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do you think the bloke that operates the CNC machine in the USA is a better craftsman than his Chinese counterpart, no, he just gets paid 5 times more so your guitar is more expensive.
The worst one was a master built Tele. Setup awful. Though to be fair that had a lot to do with musicstore.de sending it to their tech after sale...
Point is the the days of Asia in generally being inferior to the USA are long gone. Made in the west is no longer a guaranteed mark of excellence.
He did launch "the biggest pile of scrap" car and the "DESPISE" Tv thread....
Sometimes, its easier just to moan...
Is this thread just a huge wind up?
There are going to be well made and poorly made of everything to come out of every country.
Modern Chinese manufacturing is by and large excellent.
Of the valves amps I've owned I've only ever had problems with ones made in the UK and USA. My Jet City, Fender (Mexican) and Chinese Vox's have all been faultless.
I'm going to put my neck out here and say with amps it's more down to the quality of the design rather than the location of the build that causes any issues
Then they took over the world of engineering with ships, motorcycles, cars, hi-fi, white goods and so on.
Although China, as well as the UK and USA, makes some appalling shite, they are also manufacturing stuff of the highest quality. If production methods are standardised and audited, and the same materials and components are specified, there is no reason for a Chinese product to be inferior, or better, than the same product made elsewhere.
It's cutting of your nose to spite your face really, although, if you have a strong conviction that globalisation is wrong and you want to make a personal stand about it, I can see some sense in what you say.
Exactly. From what I've heard on the Interwebs (granted, it's the Daily Mail of guitar knowledge), a lot of the Chinese manufacturers making gear with western brand names on it are prepared to make whatever you like, however you tell them to make it. If you give them a well-designed product and tell them to build it with good quality components, that's what they'll do. If you give them a shitty product and tell them to make it as cheaply as possible, they'll do that instead.
Where Chinese manufacturers excel, so the reports go, is that they build what they're contracted to build with a level of consistency that can't be matched elsewhere- what rolls off the production line won't have any faults that weren't in the design you gave them. It'll be made exactly as they were told to make it.
So yeah, I'd buy a Chinese amplifier. Most of the other electronic stuff in my house is probably from China.
Don't talk politics and don't throw stones. Your royal highnesses.
A lot of guitars have passed through my hands and the Chinese ones are the ones that tend to have bad fretwork and necks that are out of shape.
I'm guessing it's because Chinese factories have traditionally focused more on high quantity, low cost, not because they are incapable of producing high quality stuff, but more because that is their market sector and selling point.
Any Western company that gets amps made in China is doing so to meet a price point, simply, they can make them cheaper because labour is cheaper and they have invested millions in becoming a manufacturing power house, the outgoing quality is dependent on the western companies specification not the fact that it is made in China.
Saying all that I think allot of amps are made to be disposable these days, using surface mount fiddly components etc
I have been training a guy to build amps for the last year, to say there is no craftmanship involved in a "well built" amp and its just parts bolted together is a bit ignorant of the process.
It is true that PCB amps are plugged together, But the craft side is done at the design and prototyping phase to make production easier and more consistent. even those amps can often be improved by someone who knows what they are doing, and you just need to follow some of the amp repair groups on facebook to see the lack of craftsmanship on allot of those amps.
anyway I obviously disagree with your statement...
My actual point was that putting an amp together on a Chinese factory production line requires very little artistic license from the workers. As long as they know how to solder, and how to screw the right parts together, you will end up with an amp that is just as good as one that came off a production line in Germany, provided that the same quality parts are used.
For guitars however, there is a lot more hand crafting involved in the final fit and finish, and the quality of the end product is very much dependent on the finer details, which are often overlooked when a guitar is rushed through a high volume production line. Things like fret work, neck angle, neck relief, nut height, nut slots etc are all critical to how a guitar plays, and Chinese guitars tend to lack the required amount of attention in these areas.
If you go to China looking for Super cheap and you put no quality control in place with a wonky design the chinese wont fix or improve it they will build what you tell them warts and all. If you do it properly you wont get the cheapest product in the world but you will get quality at a better price
Ultimately the bad rap came from the early days of western companies diving into China to add zero's to the bottom line now its a lot more sophisticated and many companies are invested in Chinese production and have quality control in place.
I would find what I like and throw the dice you can get a badly wired boutique amp or badly soldered Chinese amp just go for what you like the sound of.
Example 1 VHT Special 6, Chinese and cheap as chips.
I dont care where where something is made and that's including guitars. If it's good it's good.
I like to buy British when I can because it helps smaller builders but when I am working in a tighter budget I only care about getting the best I can for the money I have.