Thomann Reviews

Disappointed with my experience with Thomann I ordered two sets of replacement foams for my beyerdynamic headphones The shipment arrived in New Zealand almost a month after I had ordered it 10 days was taken up in shipping which wasn t too bad for Germany to New Zealand However the major holdup was that Thomann at first insisted on payment by international bank transfer That incurred fees by the banks at both ends and a substantial delay in the actual arrival of the money in Germany Thomann later admitted that I could have paid by Paypal or VISA That would have saved me quite a bit of money in fees and also would have removed a lot of the delay

To be clear this review is specifically about my own experience regarding the purchase of two Harley Benton Guitars from Thomann First Purchase I purchased a B stock SC 450 after seeing it highly praised on several platforms B stock advertised as may show some light signs of use No mention of defects I received the guitar poorly packaged in about 7 8 days On first inspection it looked ok particularly at the price point 115 incl Postage Closer inspection revealed badly finished fret ends and a glaring major problem with the controls some didn t work at all and others worked only partially or incorrectly I sent them video of the problems I contacted Thomann who declined to refund me the 70 a guitar tech suggested it might cost to put right so I returned the guitar 4 weeks later and I am still awaiting refund My Conclusions Neither Harley Benton nor Thomann pay any attention to quality control at this price range Thomann like to keep your money for as long as possible Second Purchase Harley Benton CST-24T New 238 Arrived in about 7 8 days Well packaged Initial inspection - generally good Closer inspection Bridge Vibrato piece not mounted in correct line Truss rod not centrally positioned in neck Fault with binding on one side of nut Bridge saddles did not allow sufficient lowering of action Once again I contacted Thomann with photo s of problems they replied saying they would contact their Tech dept A couple of days later they replied saying that the guitar will still work OK with these defects and offered me a 40 refund I accepted this as I didn t want to wait ages for the full refund on this also still hadn t received 1st guitar refund at this time and some of the work I could do myself re aligning bridge new saddles Materials used seemed overall decent quality and sound was good The finish except for binding issue - was excellent My Conclusions Neither Harley Benton nor Thomann pay much attention to quality control at this price range Generally I have played guitars for over 50 years I have owned or tried most makes I have heard many cheap guitars sound play great and some expensive ones sound play awful I was rather intrigued by the hype around these Harley Bentons and decided to try them First Hand My personal experience of this leads me to advise everyone to be very careful when you choose to purchase Harley Benton and to have your purchase checked by a competent person before keeping it a job which really should be undertaken before despatch Taking into account the many good reviews about them and my experience it appears to me that HB guitar quality is a hit or miss experience As a footnote I must add that all people I communicated with at Thomann were curteous and apologetic At time of writing I am still awaiting any refunds

Thomann used to be excellent but lately they seem to have completely lost it I placed an order eight days ago and it hasn t even left their warehouse yet My last two orders were more or less equally slow All items on these orders were in stock so I would have expected them to be shipped a lot sooner Sorry Thomann but unless you sort this out you will lose a customer who has placed close to 200 orders with your company in the past I m hoping this is just a temporary problem

On the face of it Thomann are a decent company - delivery is quick and accurate but scratch below the service and you will find our that their customer service is pretty hopeless as are - in the most part - their own brand products

Ordered a Marcus Miller Bass on the 30th June - arrived 6th July Little slow on dispatch compared to other companies but not a real issue Unfortunately the Active Preamp didn t work correctly Contacted Customer Care and courier was booked to pick up Took day off work to wait for courier - they never turned up Thomann a bit non plus about it after raising the issue Bass finally picked up 24 hours later with no apology Once they had received the bass I had to wait 15 days for them to then dispatch the replacement Box arrived in pristine condition but on opening the triangular guitar box was held together with eratic sellotape with the label removed from the front On opening the box the bass inside was not only damaged on the head stock but wasn t packed properly no tags broken foam on the inside absolutely nothing like the packaging from the first Bass The head stock had gone through the box at the top I supplied multiple pics of the damage and complete lack of damage to the outer box Raised this concern that not only was the Bass damaged but it was 2nd hand Thomann ignored this and stated it had been damaged in transit by the courier and they would give me a discount and claim back the money from the courier I pointed out on multiple occasions that I wasn t happy that the Bass was obviously 2nd hand but they never responded to that part I did accept that I would keep the bass due to not wanting it to be shipped backwards and forwards yet again - wouldn t help the climate crisis But every correspondence was with a different member of staff who didn t read any of the previous emails I was waiting for them to check the bass serial to see if it was a return but after sending pictures nobody came back Got bored of the constant chasing and lack of acceptance of the problems No real customer care - with half baked sorry for your inconvenience but nothing else Now asked for a full refund will buy somewhere a bit more professional next time Certainly not worth the man hours

I ordered a SE Dynacaster from them A 235 microphone They shipped me the SE V2 switch a 59 microphone I contacted them and they agreed to send me the correct microphone No need to send back the original So far decent customer service The replacement arrived a week later Another V2 switch I contacted them again They said they had to check the situation What followed was over a week of ignoring my messages and then sending me a generic customer service holding message and finally after more than a week they sent me a shipping label But they stated that they will only send me the microphone that I have already paid for weeks ago AFTER I return their second mistaken shipment I am extremely frustrated The week of ignoring me and doing nothing has absolutely destroyed my trust in their company If they came back immediately with the solution now proposed I would be annoyed but I would have accepted it This is absolutely terrible customer service They also have a great trick of sending you replies right on the time that their customer service desk closes for the day This speaks to the zero ownership culture within their customer service team Each message I receive is from a different person Needless to say this will be my last order from Thomann

Invoice sent to us with purchase without our company VAT number Client service refuses to resend invoice with number included Not happy

I have made an order one week ago and the items are in stock but DPD says the sender hasn t given them the parcel yet If and when I get my items I ll give them one more star

I am surely not satisfied Thoman does not quality control their guitars before selling them I drove 12 hours to their store To get a guitar with a big ass mark on the fretboard If had it for months but I hate sending things back I surely deserve a partial refund Since the value of the guitar is less bc of the fretboard error

I received a guitar which looked absolutely beautiful and I was very excited However upon a quick inspection I noticed a break in the pickup ring which noted the beginning of my really rough experience dealing with Thomann Customer service was quick to help initially but then sent me the wrong parts to New York twice Causing a 2 month delay to even get the guitar setup Upon bringing the guitar to my luthier he informed me the pickup ring was still incorrect and he bought the correct ones from guitar center for me Later he mentioned the sharp frets which I noticed immediately when I bought it poor wood grain positioning a double pieced neck and misaligned neck bridge The guitar is gorgeous and the Thomann team tries to help but for the overall condition and manufacturing of the guitar I d have to give 2 stars which I feel is more than generous Will buy guitars in store in the future so a similar issue doesn t occur