Guitar vs Amps Prices - Guitar Manufacturers are Taking the Mickey

springhead

bananaman said:

crunchman said:

bananaman said:

crunchman said:

Having built a guitar, there is more labour in a guitar than in an amp.

Even if an amp nominally has more parts, it's a lot easier to put together.  You could probably put all the components on a circuit board and solder them in a couple of hours.

That's not a justification for ridiculous Fender Custom Shop prices, but building a guitar is definitely a lot more labour intensive.

If you think about it there's no way this can be true. If you're just assembling a strat, or assembling a simple amp (say a Fender champ) from parts nether will take very long. If you're actually making a guitar (actually carving the body and neck etc) you'd have to make an equivalent amount of the amp for it to be fair, which would take much longer and require much more capital investment.

Not true.

The finishing on a guitar is a lot of work with all the sanding and buffing etc.

Fretwork is also a very labour intensive job.  Installing frets, levelling them, crowning them, and polishing them will take hours to do it well.

Then you have to cut the nut, and set the guitar up, set the intonation etc.

An amp doesn't have any of those labour intensive processes.

That's the difference between making and assembling. If you're truly making (rather than merely assembling) an amp, it's going to be way more work. I guess it's where you draw the line. Try creating your own PCB for example. It's perfectly possible, but to create even one of the PCBs inside a JVM would be very time consuming and take a lot more skill than finishing a guitar.

But you only design that PCB once and then machines etch them, drill them, stuff them, solder them and maybe even some basic bed-of-nails testing before final finishing and assembly into the chassis.  If this was a completely hand wired amp, with a turret board rather than one or more PCB's it would be a fairer comparison with the guitar.  As it stands it isn't.

ICBM

bananaman said:

The JVM is Marshall's flagship amp, the masterbuilts are Fender's flagship guitars.

The flagship Marshalls and the nearest equivalent to CS Fenders are the Hand Wired series - which are still cheaper than a Masterbuilt, they're more like a Team Built (which is also how they're built). The equivalent to a JVM is probably an American Deluxe Fender.

I agree with you that the prices for "high end" guitars are ludicrous though - even if they genuinely reflect the amount of work that goes into them, it's really an indication that the method is unnecessarily labour-intensive.

Personally I've always thought 'Masterbuilt' is largely marketing BS anyway - Fender guitars were designed from the outset to be hand-finished and assembled from machine-made parts. You wouldn't gain anything by hand-making the parts, even if they actually were.

It's worth remembering that you can buy a brand new car for around £7K. OK, not a very refined or sophisticated one, but think of the level of technology and the number of parts that have gone into making a reliable modern vehicle... and a few bits of wood, some passive electronics and a fancy paint job don't really compare.

JezWynd

£11,699

case candy incl aviator shades and leather wrist band.

Winny_Pooh

Forget Amps vs Guitars, I think the analogy is not quite right.

Rather

You can get a decent valve amp between £450 & £1000 for a classic Deluxe/Princeton, AC15/30 or NMV Marshall style amp
And £1800- £2500 for a better made version of the above

You can get a decent Fender/Gibson/Gretsch style guitar for £500 - £1000
And an excellent version of the above from Fender, Gibson, Suhr, Eastman, PRS, Gretsch etc for £2000-£3000

So then upwards of £4000 for a new bolt on neck Fender Custom shop guitar is obviously stupid.

Let people pay that, I don't care, but it's obvious that we are looking at a price model that has nothing to do with the quality of the product. 

impmann

Takes longer to build the guitar using skilled labour and much more expensive raw materials.
Building an amp is quicker and there are manufacturing sub assembly processes that can be done by machine (and often by contract manufacturers).

Having worked in both the Guitar building industry and the amp building industry for the past 20 years on and off, you aren’t comparing apples with oranges and it’s a pointless comparison.

Nikc

To the OP I think you're pretty much bang on. Electric guitars are pretty much useless without an amp. Fender in particular have proven to be an amazing marketing machine they've sold us, in increasing prices, the same product since the 1950's. Somehow players have bought into this master craftsmanship bs for what is and was designed to be a simple straight forward design for low cost mass production. The reality is the joke is on us for buying into this nonesense - but we do and so do I in part

tony99

JezWynd said:

£11,699

case candy incl aviator shades and leather wrist band.

for that money I'd want a stars n stripes bandana too

impmann

Quick question... how many of you are earning the same money as you were five years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 40 years ago?

