Fender amps-all made in Mexico now

[Guest HRB853370]

Apparently, all Fender amps are now made in Mexico, except for their custom shop models such as the EC line. Not sure if this is a big deal or not. I love stuff that says Made in the USA on it. It just doesn't seem the same if it does not say that. I know my BF reissues (Twin, Super, Deluxe) were made in Corona but that may not be the case now.

 

Anybody have opinions on this?

[PunkKitty]

Most amps are made in China now. You won't get a USA amp unless you go with a Mesa, Carvin, or have something from one of the boutique builders. I have 2 MIC Kustom tube amps. I love those amps.

[tbonesullivan]

Ampegs are made in Vietnam I believe. Some may be made in other countries as well. Only a select few marshall amps are still made in England.

 

Still, the Mexico Fender factory has been putting out good guitars for quite a while though. It's also 3 hours south of the Corona factory where they have main US production.

[rockabilly69]

I would be more cocerned with circuit mfd techniques then country of origin

 

Here's a USA Fender Blues Deluxe.... All jacks, pots, tube sockets are soldered to circuit board (that's going to be expensive to fix)

 

 

Here's my Vietnam made Vox AC15HW1... Look like a pretty easy amp to service to me!!!

 

[Vanschoyck]

¿Porque on te gusta?

[PunkKitty]

I agree, Rockabilly.

 

I'm very aware that it will probably cost more to repair my Kustoms than it will to replace them when they fail. They will make good speaker cabinets.

[rockabilly69]

I agree, Rockabilly.

 

I'm very aware that it will probably cost more to repair my Kustoms than it will to replace them when they fail. They will make good speaker cabinets.

 

Good one Kitty!

[slider313]

I just buy old amps from the 60's and restore them. They're good for the next 25 years of service. Old Ampeg Reverberockets are the best "bang for the buck" on the vintage market.

 

[Billgelder]

I have a USA made fender hot rod deluxe. I might be assembled in California, but all the parts are imported.

[rockabilly69]

I just buy old amps from the 60's and restore them. They're good for the next 25 years of service. Old Ampeg Reverberockets are the best "bang for the buck" on the vintage market.

 

 

+! Slider, I love old Ampegs, and have played live and recorded quite a bit with them. I especially like the early 60's

models with the 6V6 power tubes. Ampegs have the greatest sounding reverb and trem circuits!

 

 

[PunkKitty]

I just buy old amps from the 60's and restore them. They're good for the next 25 years of service. Old Ampeg Reverberockets are the best "bang for the buck" on the vintage market.

 

That's what I would do if I had the expertise to restore old amps. But the inner workings of tube amps scare me. I don't want an amp that requires service every few years or a bias reset when tubes are replaced. I'll stick with my newer tube amps that come with warranties and have fixed bias.

[H]

I make my own in deepest, darkest Essex.

 

 

The bottom line is that we want good amps at a low price. The Chinese/Vietnamese/wherever amps deliver on this because mass production techniques plus lower wages plus lower overheads keeps the price right and the people buying them keeps the quality (a very subjective word) right.

 

Repairs can be handled by people familiar with the PCB and how any off-board components attach to it, simply by changing it out - much cheaper than the diagnosis and rectification of an issue on a hand-wired board by a trained electrician.

 

The noises these amps make, their 'tone', that's completely subjective. Anybody telling anyone else how fantastic/poor an amp's tone is should remember that.

 

In my view, hand-wired amps win out unconditionally only in one space: long-term maintenance. That said, I love them

 

Horses for courses.

[rockabilly69]

Repairs can be handled by people familiar with the PCB and how any off-board components attach to it, simply by changing it out - much cheaper than the diagnosis and rectification of an issue on a hand-wired board by a trained electrician.

 

C'mon H, This is just plain WRONG. Along with chasing great tone, I was driven to PTP amps because of way too many over priced repairs on circuit board amps!!!

 

SO, I disagree with this statement as strongly as I disagree with anything!!! Yes, shotgun board replacement can be done at a faster pace then trying to identify what component is failing in a hand wired amp if you trying to save downtime, but then the repairman has to have the boards on hand if he chooses to shotgun the problem! But identifying and rectifying the problem any other way in either a PTP or a PCB is going to take equal amount of time finding the component that is failing, but that is only if the circuit board amp isn't a multi layered affair. Have you ever peeked inside a typical badly made PCB fender amp and see how they layer boards???? And then add on top of that the cheapass ribbon connectors that they connect those multi layer boards with, which can be causing the failures of their own. And most technicians can solder/resolder on cleanly handwired boards twice as fast as they can if they have direct access to the component. And chances of lifting traces with improper soldering temps is always going to be a concern with me on a PCB! And you're forgetting, in alot of these circuit board amps, the circuit boards are exposed to ridiculous amounts of heat because the tube sockets are mounted directly to the PCB! And when those pots and jacks are soldered directly to the board, and the amp is subjected to vibration (which all amps are) you have many failures at those connections and more time needed to fix those repairs. That is why specifically said look at the mfd technique, not the country of origin.

