Jackson amp works - odd amp discontinued / missing status, no communication

darcym

I've been pondering a couple of Jackson amp works amps for a while, 

The fullerton and the bakersfield, both very attractive.

Took me a while to get some specific details out of the team such as the reverb, it turns out there is no reverb in the head units, the reverb tank is in the cab, so to use reverb you have to have a head and cab made by Jackson amp works, which then made me wonder how reverb was advertised in the bakersfield without the cab, it turns out this amp has two reverbs, standard one in the cab, and a digital one the head so you can use it without the cab, this then made me think it was pointless to buy the head version of either of these as I'd have to buy the cab from Jackson Ampworks too and limited the "small head" bonus as I couldn't just pickup and go with the head, I'd have to pickup and go with the cab, etc etc.

This went on for a while trying to get solid information to the point where I thought I'd get a fullerton combo.

I then found this http://www.jacksonampworks.com/shop/amplifiers/fullerton/ that the amp has been discontinued 

not a problem I'll buy the bakersfield combo as that was something I was probably going to do at a later date, and found that whole product is missing off the website now, as if it didn't exist.

the page is totally gone, if you go to the american series home page http://www.jacksonampworks.com/products/amplifiers/american/ it mentions "three amps" in the heading, but only two are there as linked, and one is discontinued.

This all seems very odd, that one would be marked as discontinued, and one would be removed as if it didn't exist (rather than discontinued as the other one was).

I've mailed Jackson ampworks a few times and tweeted them to try to get an idea what's going on, will they be coming back, what the problems are (as there are still a few for sale at dealers) but I've had no responses to any of this.

I really like their amps, the Britain and the McFly are excellent, they have always responded to questions and help request but this is really odd that if you ask anything about the Bakersfield you get no response, and nothing on the Fullerton two.

I'd personally now be very cautious of buying anything from them as it's dented my confidence in them - not that a product is being redesigned or that they have pulled a product, but the lack of clarity and no response to emails on any of the topics.

Moe_Zambeek

internet chatter suggests all is not well at Jackson amp works. I'd certainly not be sending them any money...

darcym

really ? I've not seen anything of this at all, they seemed to be a strong small business progressing well, knocking out great products with a great attitude towards customers.

Moe_Zambeek

Was some TGP activity but it is was nuked...

If you buy through a dealer, no problem I guess...

capo4th

Every time I have read anything about the company it has made me wary.

Norwegian_Blue

This is odd... I really wanted a Fullerton when they were first released last year, and the launch date kept being moved. Peach or Jackson couldn't give me an answer! Interesting about the reverb... there was never any hint of that in the marketing, and i was fully expecting to buy a head with Reverb in it!

Norwegian_Blue

From Jackson:

Not at all. We've just been waiting for two years to have an engineering firm finish up the software and stuff on the tap tempo trem controller. The system sounds and works great but if we can't ship it, it doesn't do anyone any good. I can't get mad about the delays honestly. The company that is doing the software side of things does huge oil and gas contracts so they get to us how and when they can. I'm a business owner; I get that.

The issue for us is that those amps are so heavily integrated with the tap tempo controller that unless we have half of that system in place, the amps can't ship even without the foot controller. So until we get all that stuff resolved I thought it would be better to put them on hold until we get all that done. I still believe in the Fullerton and Bakersfield Guitar Amplifiers and we will offer them again but we need to be able to offer a product that we can actually ship. No one involved ever imagined that it would take so long to finish the project but it has so we have to do what we have to do to support our dealers and customers.

I really appreciate your understanding regarding this. It pained me to pull them but for the sake of us trying to deliver product to our dealers and customers in a timely manner I thought it was necessary.

darcym

I've seen that info before @Norwegian_Blue but it just doesn't make any sense

a.) why they never responded to anything I'd asked them about this before

b.) why the dealers don't seem to know about it (they may now, but the last time I'd asked they didn't)

c.) why a company would wait 2 years for a basic software controller (yes, there is voltage analysis etc in it) but for any average software house this is a minor bit of work, plus board and chip fabrication/design, you'd not put yourself in a position where it took 2 years to develop software to the point that you had to pull your product ?

This also doesn't explain why the Fullerton is "discontinued pending redesign" - waiting for software foot controller, is quite different to waiting for redesign, and why the Bakersfield no longer exists.

Yes, I had to be quite pushy to understand that the reverb tank was in the cab (although I think they have now updated the website to show this in better detail) and you needed a stereo cable to use it, so basically unless you buy the head + jackson cab + stereo cable, or buy a combo, the reverb is useless.

It looks like the Bakersfield attempted to resolve this buy also including a digital reverb as well as the link to the standard reverb, looking at the website, you can order the digital unit on the fullerton now (you couldn't when I first tried to push for info on the reverb).

Not filling me with confidence to be honest.

DanR

I've got a McFly and it's probably my favourite amp.

I'd been chatting with them about a El Guapo but with the recent price hike and poor pound it's just too far out of reach price wise.

darcym

DanR said:

I've got a McFly and it's probably my favourite amp.

I'd been chatting with them about a El Guapo but with the recent price hike and poor pound it's just too far out of reach price wise.

that's the thing, they seem happy to chat / respond to emails/comments as long as you don't ask about the fullerton or Bakersfield.

The El Guapo looks great, just losing confidence in them with dodgy decisions for digital reverb/lack of comms, etc

razorblade_beat

I loved my britain 2.0. I paid a lot of money for it before there were any uk distributors. I thought it would be abit of an investment (meaning i knew i would lose money on it if I was to sell but not that much). Then they brought out the 3.0...then the 4.0 and then the 30 in a short period of time. Same thing with the Atlantic amp..2.0,3.0,4.0. This made mine totally worthless in the used market place despite being only a few years old because it didn't have the new features despite being a damn fine amp. The pace at which models appeared all of a sudden and redesigns occurred seemed ridiculous i couldn't keep up...theyve just made a new version of the scarlett 30 (to be released), they made several new versions of the newcastle after the original too....so I'm not surprised by what I hear..

Im all for improving products but when you're paying good money for an amp you want it to hold at least some value for some time and feel like you've got their best and not an inferior product with way less options!. its like they're launching amps without thinking through the full potential of the design...they then redesign and add features and release it as a new version. When you're paying £2600 for a head this isn't cool to me. I would not purchase another amp from them for this reason despite them sounding fantastic..