Fender has gone wild!

[Johnny Alien]

My 96 USA P is great, my 98 Geddy Lee Jazz is great, my 2007 Fender Jag is great. QC seems fine to me. I guess the values of all my Fender just went up!

That being said, Gibson just dropped the price on the Thunderbird to just about match the US Jazz Prices. This would also be a good time for Gibson to release an updated USA Grabber or some other cool bass at the $900--$1,000 price point and grab back some of the market for basses. Even if it is some new US design. Wont happen, but one could only hope.

They did just re-release the Grabber but it is $3000.

 

[The Birdman]

Only the QC has really been fine for years. Most/nearly all people who walk into a GC and play a poorly set up Fender with old strings pronounce it a bad bass with QC problems. Then we get a full report here on TB. Most/nearly all of these "problem" Fenders are really fine instruments that just need some adjustment. Also, I don't really get the HD comparison. Motorcycles are mechanical carriages by which people travel public roads. They have to be reliable and safe. Even the post advanced designs from 50 years ago are neither safe nor reliable by today's standards. Of course auto/motorcycle companies have to innovate, because people expect constant refinements to make the vehicles safer and more reliable. I fail to see how this apples to a Fender bass, or really any other musical instrument. People demand a certain product from Fender, and Fender delivers that product. Compared to other Fender bass copies (many of which are imported from countries with horrible labor laws and standards) Fenders are priced fairly. Of course, no one has to buy a Fender or a Harley Davidson! They are free, and encouraged, to incessantly whine here on the forum, however.

I DO agree with this, Fender QC is generally pretty decent. The 2008 MIM 70s Jazz I mentioned buying earlier in the thread turned out to be the exception, though.....it ended up having a high 10th fret under the A string, and it took a bit to work the fret down to where it should have been. The fret-leveller in Mexico was not having a good day, I guess.

With the usual "take it out of the box and hang it on the wall" at Guitar Center (where I bought it), there was no chance of finding that before buying it. The set-up was way high. I didn't find this issue until I set it up to Fender factory specs.

Roger

 

[Dr. Cheese]

I agree with the idea that people are being too quick to call an instrument bad. I can spend an hour with any instrument and make it feel like a completely different bass to most people on this forum. . .

+1,000! One of the great things about TB is that I learned more about set ups, and gained some confidence in my ability. I now tweak my neck, do intonation, and set the bridge. I still leave fretwork to others though. The main advantage of do it yourself, is that it becomes obvious that so many QC issues are really nothing but poor setups.

Back to the topic, I have owned new American Deluxes and Standards going back to the 1990s, and absolutely none of them had any quality issues.

 

[JamesC]

All these price increases makes me happy that I bought my Jag when I did. $600 new in November 2007. ~$930 new in March 2009.


And what makes me even more happy is that I bought a used Korean Danelectro Longhorn for $120