genz benz? (and others - would you buy an amp when the manufacturer goes out of business?)

John_P

I'm sure I read the genz benz had gone out of business -  how would you feel about buying an amp from gb (or another) make when they've gone?

ecc83

MG owners seem to do ok!

Dave.

John_P

ecc83 said:

MG owners seem to do ok!

Dave.

I had an mg and wish I could have back the hours I spent keeping it running nicely lol 

fretmeister

Genz are not out of business. Bought by Fender and closed.

Fender will honour warranties on new kit.

And I love Genz bass amps. I have 2.

mart

What he said. I bought a Genz head 6 years ago, and haven't felt any need to buy a bass amp since.

ICBM

Depends on the amp. Something which uses standard discrete parts and you expect to remain serviceable indefinitely - which includes almost all valve amps and most analogue solid-state amps - yes. Something which uses very specific parts or large-scale integrated circuitry, and you expect to have a fairly short obsolescence cycle - which includes most digital modellers - no, unless it was cheap enough that you can afford to write it off if something goes wrong.

Richardj

Not too worried about my Cornford.  If an amp is well enough made and the schematics are available they can always be fixed (of course as long as they don't have bespoke parts that you cannot get).

Dave_Mc

fretmeister said:

Genz are not out of business. Bought by Fender and closed.

Fender will honour warranties on new kit.

And I love Genz bass amps. I have 2.

+1

What ICBM says, too.

mike257

I'd buy a Genz with total confidence, great amps and Jeff Genzler and other members of the core team are still active and contactable on various gear forums. I have a Shuttle 6 for bass and a Black Pearl 30 2x12 (which is an absolute stunner of an amp) for guitar. They made great sounding and well built kit, the whole Fender situation is a sorry state of affairs.

thomasw88

bunch of us bought genz benz's amps a year or two ago, when one of the stores started flogging them off dirt cheap.. must have been a bad batch as quite a few (including me) ended sending them back due to faults.   think i had mine under a month,  nice amp tho.

Dave_Mc

^ Yeah mine was DOA (and the el diablo I got died after a day or two, but I was probably going to send it back anyway as I didn't like it), but the replacement black pearl I got has been fine since, touch wood.

Also got a streamliner head and focus 4x10 cab for bass when they were being blown out a while later and it's been fine so far too. I don't know squat about bass tone, but it sounds good to me. )

mike257

I did hear about a couple of problems when that blowout happened.  My Black Pearl was bought used and has been flawless with near to 100 gigs on it.  I've had the Shuttle for around five years and aside from two 12AX7s giving up on me it's been fine too.

57Deluxe

...my MG's fuel pump has just decided to give up the ghost... still, has been 36 years pumping... not a bad effort...

http://i232.photobucket.com/albums/ee301/snotmale/Cars and Bars/2010.jpg

mart

57Deluxe said:

... still, has been 36 years pumping... 

That's some good quality viagra. You should offer some to @hootsmon.

John_P

thanks chaps -  I'm sure if I bought something by GB it would continue working for many years, I'm pretty sure that some parts will inevitably become hard to find if a repair was ever needed but I'm not looking at anything costing insane money so the risk is fairly low.