 

I said I've never built an amp, but I've repaired a shitload of them!!! Do you know how many times I've seen modern USA built Fender amps break those connections at the board? More than I can count!!! My statement above wasn't so much about the difference between circuit board amps and PCB amps anyway, it was about the quality of manufacturing in the designs. Properly built circuit board amps with heavy traces and non board mounted tubes, pots, and jacks aren't so bad, and tend to be pretty consistent sounding with their sameness in layout. I have a Mesa Boogie that's built pretty good, and I've seen others that have similiar quality like Soldano. But in my life of 55 years of playing everyweek since I've been in my 20's, I've never heard of a circuit board amp that is easier to maintain than a properly handwired amp. And I've never HEARD a circuitboard amp that has gone on to become a classic, tonally, other than a Mesa Boogie Mark or a Soldano, and both of them are known more for their high gain where tone is less important than sustain! Typically the only amp companies that defend circuit board amps are those building them. It takes more time to properly build a good PTP amp, especially on the lead dress and making sure the components and wiring are laid out for lowest noise and best tone.

 

Check out the gutshot of this TopHat Club Royale and tell me you would ever consider a circuit board to be in the same league,

or that you could perform a repair on a circuit board amp in the same time frame. Like I said, you should consider the mfr

techniques, not the country of origin. My Vietnamese Vox looks to be built with the same type of ethic, and if something broke

on it I would think a good tech could troubleshoot and repair it quicker than a badly designed circuit board amp, That is why

I pay the money for the properly designed handwired stuff. AND I would bet YOU would never build a circuit board amp, even though

you would easily do a much better job than Fender USA has!

 

 

 

 

 

 

[big bob]

Mine was made by Steve in North Carolina

[Guest HRB853370]

To your point Rockabilly, if I could afford to replace my whole fleet of PCB amps with PTP amps I would in a hearbeat! I bought the PCB amps because, A) they were much cheaper to acquire, and They served my purposes being a non professional guitar hacker. I do however own a KBP810 5E3 clone, PTP, lovely and my two Gibson GA-40/42RVT amps are (supposedly, I never looked inside) PTP wired also. Those were the best deals for me, under $600 each which I say represents a great value. They were designed in the USA but I believe assembled elsewhere, but at least NO PCBs!

[H]

I take your point Dan but you are not a typical customer of the kind of amps we're referring to. You're applying your own very particular requirements and experience to 'Joe Public' and that simply isn't the demographic for these amps.

 

A PCB can be replaced in short order, assuming it's not obsolete, and that's what will happen if the amp is under warranty. Again, think of the demographic here - these are amps that go through iterations which force a short product existence intentionally.

 

If the amp is out of warranty, I'd suspect a manufacturer repair would still involve PCB replacement - it's simply more cost-effective.

 

A local amp-tech repairing the PCB? Well, you'll pay through the nose and that's what I was referring to when I said the hand-wired plus point is long-term maintenance.

[Kuz]

My Fender amps aren't made in Mexico and MUCH less expensive than the Custom Shop stuff (and sounds better too).....

[Guest HRB853370]

I take your point Dan but you are not a typical customer of the kind of amps we're referring to. You're applying your own very particular requirements and experience to 'Joe Public' and that simply isn't the demographic for these amps.

 

A PCB can be replaced in short order, assuming it's not obsolete, and that's what will happen if the amp is under warranty. Again, think of the demographic here - these are amps that go through iterations which force a short product existence intentionally.

 

If the amp is out of warranty, I'd suspect a manufacturer repair would still involve PCB replacement - it's simply more cost-effective.

 

A local amp-tech repairing the PCB? Well, you'll pay through the nose and that's what I was referring to when I said the hand-wired plus point is long-term maintenance.

If its not a local tech who would it be Howard? Especially out of warranty!

[JeffB]

I think they just order the board and replace it. I dont think its rocket science. Ive met the techs that do these repairs as part of their daily grind.

Ive played some older twins and the newer ones. i like the newer ones. obviously theres extra mojo in them PCB boards.

Speaking of which, I plugged a LP into a twin rev'65ri turned up to about 6.5 today. You cant beat that sound. That is the sound.

I forget that that is the sound because I never get to use that sound. Its too loud.

[H]

If its not a local tech who would it be Howard? Especially out of warranty!

