Who are they, and what do they want? Amps, FX, PA

antipesto

Joyo, Blackstar, Alto, QTX....... I'm out of touch.  Are these any good, or just imported cheapo impulse-calmer products? 
Yes, I know I may be WAY off here. Maybe these "new" brands are great.
I'm still stuck on Marshall, HH, Orange, Vox, Fender, Sound City, (yes, I said Sound City), and all those 60's and 70's brands.
Humbug.

ICBM

Most of Marshall's current range is the same as Blackstar - designed in the UK, made in the far east... Vietnam and India in Marshall's case, Korea and China for Blackstar. Likewise Vox, Sound City, Orange and Laney in Korea and China, and Fender everywhere from Mexico to Indonesia. I'm not sure about HH - I know they did reissue them, but I'm not sure where they were made - and anyway, they seem to have been a resounding failure.

So which is the imported cheapo gear?

antipesto

Hmmm..... Have to wonder 'eh? Laney are supposedly made up the road from me, but that's not so, either. Oh dear......

ICBM

It might also be worth mentioning that the failure rate of Marshall's new Vietnamese-made DSL series appears to be lower than that of the old UK-made series - so which is the 'cheapo' range?

And the only two modern Celestion speakers I've come across with manufacturing faults were both from the expensive UK-made Heritage series and not from the standard Chinese range...

Quality is independent of country of manufacture. It's just that many of the far-east countries have historically gone for low-cost, low-quality production - but give them the incentive to make things well and they will.

This post was brought to you on a £1000+ computer made in China .

antipesto

Oh blimey. I don't know where to put myself.  Thank you for the input, Mr ICBM.

ecc83

antipesto said:

Oh blimey. I don't know where to put myself.  Thank you for the input, Mr ICBM.

I can give you some further information about Blackstar (well, up to about 3 yrs ago) if you PM me.

ICBM does not like the sound they make (and to be fair there are a few others that say the same) but the company seems to keep going! NOT that I know a fig about business but IMHO they would do better to restrict their range to fewer, core products.

Dave.

ICBM

ecc83 said:

ICBM does not like the sound they make (and to be fair there are a few others that say the same) but the company seems to keep going!

This is true . The sound I think is actually intentional - they all have a distinctive 'family tone' that I just don't like.

But I think they're quite well-made. If they have a problem, it's that they're also quite 'modern' in using a lot of automated manufacturing processes - even compared to a lot of other current valve amps - and hence can be quite difficult to repair if they do fail. Of the failures they do have, I don't think they can generally be attributed to "cheap" production, they are the result of slightly poor design decisions.

(The HT-5 phase inverter arcing and the early S1 pots in particular. Both these faults were later fixed.)

timmysoft

ICBM said:

ecc83 said:

ICBM does not like the sound they make (and to be fair there are a few others that say the same) but the company seems to keep going!

This is true . The sound I think is actually intentional - they all have a distinctive 'family tone' that I just don't like.

But I think they're quite well-made. If they have a problem, it's that they're also quite 'modern' in using a lot of automated manufacturing processes - even compared to a lot of other current valve amps - and hence can be quite difficult to repair if they do fail. Of the failures they do have, I don't think they can generally be attributed to "cheap" production, they are the result of slightly poor design decisions.

(The HT-5 phase inverter arcing and the early S1 pots in particular. Both these faults were later fixed.)

Bent chassis and pcb cracks have been a problem, they certainly were when I was still out tech’ing. Mostly on the S1 models, also saw a lot of failiures on the HT cabs although those heads seem much more reliable.

JD50

Jet City get a lot of love and are wallet friendly.

EricTheWeary

antipesto said:

Hmmm..... Have to wonder 'eh? Laney are supposedly made up the road from me, but that's not so, either. Oh dear......

The Black Country Custom stuff ( which is one head, one cab [ with British made Celestions] and one pedal) is still made locally as far as I can see. The Laney address isn’t their old Cradley Heath one anymore so I guess the factory has gone. 

ICBM

JD50 said:

Jet City get a lot of love and are wallet friendly.

And better made than most other more expensive amps, at least until you get up into the thousands of pounds.

lukedlb

Ahh, sound city. I had a mk3 bass 100 and a mark4 50plus. Both great amps though the 50 can be a little noisy. I regret selling the 100. I still have the 68 4x12. 
Kelly and Nicholls are my favourite unknown amps from that period. 

digitalscream

I can only really comment on two of those...

Joyo - I have a Joyo Quattro, which is quite simply an astonishing pedal. I mean...a £49 delay pedal with trails on bypass, four modes (filtered, modulated, analogue and "copy")...and all four modes sound properly great. It's a solid metal case, none of that plastic bollocks, and all-told it does the job far better than the Flashback Mini it was supposed to complement. It's not just a great pedal for the money, it's a great pedal full-stop.

Alto - I have the TS210, which I use as a FRFR monitor for my Helix. It does everything I've asked of it, apart from standing up to our drummer at full-tilt (which is a bit much to ask of any 10" speaker). It's frankly brilliant, and at a third of the price of the industry-standard DXR10, it gets 90% of the way there.

As also mentioned...Jet City amps are ludicrously good value for money, and they're perfectly capable of going toe-to-toe with amps running into the thousands (as any familiar with my amp journey can attest to - I've had many amps, some costing well over a grand, and they've all come and gone...but the JCA50H beat them all, and it's now my only amp).

More established traditional brands can't really dismiss these guys as "cheap and cheerful, but not really for serious musicians" any more. In most cases they can compete quite effectively at a fraction of the price, and in some cases they win outright. All that's propping some of the incumbents up is brand visibility and the fact that guitarists are scared of new things...and those things won't last forever.