Well after watching the Vox program tonight that Alan mentioned and because i have an AC4 i was looking into the AC15 and thought it sounded superb but then i found out that this quintessentially British amp is made in China Things are bad these days

Anyway then i looked at the flagship; the AC30, surely it's made here? no! it's made in China too! man this sucks big time! what's going on here? this is dreadful.

So the question is: are there any Vox amps that are made here? or are they all Chinese?

Why are companies all trying to take the easy way out these days? why was it all affordable to do it here before whereas now it's deemed better to get things produced on the other side of the world? Is it all simply about economics and money saving? If it is we've really reached a sad stage indeed.

_________________
Luck won't do it and ignorance can't

George Van Eps.

You are absolutely right. If you are not willing to work for working poor wages your job goes to asia and people are too greedy and stupid to get this until their livelyhood goes overseas, then they whine and I just point and laugh at the fools.

Well i don't know about that i think the other way round. For instance the AC30 retails at over £1,000 here now, if i'm gonna be spending that kind of money on an amp i'm not going to spend it on one from China, i can tell you that straight away. Also much like the Marshall MG debacle, which is made abroad in a foreign sweat shop no doubt, there are a lot of reports about shoddy workmanship and $@!& quality components being used in the AC30's, that's bad.

For that kind of money i could buy another made in Britain Marshall to add to my JCM800, or i could buy a cool Fender amp that has some heritage, why would i buy an amp that was made in China? As i say the AC4 is ok because it didn't cost much but if i was forking out a wodge of cash it wouldn't be for an amp made in China.

_________________
Luck won't do it and ignorance can't

George Van Eps.

It's much like everything in your house Gary, have a look, I'd bet more than 50% is made in China especially electrical, in the end it's down to one thing, Make Money, whether it's cheaper manufacturing costs or opening up new markets, ie China, imagine the selling potential there if you were a manufacturer, get them to manufacture give them a better disposable income, promote a Made in China slogan in China, much like the Buy British we had years ago, and you can't lose, as for buying here you either buy the bottom end stuff or if you prefer nostalgia like what was regarded as the norm of yesterday then we can offer you Custom built with premier componants, China will go the same way eventually, their wage demands will rise then it's off to pastures new or back home when wage demands have fallen, it's just the financial merry go round, once they find we can't afford the high end gear and custom built market bottoms out it'll all be reinvented to make it a little more affordable for the average guy on the street.......I hope

Perhaps that is true, but it is also quite possibly down to the consumer and competitiveness, and also the government enforced minimum wage, which is there because of the higher cost of living in Britain than most Asian countries. People want to pay the least amount they can for the best product, so manufacturers have to find a way to facilitate for this. The best way to save money is to make them offshore. Otherwise, they get little business and go belly-up, and their employees get made redundant anyway. It is not the best way things could be, but this is what happens in the modern world. At least it's a British company, trading and selling British products.

As for build quality, I think that entirely depends on the product and how much the manufacturer wants to pay to make it, and not where it is made. We have seen from products like the new Gibson Melody Makers that to make something to the same price as the Epiphones, but in the company's country-in the case the US, the quality of components and build quality has to be really decreased. By all accounts I have seen, the Melody Makers build quality is really very bad. But it comes from the USA. This could happen with British products too, it depends on what the manufacturer wants to sell it for. As a result, Vox has no other option really but to follow the other manufacturers (which are just following their other manufacturers) to stay competitive and afloat. Products can be made in Korea-my HT-5R was made there and is of superb build quality, china-many (but not all) squires are made well, India, Mexico and so on, to very good or very bad quality, entirely depending on how the manufacturer is aiming and targeting the product. It is just, that for two reasons, typically lower build quality is associated with these countries. For the lowest possible price, lower build quality, factory assembly lines, are combined with lower wages in these countries to create a low price. And secondly, manufacturers like Fender, Gibson, Vox, Marshall and so on want people to associate high quality with one country, and low quality with another. This way it is easier to market and sell products, because they can use conceptions of value from say, Mexico, or quality, from say the UK or USA, to sell more products.

None of this makes up for the reports of wages and work conditions faced by many employees of Western companies making their products cheaply. I'm sure that if manufacturers like Fender, Vox, Marshall, Gibson etc polled their buyers, they would find that people would be perfectly happy to pay more to guarantee decent conditions and pay for the people that make their instruments and amps. I for one would be perfectly happy to do that-if that means I can't afford something then I can't afford it, that is the price that these things should be.

On the other hand, manufacturing in these countries does bring more trading and jobs to the areas, but it is arguable how beneficial this really is to the area. It is difficult to weigh up the pros and cons of this though, because there are so many, to many varying degrees.

Unfortunately this is the way things go in the consumer-driven world, and it is not really one company's or one person/group or government etc's fault. It is the system, and if the manufacturers do not work within it then they often quickly do not work at all. It is not right in many ways, especially pay and work conditions, and hopefully in the future all the governments will unite and pass laws to stop those problems, and also bring back the manufacturing economy. That is if the manufacturers do not do this their selves.

