I don't think there will be any interaction between Ampeg, Line6 and Yamaha.
The same group owns them that's it.
The same group owns them that's it.
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What can we possibly expect from Yamaha taking over Ampeg?
- Thread starter gwangi
- Start date
Yes if they bought it cheap enough that it will sell easily for more in a few years, it is a sufficient reason.
Ampeg is merely a drop in the gallon of Nippon Gakki assets.
Ampeg is merely a drop in the gallon of Nippon Gakki assets.
I have been a clinician with Yamaha(trombone) since 93’ and they have always really pushed wind and percussion instruments big time, Piano, Keyboard and a Recording studio stuff too.. back in 88’ Yamaha had Mike Soldano on staff to design awesome tube amps I have two of them 50 watt combo and 100 watt head.. . Yamaha at that time also had Carlos Santana playing their SG batwing guitar which was so close to a Gibson that Yamaha was sued by Gibson forcing Yamaha to make changes.
.IMO, Yamaha Guitar’s and amps have never been able to keep up with the Big Boys of guitar, Fender, Martin, and Gibson..even though what they do make is really great quality...the Yamaha Corp. just may be too big! Too big to push a line of instruments that have been perceived as also rands. If you look back at Yamaha Guitar’s, basses and amps, they’re all versions of the big three..but they were very affordable...you have to go way back to the late 60,s and early 70’s to find really different designs..some really wacky stuff.
Buying Line 6 and Ampeg means a built in customer base of products that are original and established. No need to emulate instruments from another maker...and I’m sure the price was right too.
.IMO, Yamaha Guitar’s and amps have never been able to keep up with the Big Boys of guitar, Fender, Martin, and Gibson..even though what they do make is really great quality...the Yamaha Corp. just may be too big! Too big to push a line of instruments that have been perceived as also rands. If you look back at Yamaha Guitar’s, basses and amps, they’re all versions of the big three..but they were very affordable...you have to go way back to the late 60,s and early 70’s to find really different designs..some really wacky stuff.
Buying Line 6 and Ampeg means a built in customer base of products that are original and established. No need to emulate instruments from another maker...and I’m sure the price was right too.
One upshot has been the availability of some good clearance deals from the change in distribution! Hence my picking up a Pf-50t...
The Yamaha LL16 guitar is affordable and a secret wepon in a lot of studios. Their even tone records and sounds fantastic.
The Yamaha grand pianos are also a staple of studios for the same reason.
I have a Yamaha copy of a Martin D45 it has all the bells and whistles of the Martin, and I bought it used from Elderly Instruments for $300. As I said in my original post Yamaha’s affordability has been there big attraction..
What if they decided to discontinue the SVT?
Not that I think they would, but what if?
Dare I say that the 1,000's of used SVT's would suddenly become collectible?
Not that I think they would, but what if?
Dare I say that the 1,000's of used SVT's would suddenly become collectible?
So this is who owns Yamaha FYI.
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Not exactly a small company.
I suppose if they wanted to they could make the nicest bass amp on the planet.
I for one hope the quality improves. The Ampeg cabs have been great but the amps seem to be hit or miss. I have personally seen many horror stories from both the Vietnam and China made amps. I really don't think they ever got a true handle on some the design issues with some of the products. At one point I went into GetSilly and every amp in stock had severe issues.
I hope to see a 200 watt V4B and a nice cab to go with it, maybe a cool matching vintage looking 6x10.
I don't currently own any Ampeg gear but I'm a sucker for the vintage grill cloth, never liked the black Ampegs.
My first real amp was a 69 V4 so I have history with Ampeg but do not currently own any.
My issue is I don't care for an SVT, just too big and complicated and the V4 just isn't quite loud enough.
Really IMO the best compromise was the SVT 3Pro as it had a built in gooey circuit but it was on the edge power/volume wise.
Would also like to see some cooler class D designs, to me most of the newer Ampeg designs looked like they were designed by a person without a clue for design.
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Not exactly a small company.
I suppose if they wanted to they could make the nicest bass amp on the planet.
I for one hope the quality improves. The Ampeg cabs have been great but the amps seem to be hit or miss. I have personally seen many horror stories from both the Vietnam and China made amps. I really don't think they ever got a true handle on some the design issues with some of the products. At one point I went into GetSilly and every amp in stock had severe issues.
I hope to see a 200 watt V4B and a nice cab to go with it, maybe a cool matching vintage looking 6x10.
I don't currently own any Ampeg gear but I'm a sucker for the vintage grill cloth, never liked the black Ampegs.
My first real amp was a 69 V4 so I have history with Ampeg but do not currently own any.
My issue is I don't care for an SVT, just too big and complicated and the V4 just isn't quite loud enough.
Really IMO the best compromise was the SVT 3Pro as it had a built in gooey circuit but it was on the edge power/volume wise.
Would also like to see some cooler class D designs, to me most of the newer Ampeg designs looked like they were designed by a person without a clue for design.
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You guys and your speculation... LOL!
First off, the division of Yamaha called Yamaha guitar group that's headed by the former head of line 6 bought Ampeg. Of course they have to answer to corporate , but they seem to have been given a pretty long leash . Second, the one area that Yamaha has always traditionally lacked in is amps for guitar and bass. Owning Ampeg will go a long way to rectify that, which will make the owners of Yamaha very happy as long as it's profitable. They are not looking at Ampeg to save their company... They are looking at Ampeg to build more of a presence in amps. Now if your doomsday scenarios turn out to be correct, I'm wrong, but hiring Dino and Hodgy tells me that it's probably not going to go down that grim and dark road that you guys love to go down when somebody buys somebody else.
