Great shopping experience, wish they had more $6,000+ violins available but the selection was good enough! 5 grand and below has tons of selection.

Im really impressed with the service I received here. After years (decades) of not playing, my violin was in less than top condition (bridge warped, E string buzzing, etc) so dropped it off for a complete tune-up. I was given a nice loaner violin, which I enjoyed playing while the work was done. Both the luthier and the person re-hairing my bow were very communicative and explained everything that they recommended having done but totally left it up to me to decide what I wanted. Anyway, I just picked up my violin today, and I dont think it has ever sounded so good! It truly sings now and the tone is smoother than ever. Worth every penny!

Excellent service and friendly knowledgable staff. It was a great experience all around. Wide variety to pick from.

The instruments here are absolutely beautiful! I love how they give you some time and private space to figure out the violin quality and sound. Some of the cases were beat up, but that’s what I get for renting a used violin! Thank you for the good work!

Hammond Ashley is lovely local instrument shop. The manager and luthiers are very knowledgeable and generous with their time when it comes to sharing info on instrument repair options and the history of an instrument. My family and I have gotten a handful of violins from them over the years that served us very well in our musical studies!

Brought a viola back for the buyback program. They were efficient: still had my info after 13 years and I received my check within a couple weeks. I also asked them to look at my violin from 1970 and although they werent interested in passing it along, Bryce gave me some really thorough and interesting details about it. Pleasant and knowledgeable.

We came in to buy a student instrument and the welcoming staff showed us some quality instruments and helped us find the right fit for our child. We ended up on the rent-to-own program in which we can keep trading up sizes as the student grows or trade in the instrument towards a trade value or buyback if our needs change over the years.

I live an hour away and called before coming to simply be told they have too many violins and werent purchasing and that it was $150 to have the violin appraised. Truly horrible customer service. Why could that have been told to me over the telephone??? Thank you for wasting a Saturday afternoon. I wish I was more apart of the music world because i would not hesitate to tarnish this businesss name. Shameful. Common courtesy is clearly a lost art.

I have come here for 30 years, and am always happy with the folks that are working for the family business. I now bring my kids as the quality of service outshines the rest. I live north of Seattle, but its well worth the extra drive to be treated so well and the quality of instruments are always the best.

Ive tried most violin shops in Seattle area and got impressed by this place. They have so many nice-sounding instruments with reasonable prices. The staffs were very knowledgeable and friendly as well.

Have always experienced great customer service. Staff has always been very helpful and knowledgeable.

If youre looking only for string instruments, this will hone 10x better than music & arts, because the quality of the instruments is spectacularly better and they provide you quality strings, rosin, cases, and for a more fair price sometimes higher or lower depending on what youre buying.

I absolutely LOVE this place. They have all the standard things youd need - accessories/fittings, strings of all qualities, from Red Label to Thomastik Infeld Pis; a fairly decent selection of violins and violas; and a big teaching studio, to boot. Repairs are done professionally, quickly, and very economically. If nothing more, this place is a fun place to go to look around and spend 30 minutes to an hour.The only downside to Hammond Ashley Violins is that they dont have a whole lot of the very expensive violins you might find if you were to go to an auction or a larger shop, i.e. Brobst in VA, Carl Becker in IL, Shar in MI (in-person), etc. If youre looking to come in to compare a $1.5 million Guadagnini to a $3.5 million Guarneri or Strad, youre out of luck. The selection they have in the

After I retired six years ago I decided, at 62, to follow a dream of learning to play the violin. I visited a number of good violin shops in Western Washington but had my most welcoming and interactive experience at Hammond Ashley. I met Bryce, who I later learned was the general manager of Hammond Ashley, and he was very knowledgeable about violins and the needs of adult students like me. He asked me a number of questions and spent time educating me. That first day, I ended up renting a violin and took it home to begin experimenting with it. In time, I started lessons and really began to enjoy this wonderful instrument. I stoped by the shop a few months later and told Bryce that I wanted to invest in a nice violin. Once again, he didnt rush me into a purchase. He showed me 5 violins in the shop that were in the $1K - $2K range that I was willing to spend. He continued to teach me about the qualities and features of different manufacturers and countries of origin. I did not buy a violin that day, but started a process of looking for my violin. I spent another month on the Internet looking at the different woods and options like chin rests, tuning pegs, and other accessories. I visited the shop a number of times to check in with Bryce to see what new violins were available. I also decided that it would be a better long term musical and financial investment to spend more to get the best quality violin I could afford since I was doing well in my lessons. Bryce told me that $5,000 was a good price point for a high quality violin. I agreed and asked him to let me know when a German violin came available. A few weeks later he called to invite me to check out a newly arrived German violin. I showed up the next day and it was perfect! A beautiful Heinrich Holste blonde violin made in 1927. It was in excellent condition and had a new bridge installed by Hammond Ashleys lead luthier Scott Marshall. I played a few notes and it played well and sounded beautiful. Bryce also had printouts of the historical research he had done on Heinrich Holste and his shop in Germany. This violin was not a shop violin made by apprentices and multiple luthiers, it was one of the last ones Holste completely and totally made himself when he was at the height of his art. I was so impressed. I made my big purchase that day with the reassured feeling that I was doing the right thing and had been helped by Bryce and other members of the Hammond Ashley staff to make a good investment in myself and my quest to learn to play the violin. My violin teacher was also impressed. She owns a VERY expensive French violin and made the comment that I was not only very well taken care of by Bryce in the whole process, but that I had also received a unique and high quality instrument for the money I spent. Every time I take my violin out of the case to practice, I enjoy how nice it looks, how well it plays and enjoy a deep pride of ownership in the fine instrument that Bryce found for me.

Extremely helpful, very knowledgeable, flexible in difficult situations, low prices and excellent customer service.The only place to get large string instruments for sale rental or repairs.

I had the worst experiences! They mixed up my bow, and refused to admit that they made a mistake. Instead of checking whether the wood of the bow matched the wood of the violin, they said, In my 30 years of experiences, I have never once switch a bow. After 30 minutes of searching, I finally got my bow back, but not once did they apologize for their mistake.

I was really disappointed yesterday: I planned to drop off my cello yesterday b

Great place to begin