_________________
"reach for the sky and aim for the moon, for if you miss you will end up among the stars"

Zoom MS50G
72 tele dlx RI
2011 standard strat
Blackstar HT-5R
Taylor Big Baby

http://www.youtube.com/user/Almungo/videos?flow=grid&view=0

Hi ripitup, yes it's true that's the way things are going and it's very sad to see. I'm not saying that they can't build an amp in China but for an amp maker like Vox to all but disappear from british shores to be manufactured in China just sucks it really does. As i said i have the AC4TV and i love it, but i was quite happy to buy that knowing it was made abroad because it wasn't that expensive, but i thought the legendary models like the AC30 would still be built here, when i found out that it wasn't so and these are also being built abroad it was a bit shocking to me.

On various boards on the net i've read that the componentry is not as good as what it was previously and this would put me off as well from buying one.

It would be similar to Marshall selling the firm and you finding in the future that all Marshall amps are being made in India or something. let's face it if that happened the reputation would take a serious nosedive. To me the marque is seriously affected by this.

If the original owners wanted to get out of the amp manufacturing business i just wish they'd got a British buyer and kept production here.

PS. just went to post and i saw teledeluxe's post, a lot of interesting thoughts and ideas there to ponder. It's a deep issue this and there are lots of branches to it, lots of things to consider as regards economics etc. I too would he happier paying more for a product to keep that product being made where it was traditionally made, i would be happy to do that as well.

_________________
Luck won't do it and ignorance can't

George Van Eps.

I don't really mind where it is made, but if it is made in a country like China or Mexico, I would rather pay more so that the people that made my guitar or amp etc are payed a decent wage and work in good conditions.

I'm glad other people think the same way

_________________
"reach for the sky and aim for the moon, for if you miss you will end up among the stars"

Zoom MS50G
72 tele dlx RI
2011 standard strat
Blackstar HT-5R
Taylor Big Baby

http://www.youtube.com/user/Almungo/videos?flow=grid&view=0

I would prefer to buy an American made product. Having said that, I will say that if we must outsource I would prefer Mexico or Canada. I makes good neighbors.

Well.... let's look at a closely related industry for some data....

*click click click*

Ah, here we are:

Total manufacturing cost of an iPhone 4s, according to this table, is at around 8$.



Cheers -

Nutter

For every forum thread that complains about offshore manufacturing there is another that whines bitterly that products cost too much. We can't have it both ways.

Average manufacturing income in China is less than a tenth that in the West; lower still in India. That's why it's cheaper to make things there. Manufacturing only moves offshore when wages rise at home. Most of us tend to feel higher incomes are a good thing - particularly when it's our own income.

Several possible solutions. Workers in the West could volunteer to cut their wages by 90%: I don't think they want to, and I don't blame them. Or we could pay Chinese workers ten times as much, so pricing them out of the market: all the people who want cheaper goodies (most of us) wouldn't like that.

Or we could do what the likes of Fender, Marshall and many other manufactures do: keep the well paid, premium jobs at home and farm the lower skill, lower wage work out to poorer economies. It's an effective business model.

BTW: Vox ceased being a British owned company a decade ago when it was sold to Korg. That sort of thing goes on all the time: Marshall just bought American bass amp maker Eden, for example. This is how capitalism works in a free market.

Cheers - C

_________________

Well Ceri i would rather pay more for a genuine UK made Vox as i don't want to buy a thing that says AC30 when it's not an AC30. An AC30 amp is an amp made by Vox in the UK by British workers end of story. Same with Marshall, i don't want to see Marshall products made in some far east sweat shop with inferior quality. All that does is dilute the quality of the brand and at the end of the day only helps the cheap labour that has been employed in that country.


That's part of the problem with Vox, they haven't done that as far as i can see, all production now seems to be in China and there appears to be no amps made in the country that's the home of the amps. Sad beyond words. I for one would not be buying an expensive amp that was made in China. For that money i could buy a british made amp and thereby also support the craftsmen and workers in my own country. Why would i want to support workers in China when there are stacks of skilled workers in my own country more in need of my support. This is part of the British problem nowadays, we have ceased to be Great Britain and have become a nation that makes practically nothing here, everything is imported while jobs are outsourced abroad to the cheapest sweat shop they can find, all the while depriving British craftsmen of work


True but it's not always for the good of the product or the quality, which i think will be the case long term for the Chinese made amps. We don't have to look far for what a disaster these sell out's become, does CBS ring a bell for anyone? Look at my own experience of a Marshall amp made abroad, the MG30DFX; terrible workmanship and nothing but trouble from day one.

_________________
Luck won't do it and ignorance can't

George Van Eps.

But why?

Do you have a terroir theory of amp building? Does the soil on which amps are grown somehow influence their quality?



