I was thinking recently that I'm spoilt for choice, I'm 10-15mins drive from 4 good music stores : Gear Junkie, Guitar Center, Paul Bothners and Pieter Smuts Music.

It's not quite the heights of Ronnie's and TOM's up in Gauteng - but I'm not complaining!

I guess this question is probably most relevant for those outside of Cpt/Jhb/Pta - are there stores near you and do they scratch your gear itches?

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(old forum) Poll Results: POLL : Where's your local music store?

• less than 15mins drive: 15
• less than 1hr drive: 5
• It's a day trip: 1
• It's a overnight trip: 0
• It's a online store (or classifieds): 0

When Andy McGibbon's was still open, my office was equidistant between them and Music Connection- 5 minutes drive in either direction. It was a dangerous time.

There's this map of local music shops around the world- it's editable, so if your shop is missing, you can add it.

Marshall Music West Rand is down the road, about 3 km's, but I don't have much rapport with them.

There was a Music Mate just past Clearwater that had some great guys! Bought most of my stuff there!

There was 3 within 20 minutes, but one closed down in April. On the bright side, another just moved to a bigger shop space and looks great, but rent must of gone up cause the prices are through the roof!

Music Connection around the corner, Bothners N1 and GearJunkie both around 10 minutes (GearJunkie a little more of a mission traffic-wise), and TerryD 20- 25 minutes away if I need Chinese take-aways.
Google tells me there is a music shop in Sable Square, which is on my doorstep, but I haven't found it yet. Maybe old info

Foottapiologist wrote: Google tells me there is a music shop in Sable Square, which is on my doorstep, but I haven't found it yet. Maybe old info

Yeah, it was a Music Mate - closed about 3 years ago. They were the only place I could find double ball end strings for my steinbergers :'(.

For me its about a 30 min drive - one way.

There is only one music shop in Nelspruit. ? We used to have 2 about 10 years back but the Nelspruit crowd is still small, so probably over kill having 2 music shops in a small town.

I'd be interested to know the current shopping trends.

I find that shops seldom stock what I'm looking for, or make out that they don't really know what I'm talking about. I mean how can you walk into a big name store and they don't even have acoustic saddles in stock? Or don't know what you're talking about when you try explain you're looking for pick-up height adjustment springs?
Or they offer to get the item in for me at a silly price.
So my first port of call is to shop online. I'm not a big online buyer generally but when it comes to guitar stuff I'm almost 100% online buyer.

For miscellaneous convenience purchases I'm not brand conscious, not having a favourite shop. For me it's more about the person I dealt with and for any repeat purchase I'll go back to the same guy who made an impression on me previously. It's not uncommon for me to do a round trip of more than one shop to pick up various stuff just because of a weird subliminal loyalty/anti-loyalty thing for the various categories of product. If shopping was totally painless I'd probably still just be frequenting one shop.

Music Connection Northgate have bent over backwards to organise me stuff on a couple of occassions.
Got a feeling I might be making more turns at GearJunkie even though they didn't stock what I was looking for at the time. Got some potential there. Different concept.

I reckon there is money to be made in this country for a well-priced jacked up online retailer in the mould of Stewmac or Guitarfetish provided the owner doesn't want to do the safrican thing and charge premium to pay for the house at the river. Similar to how 4x4Direct stirred up the local 4x4 retail industry.

Not always about brand stock but friendly and knowledgeable sales staff is a bonus and would definitely make me part with my money. Local shops have little stock or "inferior" brands with little or now knowledge. Ordering is a rumour and follow up calls are seldom received.

Had awesome service from some of the major stores and online stores in SA

the closest to me is at least a half hours drive.
but at 45 mins drive, that puts at least 6 stores in reach.
for an hours drive, a few more. Whether I want to deal with al of them though, is another story.

I stay about 10 mins walk from pieter smuts, there used to be another store that I used to walk to called music fest SA but they closed down.
Paul bothner N1 and musiek wereld is about 10 mins +- drive from where I stay.