That's the point, Slammer: these amps have short-term obsolescence built in. Once it's out of warranty, you're in the hands of local techs or a paid-for return to the factory - either way, a PCB amp becomes a much more expensive repair proposition when the one/two/five year period ends, even more so when the PCB replacement option finally disappears as the amp model becomes obsolete.

 

I've played through both hand-wired and PCB amps for years. I've found tones from both that I've loved and noises from both that I've quickly skipped past I recognise that the sound I'm looking for isn't necessarily what someone else would be happy with, and that the price I'm willing to pay to achieve that tone isn't necessarily what someone else might.

 

Tone is subjective and can come from the unlikeliest of sources: high end amps, low end amps, converted organ amps, iPads. Who cares where it comes from as long as it can be sustained within one's budget?

[H]

...I plugged a LP into a twin rev'65ri turned up to about 6.5 today. You cant beat that sound. That is the sound.

It's that sound that inspired me to build my Vibrolux - it's a bedroom Twin

[111518]

I own both point to point and pcb amps, and with all due respect to advocates of point-to-point (or turret brd) amps, I do think there are reasons certain designers --Fuchs, Rivera are the two whose amps I own-- believe in pcb construction. Most importantly, it allows closer control of the final circuit --such that a very finely tuned design results in a very finely-tuned final product. Here's how Andy Fuchs put it in an interview, after making the point that both dumbles and mesa's were basically carefully-tuned refinements of basic fender circuits:

 

"I think we (Fuchs Engineering) did a great job of fighting the tide of PCB vs hard wired. I would make an amp any way it had to be made to sound good. I feel, from a scientific point of view, a PC board is accurate to tens of thousands of inches, and you can control everything tighter than any point to point executed amp. I revise a typical board ten or 12 times to get it to behave as I want it to: low noise, good tone, no crosstalk or leakage between channels etc. I compare to hard wired prototypes often, until the board exceed the performance."

 

As for repair ... I'll just report the conversation I had with my very experienced amp guy when I was considering buying a Marshall JTM30 ( a circuit board amp). I'd had one before that had chronic problems, and, though I liked the sound, I wasn't going to buy another if the person who'd have to deal with problems didn't think it was a good idea. He said for him the difference in amps is not pcb v. wired but the quality of components and construction. Even though the Marshall is a pcb amp, and one that has been prone to heat damage because of transformer problems, he said it can still be fixed by replacing components on the boards, unlike many of the newer pcb tube or solid state amps. If you like the sound of it, buy it, he suggested, and we can keep in running. And, the one I found cheap did have a problem, which he fixed.

 

Anyone who wants to unload a Fuchs or Rivera dirt cheap because it is pcb and therefore no good ... dibs. All my 2 cents, of course, and I'm the first to admit that when I finally have time to start to dig into amp work, which I would really like to do, I'll start with wired amps.

[Kuz]

As others have said, "whatever gets your job done".

 

I love the Axe-Fx, where others will bash it without even hearing or playing one.

 

I am not a Hand PTP snob, or a vintage snob. I just love the tones of the vintage Fenders better than the RI Fenders. I am of belief this is due to the fact that many of the vintage components can't be made or reproduced today.

 

There are some great sound new amps out there. But the ones I like are more expensive than vintage amps where the resale/investment value is higher.

 

So when it comes to amps, I believe in vintage based on tone & performance. When it comes to guitars, in my opinion, the best guitars are being made today based on performance, consistency, and tone.

[Vanschoyck]

I wish I could go back in time, to say 1973 or so, and take with me any one of a number of "cheap" modeling amps, and do some of the gigs I was doing back then. All the stuff that's "vintage" now was easily available and affordable back then, but the problem wasn't the sound of the amp cranked, it was getting the sound you wanted at a volume that wouldn't literally get you fired. Many tortured attempts at a solution were devised. Many awful pedals, (anyone remember the fuzz tone?) One fellow actually put a champ in a box, and mic'd it through an Acoustic 260. Another guy I knew, who I won't drop the name but you all would know who he is, used a Fender head (I think it was a Bassman) into two Marshall 4 x 12 cabs, which dampened the volume a little but his band could get away with being a little louder because they had a good draw. I used a pre cbs twin for a while but without pedals, (by then the tube screamer was available) same issue.

 

Hey H, is there anyway you could build me one of them things?

[smurph1]

I have a USA made fender hot rod deluxe. I might be assembled in California, but all the parts are imported.

I recently found out Peavey Classic 30s are made in the US with imported components.. That's part of the reason, I traded it for my Mexican made 68 Princeton Custom.. So far, it is a solid, excellent sounding amp, that has a 5 year warranty.. But to be fair, I've only had it a month..