Sigma S00R-45VS - Does anyone have one?

BigPaulie

Tannin said:

@BigPaulie are you saying that Sigmas are made by Cort. Interesting. (And not a good look for Sigma.) Cort also OEMs for Ibanez and Squire that I know about, doubtless many others. 

That's correct, @Tannin ;

This interview with AMI's sales director confirms:

https://mmrmagazine.com/site/issue/features/whats-in-a-name-acoustic-musical-instruments-launches-ami-est-1984-guitar-line-in-the-u-s/

I used to be able to find a better source where Guenther Lutz confirmed it, but that seems to be gone now. You'd think if they were so proud of their business relationships, guitar brands would be more transparent about who they work with.

Incidentally, PRS are up-front enough to put Cor-Tek's name on their SE headstocks. I'd never buy one, but at least they're not hiding anything.

DavidR

Slightly more indifferent than some here about buying guitars from manufacturers whose source manufacturer is in dispute with its workers. 

Sigma Guitars marketed by AMI GMbH of Germany are made by Cor-Tek. Cort Guitars (Cor-Tek Corporation) is a South Korean company with other factories in Indonesia and China. The company is one of the largest guitar makers in the world, and produces instruments for many other companies. They are massive and their overarching business model is to make guitars for many brands, not just Cort. 

It is not surprising that labour disputes occur within their large manufacturing base, and refusing to purchase their goods shares some logic with refusing to use Transport for London, mainline railways or the NHS because of the current long-running, and sometimes fraught, disputes and strikes. Or refusing to eat Camembert because French farmers are up in arms. 

A more pragmatic response might be for us as players to influence Günther Lutz and Sigma to place some contractual clause in his/their Cor-Tek contract about working conditions and ethical wood sourcing, much as the members of the Music Wood Coalition (a Greenpeace initiative) and Yamaha's Yamaha Group Timber Procurement Policy have done for their (admittedly not always Far East) factories over the years. The Far East guitar manufacturing industry is highly sophisticated and will basically make you any instrument from 'yuk' to 'mmm'. But you have to tell them what you want.

I suspect Sigmas have earnt a good rep by defining, and being demanding about, the specification of what they are sent from their Chinese manufacturers. Perhaps these demands should go a little further. Currently they and other brands may not be defining these working conditions and ethical wood sourcing issues, and simply leaving things to the companies (like Cor-Tek) to 'sort out'. Some might call that turning a blind eye.

So, could they do more? And should we as customers be at them to do it? That's an individual judgement. But don't expect the instruments to be as cheap if we (and they) make these demands.

I don't think boycotting is the answer. Personal view obviously.

P.S. Planning to buy Sigma S00R-45VS (or the then current equivalent) for my 70th in Nov 2025!

BigPaulie

DavidR said:

Slightly more indifferent than some here about buying guitars from manufacturers whose source manufacturer is in dispute with its workers.

There's labour disputes and then there's building your company's reputation on a highly skilled and loyal workforce then locking them all out of the factory, laying them off without notice, and setting up shop offshore. NOT OK.

guitarjack66

BigPaulie said:

DavidR said:

Slightly more indifferent than some here about buying guitars from manufacturers whose source manufacturer is in dispute with its workers.

There's labour disputes and then there's building your company's reputation on a highly skilled and loyal workforce then locking them all out of the factory, laying them off without notice, and setting up shop offshore. NOT OK.

There are plenty of words for that and most have four letters in them.

BigPaulie

guitarjack66 said:

BigPaulie said:

DavidR said:

Slightly more indifferent than some here about buying guitars from manufacturers whose source manufacturer is in dispute with its workers.

There's labour disputes and then there's building your company's reputation on a highly skilled and loyal workforce then locking them all out of the factory, laying them off without notice, and setting up shop offshore. NOT OK.

There are plenty of words for that and most have four letters in them.

Correct!

And then there's engaging in nefarious activities to undermine the workers by getting a corrupt court decision to state the company's actions were just and appropriate. Thankfully now overturned, but although the dispute is now "resolved" crucially none of the Korean workers got their jobs back and Cor-Tek no longer manufacture guitars in Korea.

Nice company to do business with...

guitarjack66

BigPaulie said:

guitarjack66 said:

BigPaulie said:

DavidR said:

Slightly more indifferent than some here about buying guitars from manufacturers whose source manufacturer is in dispute with its workers.

There's labour disputes and then there's building your company's reputation on a highly skilled and loyal workforce then locking them all out of the factory, laying them off without notice, and setting up shop offshore. NOT OK.

There are plenty of words for that and most have four letters in them.

Correct!

And then there's engaging in nefarious activities to undermine the workers by getting a corrupt court decision to state the company's actions were just and appropriate. Thankfully now overturned, but although the dispute is now "resolved" crucially none of the Korean workers got their jobs back and Cor-Tek no longer manufacture guitars in Korea.

