My Review of the Instruments Zen Store

Have you recently discovered an online musical instrument store called Instruments Zen? Are you considering placing an order on this ecommerce site? Can this business be trusted, or is it a scam? Are there any reviews of the Instruments Zen store?

I considered ordering from this website myself, so I did some research to determine whether this business seemed legitimate. Here’s everything I found about Instruments Zen’s sales practices and the people behind it.

Instruments Zen is an online store selling instruments meant for music therapy. It appears that the owner is intentionally trying to remain anonymous while failing to meet legal obligations. Lastly, the reviews shown on the site are fraudulent.

Once you have read this article in its entirety, you will learn:

• The person behind Instruments Zen
• Whether genuine reviews have been posted about this store
• My personal and honest opinion about this online store

With all this information in hand, you can decide for yourself whether you should trust Instruments Zen and place an order on the site.

Now let’s take a look at who the owner of the Instruments Zen store might be.

Who is behind the Instruments Zen store?

Instruments Zen is an online store that, as its name suggests, mainly sells musical instruments associated with relaxation and calm. For example, you can find handpans, kalimbas, and therapeutic tuning forks. A tuning fork was the instrument I wanted to buy to test whether it would work for me.

The first essential step when considering a purchase on any website is to make sure the legal notice is present and complete. This information is required by law and must include key details so that consumers can clearly identify the website owner in case of a problem. These notices must be accessible from every page of the online store, so they’re usually located at the bottom. That’s exactly the case for Instruments Zen, and here is what you can read at the very beginning of their legal notice:

I then learned that the Instruments Zen store is operated by STUDIO45NORD. The rest of the text covers the terms of use, and then at the very end—almost as if the writer wanted to hide it—there is additional information:

It then states that the company STUDIO45NORD is located in Canada at 281 RUE JEANNE ROBERT, J2W2P1 Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu QC CA, along with a France-based phone number and an email address. The first red flag is that French and EU law requires much more information to be provided on this page. Specifically, the following details must be included:

• The company’s registration number in the Trade and Companies Register (RCS)
• The VAT registration number
• The first and last name of the person responsible for publications

None of this essential information appears on the legal notice page, which is punishable by one year’s imprisonment and a $75,000 fine. It seems surprising that a reputable business could “accidentally” omit so much crucial information, which is what caught my attention. I therefore searched the official website for companies registered in Quebec.

There is indeed a company registered in Quebec called STUDIO 45NORD under number 2279417424 since January 8, 2024. The address listed is not actually the same as the one shown in the Instruments Zen legal notice. Instead of 281 RUE JEANNE ROBERT, the official address for STUDIO 45NORD is: 3-281 RUE JEANNE ROBERT. The “3” simply indicates that the business is located in apartment no. 3 at that address, which appears to be a residential location.

The official Quebec registry also states that it is a sole proprietorship owned by DAVAUD Hugo, whose main activity is listed as “film and video production,” which is surprising since there is no mention of any retail activity. Finally, the record states that the company has no employees, which is also surprising because the shipping policy mentions that Instruments Zen has “teams.” If that’s the case, it would be reassuring to know who these “teams” actually are within a sole proprietorship with no employees.

So what’s the connection between a video production sole proprietorship and a musical instrument store? I have no idea. There used to be a website, https://studio45nord.com/, that showcased the company’s video production work, but it has since been shut down, which isn’t very reassuring either. However, it’s still possible to find a few images suggesting that this sole proprietorship was indeed focused on video production:

Finally, looking more closely at the domain name www.instruments-zen.fr, it turns out that it was created on December 23, 2024, and that its owner chose to remain anonymous when registering it:

I genuinely feel that the owner of instruments-zen.fr has done everything possible to limit the information available on the store, showing a total disregard for both the law and consumers. It’s obviously not normal to have to do this much digging just to identify the owner of an online store. Even after all that, I still don’t know whether DAVAUD Hugo is actually the owner or if this is a case of identity theft linked to a scam, since there’s no clear connection between online sales and video production. Either way, the store is not complying with the law.

Are there any reviews about this online music store?

Looking at the Instruments Zen website, it appears that this store has over 200 reviews with a rating of 4.8/5.

However, more than a hundred of these reviews are dated before December 23, 2024, even though the website didn’t exist before that date. For example, here is a series of reviews dated September 2024, three months before the store was created:

So how could that be explained? It can’t. In my opinion, these are fake reviews meant to mislead future customers about how trustworthy this online store is. And for the reviews that include photos, it may be content taken from other businesses, which is also illegal. On top of that, you can see that the top two reviews were posted on the same day by the same person, R. R., for the same item, yet the text is different, which is suspicious. Posting fake reviews online, or editing real ones, is considered an unfair commercial practice and can lead to serious penalties: up to two years in prison and a $300,000 fine. So it’s important to be very cautious.

Furthermore, there are no reviews of this store except for a single review on Trustpilot from a profile that has only ever posted one review and appears to be based in Canada, the supposed location of Studio 45Nord. It’s possible this single review was posted by the store owner himself. Finally, it’s worth noting that the pace at which reviews appear on the Instruments Zen store is completely inconsistent. For example, dozens of reviews were posted in January 2025, sometimes several per day. Then nothing since May 14, 2025, even though I’m writing this article in July 2025. That’s very strange.

What is my opinion on this e-commerce site for relaxation and music therapy instruments?

I couldn’t find all the information I needed to place an order on this site. In particular, I couldn’t find a return address in the return and refund policy in case I wanted to exercise my right of withdrawal. It simply says you have to send an email. Yet this is critical for potential customers because the terms state that returns are at the customer’s expense and that the product might need to be sent to Canada, which could mean very high additional costs.

During my visit to the Instruments Zen store, I also noticed that the consumer mediator was not listed in the Terms of Use. This is a legal requirement for online retailers to help protect consumers. Failing to comply can lead to substantial fines, yet it doesn’t seem to concern the owner of Instruments Zen.

Finally, and this is almost a minor detail after everything above, it appears that many pages of this store were probably written using artificial intelligence. This seems to be the case for the description of the tuning fork I wanted to buy, and likely for many other product pages and blog posts as well. The writing felt bland and impersonal, which I wanted to verify. The issue is that many ecommerce sites have recently popped up thanks to AI, since copy can be produced almost instantly. Some of these stores turn out to be mass-produced scams that never deliver to customers, although I can’t state anything definitive about Instruments Zen.

As a result, my opinion of Instruments Zen remains very negative. I was unable to order a therapeutic tuning fork, and I can only base this assessment on the factual elements I’ve shared above.

Choose a trusted and clearly identified professional for your future musical instruments

Stores specializing in music therapy or sound therapy are relatively rare, both in physical shops and online. So it can be tempting to go with the first offers you come across, like those from Instruments Zen. However, it’s important to confirm in advance that all legal requirements are properly met, which clearly doesn’t seem to be the case here. It’s therefore best to remain cautious.

That said, if you’re looking for a reliable partner, it makes sense to choose a company that’s 100% transparent about its operations. That’s why I recommend Instruments du Monde, which complies with all applicable legal obligations while offering quality instruments. In short, you get the reassurance you need to build real trust.

Explore all the offers from Instruments du Monde by clicking on the image below:

Choose from over 200 Tibetan bowls to find the one that's right for you

4.6/5 — 400+ Reviews

See the wide selection of Tibetan Singing Bowls

Another interesting note: in another article, I compiled all the most zen and relaxing instruments so you can choose the one you truly connect with. There’s a video for each instrument to help you decide.