Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
Guitar Center dumping Mesa or new models?
- Thread starter Britbonic
- Start date
The thread is about Mesa parting with GC and the reasons. It's been suggested Mesa wishes to occupy a higher value position in the market than GC can provide. Some question Mesa's intrinsic values and compare other brands. Mesa qualities are promoted. Another brand is denigrated. Sigh.
Riiiiiiight! Listen, Mesa is a fine company with great products, but if you want to go there, I'll go there. Carbine series and its problems. End of argument.
Anyway, you can be quite proud of yourself. I'm sure that every single person reading this is selling their Ampeg gear and buying Mesa as we speak.
the high end stuff is the only stuff worth buying. being made in the usa is one of those reasons. it just has better parts and produces a better sound. same thing goes with instruments. an american standard jazz bass from fender sounds 100% better than one made in mexico, china, or japan. it just does. noone can argue the sound. do they cost more? of course they do. because they sound better. mexican workers still build them so it's nothing about the race of people. it's just what they are made out of. the quality in them produces the better sound.
as far as electronics people in japan could make them better than any person in the usa ever could. but there's alot more to sound than just electronics. there's the type of wood and quality of wood and so on and so forth. when it comes to sound that's one area the usa has always been better at than the rest of the world. europe and the usa have always had the best musical sounds and instruments out there. that's almost the only thing we have left that we are still good at. the rest of the world is kicking our butts in everything else. might not be long until they pass us in musical products as well. who knows?
i mean look around. i drive a toyota truck. i'm on a toshiba laptop. i'm watching a sony tv. japan is #1 in all of those things.
china on the other hand is just being used as the labor force for pretty much 99% of every american company. they pay them $1 an hour or something and we deal with it when things aren't up to par so to speak.
yep. orange and hiwatt are from europe.
where do you think the beatles came from? or U2? bands like that.
yamaha drums are pretty good from japan and takamine acoustic guitars.
What is not cool is bashing on local music stores because "their prices are too high".
Yes compared to monolithic companies like Musicians Friend/Guitar Center their prices may be higher. But then again I do not go to Musicians Friend/Guitar Center to get advice or repairs. I DO got to local mom and pops for such.
Besides what will happen if all the mom and pops go out of business?
Then you will only be able to buy Rogue basses "deltalab" pedals and "Acoustic" amps.
I've seen several EXTREMELY GOOD local stores go under in the last few years.
Leo's Pro Audio in Oakland was a little more than the best prices I could find on the internet, but they would price match. They did not have everything in stock I wanted. But they did carry parts and adapters for just about anything you could possibly push audio through. They also had people who had worked in their respective positions for DECADES. The accessories counter guy Mark was the frickin' Yoda of audio engineering.
He often found me a better solution than I was looking for, and many times at a lower price!
the thing about ma and pa stores is you can't rely on them anymore. you go to buy strings and they don't have any of the kind you like. you need something and stop by and guess what? they don't have it.
you used to could count on them to have exactly what you needed. even back in the 90s which wasn't that too long ago. once the 2000s got here all these stores just dried up and either went out of business or just stopped carrying anything worth buying. it's sad to see really.
a big store like guitar center is the only thing giving kids a chance these days. you know the kids that were like we were when we were young. we wanted to start a band and play gigs and all that. kids go to the local store all they are gonna do is get ripped off and their mom and dad has to pay for it. it's one thing to be slightly more expensive but geez man it'll be like $500 more than GC in price. are you kidding me? i hope stores like that close down. they don't deserve to be in business.
Another big +1 for this post.
There have been threads here on TB chronicling in detail the GC business model and it can't be described as anything other than providing the cheapest prices on the highest volume at the expense of quality and service. IMO, they are the McDonald's of music gear.
Mesa Boogie has built its reputation on high quality with no compromise and they feel their reputation is suffering by being associated with Guitar Center. I agree, and I don't see how MB severing ties with GC is going to hurt either company. Mesa Boogie is going to be just fine as they are and Guitar Center will continue to circle the drain, faster and faster.
Musiclogic
Commercial User
- Aug 6, 2005
- 6,505
- 73
- 60
- Disclosures
- Owner/Builder: HJC Customs USA, The Cool Lute, C G O
This has to be the biggest load of $#&% I have ever heard.
What exactly were Mom and pops $500 more than Guitar Center on?
A $3000 PRO maybe, but not on the bargain basement stuff. Maybe 5 or 10% higher and as for Strings, small businesses sell what sells, not what sits on the shelf.
Guitar Center offers a lot of the same thing whereas a mom and pop offers a limited amount.
Guitar Center is generally crap for customer service, the employees are poorly educated if at all on the product they sell, and offer little to no service for anything. Most mom and pops would have a Tech on staff, and the people working there knew the equipment and how it was applied, capabilities and comparatives.
