Back From Vegas

[bigdguitars]

Took a little vacation before I start my new job. Went to vegas, and actually vegas became a little old, its suxs lossing hard earned money so I somewhat stopped gambling.

Anyway went to see our friend Ed Roman, what a: (insert profanity here). In all of my years in guitars I have never ever seen such a cold stale store. So what he has 100's of guitars, what if you can't play any of them? What a joke. If you go into a store like that you understand the concern, but it was not like he had 57 orginal strats or orginal gold tops... He had pearlcasters and his own guitars, nice looking but everything was such a turn off. I walked by 3 salesreps before one asked if he could help me, and he complains about customer service. Then I ask to look at a guitar body, well it takes 10yrs to find a ladder.

He complains about things like customer service, yet I ask to see some schon guitar parts and his staff is too busy to go look for them. So I am waiting and waiting. His rants are good, some people don't know about certain things, but he is off way off in terms of having somewhat of a friendly store. I didn't see one guitar that I would actually buy, which was strange since I had the intentions to buy one...

I did get a deal on a sprayed guitar body it was only 35 bucks painted and everything will post a pic of that.

[rhoads56]

where you not allowed to play them, or there were no amps available?? Ive never seen an amp in the pics ive seen.

[MzI]

thats pretty damn funny, the local shop i go to the guys know me but still, if i wanted to go play a 4000 usd les paul thru a 3000 usd mesa dual road king they wouldnt give it a thought

MzI

[bigdguitars]

you know no one asked me if I wanted to play anything. There were amps around, I just thought that I would get some real knowledgable staff member to talk to me about why this guitar was cool or what made it better... just not what I expected, I guess. I thought that I would get more help then I did.

I mean a do not touch sign on a used strat? come on Roman, I have played some really expensive guitars at botique shops, and of course I had to ask there, but a standard strat?

Also here is another thing, no cell phones allowed in the store, and no smoking withing 50 yards of the building... Also when I wanted to look at the USED necks I had to ask a guy to show me them, I asked him if I could just browse through them and that was a no.

just a wierd experience I guess.

[www]

I went to see for myself a few years ago and my impression was the same as BigD's'

I played one of Ed's Pearlcaster's with the 2500 grit finish Ed brags about. When I asked why the neck was warped I was told that it was one of Ed's private guitars (good cover ) and it was not for sale anyway (even though it was hanging out on a rack). Then I was told that the guitars are not setup on the showroom floors because they setup the guitars before shipping. The salesman also said that the store is not there for walk in cutomers due to they sell mostly online.

I left quite PO'd. I was a potential buyer. I was all ready to purchase a guitar and they blew me off. Too bad for them I bought a Gibson Tennessean later when I got home. Their loss.

[Paul Marossy]

I live here in Las Vegas, and I have seen billboard signs for his store, but I have never been there. I would go to Desert Music, Guitar Center, Cowtown, Sam Ash, Today's Music or AJ's before I went to Ed Roman. The other thing is that his store is located in a part of town that is a PITA to get to. His website seems to convey sort of an arrogance that is kind of a turn-off for me as well...

[LGM Guitars]

Ed Romans shop emailed me about a year and a half about about building replica JEM's for them Mostly LNG's. That was great, yay, fraudulent guitars!!!

The best part was, they told me they would offer me $200US to $250US per guitar (all parts and labor included) as I recall. It wasn't even enough to buy the trem and pickups much less build a guitar with.

I emailed them back and said thank you but don't call me, I'll call you.

[RGGR]

Funny to read all this.

I had similar experience couple of years ago when visiting Vegas.

As I was curious about his store I paid a visit......and with no one there (sales guys were in the back of store or jabbing on the phone.....) I just walked in and looked around.

Then sales person came back all kinda panicky......telling me that store was not a store and visit was only possible on appointment only. I said...well mark me down for today......say..looking at my watch......4:30pm.

I just thought that was hilarious. I thanked the guy and left. Not really understood what all the fuzz was about.

Later I found out that everyone and their grandmother seem to hate this guy.

[crafty]

Well, if you take a look at his rants section, you'll find that he HATES salesmen working on commission. So he probably pays a salary commensurate with the going rate in Vegas. If I were a salesman in his store, I wouldn't care about helping customers out and I certainly wouldn't care about customer service since my paycheck doesn't depend on customers buying product from ME. I'd be willing to bet that his idea of not paying commission has more to do with saving money by not having to give a percentage of a $3,000 guitar to a salesman he can pay $10.00/hour to do the same register-jockeying.

I've worked commission sales. It sucks, big time. But I always knew that I had to stay on the ball and actually sell something in order to eat. Every music store I've ever been to has had commissioned salesmen (and women) who know how to play, what sounds good, and what's the best product for the money.

As for not letting you check out the parts on your own, who knows? It might be some sort of policy to keep an eye out for hired guns looking for counterfeit or trademark infriging parts. I'm sure PRS doesn't like him selling PRS necks without factory authorization, so you know if they spy a non-authentic PRS neck with the label on it, he's toast.

I think like everything in Vegas, his showroom is probably something one must see just once in their lifetime. I may go see it sometime if I make it out there, but I'll call ahead to see if I need to make an appointment first, I guess