Nice company to do business with...

Unfortunately not untypical of large companies nowadays,the world over.

Tannin

Thanks to your information @BigPaulie I have learned something about Sigma and added them to my little list of companies  I won't do business with. There are plenty of decent companies out there (and I don't expect sainthood, just ordinary decent, honest behaviour); there is no need to give money to scumbag bottom feeders. 

(So far as guitars go anyway. Don't ask me about airlines. Or supermarket chains. Here in Oz, the least worst option is often Aldi, who dodge tax structure their corporate affairs like nobody's business but aren't the complete scum the giant local duopolists Coles and Woolworths are. Hobson's choice.)

Jetsam1

If you go this way buy nothing outside of artisan hand made at £000s.

At some point at all parts of the supply chain no matter how "lovely" the marketing spiel someone somewhere will be getting exploited. All companies do bad things and don't think a western manufacturer would hesitate to behave in exactly the same way as Cort if they thought they could get away with it.And they only don;t because of publicity.....

I am sceptical and cynical about all labels like FSC and at the end of the day if the price is right most factories will not be looking too closely at the source of raw materials. Lets get onto the strip mining for REE etc in everything.

TL:DR, not much point trying to be ethical in this world when it comes to shopping, they'll just do marketing magic and carry on as before.

Tannin

Indeed you can never find perfection, but you can very easily identify rank bad hats and avoid them. 

It's same rule as politics: most candidates are crooks and grifters, but some of them are downright evil. It's practically impossible to find someone you like enough to vote *for*, but it is easy to identify the really dangerous idiots and vote for someone (anyone!) else.

Do bad companies (just like bad politicians) try to trick you into thinking they are decent citizens? Of course they do. But we are not stupid people, and when we get together and share information - this thread is an example of that - we can make more informed, more ethical buying decisions, and in our own small way make the world a better place.

An excess of cynicism does nobody any good.

DavidR

@Jetsam1 ;;At some point at all parts of the supply chain no matter how "lovely" the marketing spiel someone somewhere will be getting exploited. All companies do bad things and don't think a western manufacturer would hesitate to behave in exactly the same way as Cort if they thought they could get away with it.And they only don;t because of publicity.....

I agree

P&O Ferries mass sackings – one year on | TUC

So tell me....How would refusing to sail P&O help the company or it's workers?

The only thing I have ever boycotted was South Africa during apartheid. Quite a while ago. The injustice was total, systemic and political and the boycott on the purchase of goods from there helped to remedy the situation. Failing to purchase Cor-Tek instruments might, in the long run, cause more hardship than a bad employer. Industry and commerce themselves have mechanisms of sorting out such employers. They will have recruitment and retention problems in a free society like South Korea and folk will choose to work elsewhere. Maybe even in their China factory too. That would be more effective than customers avoiding some excellent goods.

Beware the rule of unintended circumstances.

Tannin

Think through what you are saying, David. If we buy from (relatively) ethical companies who treat their workers (reasonably) well, that company expands. Meanwhile, the (relatively) unethical company which maltreats its workers sells less product and in consequence maltreats fewer people. 

No possible obfuscation or whataboutery can deny that simple fact.

PS: When in Europe recently I (of course) made a point of not sailing P&O (a) because I try to be a decent person (not perfect, far from it, but one should always try) and (b) because by sailing with a different, less evil company, I helped (in my tiny one-ticket way) to encourage and reward a better company and its workers.

Individual actions matter. 

DavidR

In 1978 Martin Guitars had a strike over poor pay having become unionised by, oddly, the United Cement, Lime and Gypsum Workers Union.

In 2011 Gibson Guitar factories were raided by the feds looking into the illegal importation of wood from Madagascar. Gibson were subsequently fined $300K.

In 2020 Fender Europe were fined £4.5m for breaking the UK's competition laws relating to discounting. They were fined a further £25K for hiding documents relating to the investigation.

In 2021 Yamaha, Roland and Fender were fined 21m Euros for price fixing in Germany. Roland (and Korg) had been fined the year before.

In 2020 Alhambra was investigated in Germany over price fixing. The case was subsequently settled by the imposition of a fine.



What should we do?

DavidR

Tannin said:

Think through what you are saying, David. 

DavidR

Tannin said:

Thanks to your information @BigPaulie I have learned something about Sigma and added them to my little list of companies  I won't do business with. There are plenty of decent companies out there (and I don't expect sainthood, just ordinary decent, honest behaviour); there is no need to give money to           

 scumbag bottom feeders. 

(So far as guitars go anyway. Don't ask me about airlines. Or supermarket chains. Here in Oz, the least worst option is often Aldi, who dodge tax structure their corporate affairs like nobody's business but aren't the complete scum the giant local duopolists Coles and Woolworths are. Hobson's choice.)