A regular Fender USA Strat has always cost around a month/two months average salary...

Voxman

simonhpieman said:

All I can say is a decent amp (in this case an early 90s Blues DeVille) made my £80 Epiphone sound better than the solid state Marshall practice amp that preceded it. TONS better.

A good amp can make any guitar sound great.

But amps don't look cool like guitars do 

I dunno...Some amps can look cool. A lot of folk liked the looks of the Yamaha THR and Vox Adio Air.  Admittedly these are small modelling amps, but are still amps.  It is difficult to make amps look cool but eg I personally like the H&K 18w combo amps that light up blue. 

mgaw

impmann said:

Quick question... how many of you are earning the same money as you were five years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 40 years ago?

A regular Fender USA Strat has always cost around a month/two months average salary...

good point and one not lost on the Fender Marketing Department

these guys know their market, they know there are people with enough disposable income to spend these amounts

TTBZ

I have a bit of a thing against any expensive Fender  guitar for some reason tbh. I've always been under the impression that they were designed to be easy and cheap to manufacture (especially a Tele), so I really struggle to find the value in spending much more than MIM prices for slightly "better" wood and hardware. Amps and speakers are way more important for achieving a good tone anyway.

JezWynd

tony99 said:

JezWynd said:

£11,699

case candy incl aviator shades and leather wrist band.

for that money I'd want a stars n stripes bandana too

It’s sold as the Phil Lynott tribute model. I’d be interested to know if the artist’s estate receives anything. I’m sure they couldn’t get that kind of money without the Lynott name attached.

chrisj1602

I don’t know why people are saying “the joke is on the customer” - people who can afford a Masterbuilt guitar might work very hard and want to enjoy their money, and why shouldn’t they?

Blaendulais

Economics.  Pricing depends on demand.  End of really.  Components in a rolex cheap as shit.  Assembly non complex.  People prepared to pay 20k.  Charge 20k.   Basic business

RandallFlagg

Do people complain about expensive guitar prices because they desire them but can't afford them or do they complain about the prices because they can afford them but don't want them?

Adey

I like the earlier arguement about th £7k car compared to the £7k guitar.

The cost to build the car is clearly much more than the guitar. Materials costs are way more for the car.

Yes the economics of scale aren't really comparable, but I suppose Dacia don't have to spend much in endorsing celebrity drivers.

Fishboy7

I'd actually be slightly embarrassed if people knew I'd spent £7k on non vintage telecaster 

RaymondLin

I think I have spent about equal amount for my most expensive guitar (Gibson LP) to my most expensive amp (Lazy J20).

I think that's a good place to be, and the recipe for a Strat is not a secret, there is no secret sauce to a Masterbuilt guitar but if you can afford it, go nuts.  It's your money.  I just don't think the money will guarantee a better playing or better sounding instrument.  It will be a consistently overall better guitar in terms of a range than a Squire that's for sure.

I am interested to compare my MIM to one though, because I am sure mine has been through a tech from the previous owner with the pickups being advertised installed professionally, the fret ends being REALLY smooth. Totally not like how i expected it from the online comments from others regarding the fret endst.  Plus it is in a weight that I see most CS Fenders are (7lbs dead).

Neil

Blaendulais said:

Economics.  Pricing depends on demand.  End of really.  Components in a rolex cheap as shit.  Assembly non complex.  People prepared to pay 20k.  Charge 20k.   Basic business

I'll have to take issue there.

1. Components in a Rolex are not "as cheap as shit" , they are incredibly finely machined.

2. "Assembly non complex" .
Have you ever tried assembling the 220 odd minuscule components in the movement and making it run to chronometer specs? I have.
It's not like putting four screws into a Fender neck/body combination.

3. Cost 20K.
Completely wrong.
Of course you can pay what you like but Men's Rolexes start at £4100 and a Submariner is £5750. 

They seem like incredible value to me compared to a "Masterbilt" Fender.  

dindude

I really don’t see this issue - most on this thread (including me) wouldn’t contemplate buying a Master built. So non-issue.

But if it improves the coffers and image of Fender as a whole we probably all benefit in some way at the price point we are willing to pay. 

Let the rich spend their money.