann Arbor. Sure, they know their stuff. If you walk in there with money they'll talk the talk act really sweet. If you ever question them, they get ugly.
I had a terrible experience about 6 years ago. I was 17 years old and my parents had an old bass "fixed" up for me for Christmas. What they asked for was to make it playable. Herb David had it for 2 months and charged over $100. The work they did was replace the active pick up electronics in the back (which worked perfectly fine beforehand.) What I got back that was a bass that still wasn't playable. They left the active pick ups on for one, which drains the 9V battery on this old model. It played terrible. The D string would only make a buzzing noise. I later found out the only thing that made this bass sound so horrible was it needed special extra long strings.
When I went back into the store to confront them about this, the manager was irate. How dare I challenge their superior knowledge. A kid at the time, I calmly explained the situation and brought in the guitar to show it wasn't playable. He didn't believe me, but then tried it himself. He then changed the story and said that my parents had specifically asked for the electronics, which was a lie. Then the manager proceeded to kick me out of the store.
I took it to Music-Go-Round and they diagnosed the problem ordered the strings and set it up for $35 and had it ready in a week.
This was the worst retail experience of my life. I urge you to not shop here. I was a kid at the time and I still haven't shaken it off. These are bad people. It's not often talked about, but this is the ugly side to Herb David.
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