DavidR

I do not seem to be the one arguing extremes @Tannin.

It is entirely rational to, respectfully, debate the hypothesis of boycotting manufacturers because of poor business practices. 

'Nuff said probably.

Tannin

Nonsense David. We are not talking boycotting here, we are talking the free choice of consumers in a free market to decide which goods and services are, all things considered, the best choices. Responsible, sustainable supply of inputs - i.e., not raping the planet - is every bit as valid a consumer consideration as colour scheme, or reliability, or price, or decent employment ethics, or will-it-match-my-curtains. 

Every consumer has the right to make decisions about which product or service, all things considered, is the best on offer.

Only in a communist dictatorship* does this not apply.

As for your pretending that known, documented scumbag bottom feeders are anything other than what they are, I honestly do not understand why any decent person would want to do that. Call a spade a spade for the love of Mike.

* (And in certain other societies which, in their different ways, are no better.)

Tannin

As for your whataboutery, well OK, I'll bite.

One must look at those events and decide (a) what present-day relevance they have, and (b) where this places the company in question relevant to others in the market. 

As always, we are not looking for perfection, we are simply aiming to comb out the worst offenders (just as we comb out the companies with the lowest quality control and the worst warranties and the poorest value for money). This is called "making choices" and it's what we all do in free countries everywhere. 

Which of those companies you mention committed the worst crime? Well, Gibson, obviously. Which of them is - in your opinion, for pending further information this can only be a matter of opinion - most likely to be re-offending in the same or similar ways? Well, probably Gibson again. So, on my personal radar, I cross off Gibson as against those others mentioned. I wouldn't absolutely refuse to buy a Gibson product on that basis, there are undoubtedly companies worse again than Gibson, I just "take some points off", as it were, in the calculus of purchase. (As it happens, I don't like sunbursts, dyed timber, or short scale acoustics, so Gibson has never really been on my radar in the first place.)

Price fixing is a much more minor crime. I object to it, naturally, but in the end the very, very best answer to price fixing is a healthy free market with many buyers and many sellers. Provided that I have a genuine choice of suppliers, price fixing is fairly unimportant as (like anyone else) I can make up my own mind as to whether a given asking price is worth it. So far as guitars go, there are oodles of different suppliers. I could happily buy any of 20 or 40 different makes. (And probably will if I live long enough.)

Compare with supermarkets where (here in my country) you have two giant companies out for everything they can gouge and (in many towns) very little or no other choice. This is where price fixing gets really bad. (I understand that you have a much healthier situation in the UK.)

guitarjack66

Tannin said:

As for your whataboutery, well OK, I'll bite.

One must look at those events and decide (a) what present-day relevance they have, and (b) where this places the company in question relevant to others in the market. 

As always, we are not looking for perfection, we are simply aiming to comb out the worst offenders (just as we comb out the companies with the lowest quality control and the worst warranties and the poorest value for money). This is called "making choices" and it's what we all do in free countries everywhere. 

Which of those companies you mention committed the worst crime? Well, Gibson, obviously. Which of them is - in your opinion, for pending further information this can only be a matter of opinion - most likely to be re-offending in the same or similar ways? Well, probably Gibson again. So, on my personal radar, I cross off Gibson as against those others mentioned. I wouldn't absolutely refuse to buy a Gibson product on that basis, there are undoubtedly companies worse again than Gibson, I just "take some points off", as it were, in the calculus of purchase. (As it happens, I don't like sunbursts, dyed timber, or short scale acoustics, so Gibson has never really been on my radar in the first place.)

Price fixing is a much more minor crime. I object to it, naturally, but in the end the very, very best answer to price fixing is a healthy free market with many buyers and many sellers. Provided that I have a genuine choice of suppliers, price fixing is fairly unimportant as (like anyone else) I can make up my own mind as to whether a given asking price is worth it. So far as guitars go, there are oodles of different suppliers. I could happily buy any of 20 or 40 different makes. (And probably will if I live long enough.)

Compare with supermarkets where (here in my country) you have two giant companies out for everything they can gouge and (in many towns) very little or no other choice. This is where price fixing gets really bad. (I understand that you have a much healthier situation in the UK.)

No we dont. To use Supermarkets an example,they are a cabal that destroy any competition from genuine competitors by things like dropping prices for a limited time so as to ward off those rivals until they go out of business. They've killed off most independent Butchers,Bakers,Greengrocers and Fishmongers et al and we are left with little choice any more. 

rustneversleeps

Check out the classifieds

pjf

rustneversleeps said:

Check out the classifieds

Yep, please do – the Sigma 000R28VS I’m currently selling in the Acoustics £ classifieds is a cracking guitar.