As for the cheap for "kids" point.....They all sell Starcaster packs, or something similar, Squier, Ibanez, Yamaha or some other economy base.
Guitar Center has run off so many mom and pops that you basically get to shop online or you get the GC/MF offerings and that is left to what "they" want to carry, not what "YOU" want to buy
By all means, feel free to discuss the Carbine series - still nowhere near as many failed amps as either the PF-500 or the SVT7 Pro - let alone both combined... AND, Mesa backed every single one of their amps, instead of worming out of it like Ampeg did with their non-transferrable warranty... How many revisions is Ampeg up to at this point??? Also, I've never seen Mesa come up with such lame copouts as: "Don't turn the knobs past 12 o'clock"...
Sorry if you're a little bothered by all this, but comparing Ampeg to Mesa in terms of domestic production, reliability, customer service, or QC is truly laughable...
- georgestrings
Never mind the fact that Japan has made some of the finest stringed instruments available for over 25 years now.
a good example is what i just saw less than a week ago. ma and pa store in my town had a used ampeg 8x10 cabinet for $1399. you can get a brand new one for $999 or less.
you don't think that is ripping people off?
a used 8x10 should sell for around $500. maybe $750 if it is in near mint condition and not used much. the not used much part you can never really figure out. people lie all the time about that crap....oh yeah i hardly used it, never gigged with it. lol in reality they toured 5 years with it and beat it to hell and back.
Yeah, I'm sure there are exactly as many Carbines as 7 Pros and PF500's out there. Get real.
Anyway, I've ceased to be amused by your completely off-topic and needless/warrantless bashing of Ampeg in a thread that has nothing to do with them, and wouldn't have even been discussed had you not brought it up, so my final comment is:
whatever.
This thread has gotten ridiculously off topic. We started by talking about why GC (the company I currently work for) and Mesa Boogie (the company who makes the best bass amps I've ever used) are no longer working together. That has been established. Mesa Boogie customer service came on here and confirmed the reason for the split, and made very valid points that I (as a GC employee and a fan of the company) can't argue with and totally understand. I see the people that work at GC...hell I have to train them, I know where all the frustration comes from when people talk about customer service issues...trust me...
The Ampeg/Boogie comparison is just ridiculous, its off topic but its an interesting thing to consider. I've had many conversations with my guitar player comparing Marshall to Ampeg(because he wondered why I switched) when it comes to cheaper products and overseas production and all that. Marshall's new DSL line is all made in Vietnam much like Ampeg's Non Heritage SVT line. Once I got into Mesa amps and made the switch from Ampeg we had a few long talks about gear and I pointed out how much I admired the integrity of a company that never put out a cheap solid state amp that was made in China. And my guitar player agreed. He respects the hell out Mesa as a company, but the only Mesa Amp he can get his sound out of is the Mark V and its still just not quite him. Nothing sounds like a Marshall. Nothing sounds like an Ampeg. And nothing sounds like a Mesa. Different companies, different ideas, different goals, different sounds. His opinion of Marshall is very similar to JimmyM's defense of Ampeg...I get it. As amazing as Mesa amps are (and when I crank my M9 Carbine that is HOW I have fantasized my sound being for years) its not the same as plugging into an SVT. Like I said...different companies, different sound.
I'd like to see this Ampeg vs Mesa thing stop and maybe hear Mesa address some of the previous issues other TBers have brought up, aside from the pitting a small company (mom and pop possibly?) against a very large company (GCish mayhaps?)
Just my thoughts.
The Ampeg/Boogie comparison is just ridiculous, its off topic but its an interesting thing to consider. I've had many conversations with my guitar player comparing Marshall to Ampeg(because he wondered why I switched) when it comes to cheaper products and overseas production and all that. Marshall's new DSL line is all made in Vietnam much like Ampeg's Non Heritage SVT line. Once I got into Mesa amps and made the switch from Ampeg we had a few long talks about gear and I pointed out how much I admired the integrity of a company that never put out a cheap solid state amp that was made in China. And my guitar player agreed. He respects the hell out Mesa as a company, but the only Mesa Amp he can get his sound out of is the Mark V and its still just not quite him. Nothing sounds like a Marshall. Nothing sounds like an Ampeg. And nothing sounds like a Mesa. Different companies, different ideas, different goals, different sounds. His opinion of Marshall is very similar to JimmyM's defense of Ampeg...I get it. As amazing as Mesa amps are (and when I crank my M9 Carbine that is HOW I have fantasized my sound being for years) its not the same as plugging into an SVT. Like I said...different companies, different sound.
I'd like to see this Ampeg vs Mesa thing stop and maybe hear Mesa address some of the previous issues other TBers have brought up, aside from the pitting a small company (mom and pop possibly?) against a very large company (GCish mayhaps?)
Just my thoughts.
