I've discussed that previously.
Wow, I guess you told me.
Listen, I have a house full of Fender gear, dating back to 1951. I've been playing Fender amps and instruments since before most people here were born.
I also have been professionally buying, selling, repairing, authenticating and appraising Fender gear off and on for over forty years. I'm more of a gear guy than a player. Players were just people I made my money off of.
Unlike the large majority of people here -- including most self-ordained "techs" and "experts" -- I actually know how quality production is done, specifically how FMIC builds most of their gear and the incremental production differences there are in their general price ranges. I view gear purely as industrial product that succeeds or fails on objective specifics relative to price, not as marketing cons or totemic love objects of besotted fanboys who don't have a clue what they're talking about beyond subjective impressions based on emotional responses.
Fenders are usually my preferred basses, but I've never seen a perfect one, or even one without numerous production flaws that could and probably should have been avoided. Corona production instruments continue to be overpriced, overhyped and underbuilt with too much cynical marketing (boy, could I write a book on that!) and as little attention to detail as they can get away with. That is literally the business model for all American corporate production: Quality in excess of consumer appreciation is wastage. If consumers can be kept ignorant and crudely excited through marketing ("teaching the native to want," in the Harvard Business School proverb), then you can save money building a poorer quality product than you would if they were educated and cold-bloodedly discerning -- as I make every effort to be. Good marketing is more important than good production to the corporation, but it shouldn't be to an intelligent consumer.
That's why FJ's domestic-market (not export) build quality is so much better than FMIC's. The Japanese are incredibly demanding, well-educated and informed consumers who fastidiously demand top quality production in everything they buy to a degree that always astonishes Americans.
And yes, I've had it out with a few of FMIC's people about this in the past.
But, y'know what? Players don't want to be educated and objective about gear. It's astonished me for decades. They just want to have their magical hippy experiences with gear, and almost every one I've ever met prefers this sappy honeymoon glow to actually knowing the objective facts about that gear.
Simply beautiful. Sometimes the truth hurts. Thank you my good man.