Discontinue the SVT? Hahaha!
First off, the division of Yamaha called Yamaha guitar group that's headed by the former head of line 6 bought Ampeg. Of course they have to answer to corporate , but they seem to have been given a pretty long leash . Second, the one area that Yamaha has always traditionally lacked in is amps for guitar and bass. Owning Ampeg will go a long way to rectify that, which will make the owners of Yamaha very happy as long as it's profitable. They are not looking at Ampeg to save their company... They are looking at Ampeg to build more of a presence in amps. Now if your doomsday scenarios turn out to be correct, I'm wrong, but hiring Dino and Hodgy tells me that it's probably not going to go down that grim and dark road that you guys love to go down when somebody buys somebody else.
Discontinue the SVT? Hahaha!
They've already merge groups.
Ampeg is under Line 6
YAMCF is a public company and owes it to their stockholders to be profitable. Some change will come. Yamaha has done a good job with other gear they create.
I think the real key as to what Yamaha plans to do with Ampeg is their analysis of who (i.e., demographically) they see as their future customers while still trying to keep the current customer base at least somewhat happy.
A number of years ago, Cadillac founds themselves in a position where their average customer was 71 years old. It was clear that they couldn't survive on the current customer base since they were dying out. That's when Cadillac went about completely redesigning their line in an effort to appeal to those in their mid to late 40's. It worked extremely well and Cadillac is on better shape today than have even been.
Enough about Cadillac...
If one want to know what Yamaha will do, one would need access to their internal research documents that say who the upcoming intended group of customers are post acquisition.
Lastly, if Yamaha just wanted to "look good" in selling bass amps, it would have been far cheaper and entailed less risk to do a licensing deal with Ampeg and subsequently sell Yamaha bass amps with Ampeg designed guts. That is not the direction they chose to follow.
A number of years ago, Cadillac founds themselves in a position where their average customer was 71 years old. It was clear that they couldn't survive on the current customer base since they were dying out. That's when Cadillac went about completely redesigning their line in an effort to appeal to those in their mid to late 40's. It worked extremely well and Cadillac is on better shape today than have even been.
Enough about Cadillac...
If one want to know what Yamaha will do, one would need access to their internal research documents that say who the upcoming intended group of customers are post acquisition.
Lastly, if Yamaha just wanted to "look good" in selling bass amps, it would have been far cheaper and entailed less risk to do a licensing deal with Ampeg and subsequently sell Yamaha bass amps with Ampeg designed guts. That is not the direction they chose to follow.
Keep in mind that the Yamaha Guitar Group is relatively small division. Being based in the US is a plus in terms of marketing for the company. The group was only formed recently. I find it interesting that they called it Guitar Group. Ampeg and Line6 electronic products are necessary to support the electric instruments. That won’t diminish these products in terms of importance.
They budget for Yamaha design engineering and manufacturing services, along with a lot of other groups within Yamaha. The scale of their facitities is staggering. But integrating this into the Yamaha organization will be slow and methodical.
I’d like to see Yamaha buy a tube manufacturer.
They budget for Yamaha design engineering and manufacturing services, along with a lot of other groups within Yamaha. The scale of their facitities is staggering. But integrating this into the Yamaha organization will be slow and methodical.
I’d like to see Yamaha buy a tube manufacturer.
Well if they get all jiggy with the research they will find out playing musical instruments is on the way out quickly shut down operations and cut their losses.
IMO in this shrinking market the best strategy is to down size and increase quality while keeping the price affordable but no one and I mean absolutely no one seems to be doing this. They are all trying to make larger production numbers of inexpensive crap. IMO this is a recipe for a longer term failure. Quality is what builds a brand.
IMO in this shrinking market the best strategy is to down size and increase quality while keeping the price affordable but no one and I mean absolutely no one seems to be doing this. They are all trying to make larger production numbers of inexpensive crap. IMO this is a recipe for a longer term failure. Quality is what builds a brand.
I feel ya, but doom and gloom seems to be appropo in most cases of acquisition by larger entities.
I have been through this first hand three times in my life and in every case it didn't end well for anyone.
I really think Yamaha will do great things with Ampeg. Several months ago I had the chance to meet the European Product Marketing Manager At Yamaha Music London and we discussed a number of things - mainly how the Helix came about and the fact that Yamaha didn’t have a foothold in the bass amp market, despite producing some fantastic bass guitars.
During the conversation I asked about the development process for Helix and assumed Line 6 had done the vast majority of the work, with Yamaha simply providing extra money for R&D. Turns out it was Yamaha’s engineers in Japan who were the primary developmental brains behind Helix - particularly the detailed component level emulation.
So with this in mind I strongly suspect that any new products designed and released by “Yampeg” will be innovative and, as is the Yamaha way, very well made.
During the conversation I asked about the development process for Helix and assumed Line 6 had done the vast majority of the work, with Yamaha simply providing extra money for R&D. Turns out it was Yamaha’s engineers in Japan who were the primary developmental brains behind Helix - particularly the detailed component level emulation.
So with this in mind I strongly suspect that any new products designed and released by “Yampeg” will be innovative and, as is the Yamaha way, very well made.
At least they weren’t bought out by fender!