If the quality is good, why not? If the quality is bad then obviously not, of course.

But that is down to how the maker (Korg, in this case) chooses to place and run its production. There is feeble quality manufacture being done in sweatshop conditions in China - and also very high quality work done by people who are skilled and well paid by local standards and not badly paid by anyone's measure. Yamaha, for example, have a wholly owned factory in China which is constantly producing ever higher quality stuff. It all depends on the parent company's priorities.



Absolutely. I'm patriotic and all in favour of people in my country having good, well paid jobs. And that means we want high quality, high skill jobs, not mindless drudgery on production lines. We did the factory drone thing in the past: like all Western countries, our economy has moved on. That's a good thing, not a bad thing.



It's a popular view, but it's not true.

From the very beginning of the industrial revolution (which started in our country) economic development has been destroying and exporting jobs. However, it creates better quality, better paid jobs faster than it destroys lower grade ones. This has been going on in our country longer than anywhere else: after 300 years of it we have more and better paid jobs in our economy than ever before in history (the occasional recession not withstanding). The same is true of all Western countries.

We are extremely good at producing high quality cars, aerospace, information technology... and top end guitar amps. We are also very good at running companies that make middle and lower end products in offshore locations.

It is true that we are not as good at those things as the Germans or Japanese, and we need always to try harder. But we are a highly successful economy, not a failing one.



I have top end Marshalls and also a couple of MGs. To be sure, the MGs perform in relation to their pricing: but as it happens I haven't encountered any QC issues with them.

However, if place of manufacture matters to you and you want a lower output amp then I highly recommend a Marshall Class5. A great British classic of our time, very affordable, and somehow or other Marshall manage to build them from the ground up at the factory in Bletchley, here in the good ol' UK.

Peerless.

Cheers - C

_________________

Name me a chinese amp builder who has any real world experience or kudos. As for your question: yes it matters to me what soil they're built on an AC30 built in China is not an AC30 simple as that. It's a chinese made amp with Vox written on the front of it, which is not the same as the amp being built and quality controlled in Britain.


Because why would i want to support Chinese workers who are doing the job that British workers did but are now unable to because they're constantly being undercut by foreign sweat shops?





I'm tempted to say nonsense to most of the above. We have a situation where you are trying to say that improved technology for instance a machine that can do the job of 100 workers and thereby throws them out of a job is progress? That might be your idea of a succesful economy but it certainly is not mine. We in Scotland once had an industrial heartland much like Wales as well, that had the life ripped out of it. Factory after factory shutting, steelworks after steelworks shutting, these haven't been replaced and most of the people involved never got other jobs so i don't know in what terms you consider that to be a success.

_________________
Luck won't do it and ignorance can't

George Van Eps.

That would be rude and end the conversation instantly.

It would also be incorrect.



Yes.

Of course, if someone is put out of work from a low skill job on a production line and doesn't have the transferable skills to find another, better job then things are very painful for them and their family and we should take it very seriously. We should also invest plenty of money in retraining and further education so that they can move on and don't end up on a human scrap heap. As in every country, our government does this but not enough.

When a factory closes and hundreds or thousands of people lose their jobs at a stroke the pain is highly visible. When new, better, cleaner, safer, more highly paid jobs are created it tends to be a few at a time and doesn't catch the eye nearly so much.

Still, advancing technology has been replacing (as you say) a hundred jobs with one machine for three centuries, since the beginning of the agricultural and industrial revolutions. Yet our economy, like that of all other developed countries, now has millions more and better paid jobs than ever before in the whole of history.

That's because economic development creates jobs faster than it destroys and exports them.

My grandfather was a docker on the Clyde. He educated himself and became a journalist and eventually a newspaper editor. His son went to university and became a professor. His son... has the time and resources to post on internet forums.

Cheers - C

_________________

That's what i'm saying, when jobs are lost in the hundreds or thousands then that is not progress.


Oh man this is rich! what planet are you living on? are you living on the same planet where i am? Vast swathes of heavy industrial jobs have been destroyed to be replaced by what? cleaners jobs or care assistants or call center work, what are you on about? that is not progress. Because you shut down a steelworks or a shipbuilders or the mining industry to make Tony Blair's dream of a britain as one gigantic call center how is that progress?


ahem! 2.7 million official unemployed and rising, and that's not counting the massaged cases that are not counted.


So? what has that got to do with the price of fish? not everyone who works/worked in a heavy industry is interested in becoming a journalist or a newspaper editor. Many are quite happy to work in their normal humdrum jobs until those are taken away from them by what you deem to be progress.

Because you are personally benefiting from it does not make it progress, the people who are losing out certainly don't believe it to be so.

The Ravenscraig steelworks were shut here years and years ago, many of those people still don't have jobs and that, according to your mode of thought, is some kind of progress. How is that progress to shut down a company making hundreds of people redundant?

_________________
Luck won't do it and ignorance can't

George Van Eps.