Anyway, at the same time, a factory was being opened in China and in Indonesia. The acoustic model from Indonesia was to list at less than $100. That price includes the cost of material (ask Gabe or Tubenit how much decent tonewood for a guitar will run you), cost of labor, cost of shipping the items halfway around the world, cost of paying an american to repair and set it up (yes, I said repair), cost to ship to the dealer and cost to market it.
I did set-up work at Epiphone, and minor repairs. We received brand-new guitars from the factories and actually had to repair them just to make them playable, or to prevent the player from cutting the sides of their hands on the frets. Set-up guys did minor work, but we also had a full-time repair shop just to fix
major problems on brand-new instruments about to go to stores.
The demoralizing part was that each guitar you set up was checked by a QC guy. That's not a big deal, but what was a big deal was never knowing what was "good" and what was "bad". That's because the standard changed daily; guitars with issues deemed to be bad one day (unsellable/scrap) were "good" the next day because either too many were being sent to repair (costing too much money) or because too many were being scrapped, or because there was a large order for that model that had to be filled.
Yes, they tried to do something about quality, but the problem is that Gibson was looking for the lowest-bidder to make the Epiphone line. Everything is about price-point, and it can't be met in the US, and can't be met on some models without near slave-labor. The only good Epiphones when I was there were made by maybe 2 factories who charged more than the others, so they only produced the "expensive Epiphones" whose price point allowed paying more to make the guitar right. They routinely required no work from us except to change the strings.
And forcing quality on the other factories was futile, because they were contracted because they were so cheap. Getting them to do it right involved paying more for each guitar to cover the added cost of doing things right. And the factories knew that others might do a better job, but no one could touch their price.
Ultimately, my point in all this is that you get what you pay for, and you also do not get what you do not pay for. A cheap chinese amp may be a good way to buy parts cheap. But I'll probably stick to scrapping/rebuilding old test gear that was top-notch stuff which you can buy for $10 now. When you see and feel real quality (the kind which no longer makes economic sense) then you realize just how bad some of the cheap stuff is.
I know some good things come out of China. I really like the computer I'm typing on, and it was probably made there entirely. But China also makes toys that will poison you kids, and milk that killed a bunch of their kids. And their capability to make goods that are inexpensive to us is very much tied to low standard of living in some areas and definitely their form of government.
But that's neither here nor there on an amp forum. Sorry for projectile-vomiting my enjoyment of well-crafted things!
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