Marshall Price Drops

[Tanax]

Depends heavily on the brand. Mesas used to be insanely expensive until they did the same thing as Marshall have done now - changed distributors.

But there's still a lot of crazyness in pricing. There's no way to justify why a Suhr SL67 is 3999 € (incl 24% VAT) for a Superlead clone with a PPIMV and a few switches on it. That's 500 € more than a freakin' Diezel VHX!

A Friedman BE-100 Deluxe at 4699 € is also pretty hard to swallow despite its 3 channels and other bells and whistles. They of course have other amps that are a lot more acceptably priced.

Don't even get me started on anything Dumble-based. Those live in another price echelon with IMO no justification for the cost other than "people who want a Dumble tone will pay". Which is good business.

In general though, it's not worth buying US made amps in Europe and vice versa.

What I meant was that it's not overpriced in the sense of compared to their US price. The BE100 DLX is a good example of this. As someone replied to you, it's $4000 in the US. Add 24% VAT to it and you're at almost $5k. Translate that to euro and you end up with €4692 with today's exchange rate. Hence, it's not overpriced.

If it's WORTH it though, that's a whole different question and in general I'd say hell no.

I don't disagree really, but I think being made in USA, on a smaller scale and using higher spec parts really does add up.

Talking used prices here, but I paid about £2k used for my BE100, the 20W amps and Runts go for about £1000 used. If I were to source my own parts for one of those circuits it wouldn’t come out much less, and it would still take someone to built it. 20W Marshalls are maybe £500-600 used, the 100W vary depending on model and year (DSL/JVM can be dirt cheap, Jubilee reissues are £750-800, 1959SLP/1987/£900-1000, 2203x £1500, vintage ones a little more). I think the used Friedman prices are in line with that at least.

The fact Marshall and Ceriatone can build them cheaper doesn’t mean the boutique brands are necessarily a ripoff - they just have different margins to work in and certain compromises may have no bearing on how the user feels about them.

The Ecstasy below costs nearly £5000z

Buy the Bogner Ecstasy 20th Anniversary Head 100W 6L6 Comet/Salt and Pepper Valve Amp Head

The Bogner Ecstasy 20th Anniversary Head lives up to it's name providing pure tonal bliss from it's 3 channel all tube design.

www.guitarguitar.co.uk

SLO100 is £4000, JP2C and Mark VII are over £4000 too. Two Rock and Magnatone are on another level beyond that.

Sure, that's true. I just think that in general, most people in Europe don't really care about "Made in the USA".
It's not something we associate with "quality".

 

[laxu]

What I meant was that it's not overpriced in the sense of compared to their US price. The BE100 DLX is a good example of this. As someone replied to you, it's $4000 in the US. Add 24% VAT to it and you're at almost $5k. Translate that to euro and you end up with €4692 with today's exchange rate. Hence, it's not overpriced.

While things like shipping and possible longer EU warranties do factor in as extra costs, we don't know what the retailer cost for these amps looks like. US retail price + VAT in euro is not necessarily a good translation.

If we change the discussion to "worth it", then for a lot of US boutique brands in Europe, to me the answer is no. I could buy a Diezel VH4 + Paul for only a few hundred euros more than the BE100 DLX.

 

[Tanax]

While things like shipping and possible longer EU warranties do factor in as extra costs, we don't know what the retailer cost for these amps looks like. US retail price + VAT in euro is not necessarily a good translation.

If we change the discussion to "worth it", then for a lot of US boutique brands in Europe, to me the answer is no. I could buy a Diezel VH4 + Paul for only a few hundred euros more than the BE100 DLX.

In terms of worth it, I've already said I agreed with you. Mesa prices are insane. Friedman prices are insane. Soldano prices are insane.
And don't even get me started on the actual NA boutique amps, like Wizard, Monomyth, KSR, MGL, Amplified Nation, etc.

High end ENGL, or even Diezel like you mentioned - while not cheap amps - are still way lower priced.
Even boutique amps in Europe, like BRBS, Driftwood or RedSeven, are cheaper (and sometimes by a lot) than the NA brands.

I don't think it's JUST that we don't have to pay expensive shipping or extra VAT on top of the advertised price of European brands, but more so that the European brands price their amps lower to begin with.

 

[spawnofthesith]

I feel like Ceriatone has got to be the best value of an amp, any country

 

[MirrorProfiles]

I feel like Ceriatone has got to be the best value of an amp, any country

Yup, I agree. I just can't understand why an amp like the BE100 costs $4K, when it's got no internal load, no MIDI, no IR out, and often questionable quality (IMHO).

Having to pay US wages and building on a comparatively smaller scale to Fender/Marshall/Mesa will be a bigger factor than a handful of relatively inexpensive parts. Ceriatone can pay way less to staff, no middlemen to deal with, and they use much cheaper components (especially on transformers and caps which can shave a good bit off the cost). Friedman are catering largely to an old boomer crowd who probably scoff at the complexity of MIDI or computers being in THEIR PURE ANALOG VALVE AMP.

Runt 50 isn't a million miles off the price of a Ceriatone circuit. Doesn't have the same quality of transformers of the other Friedman stuff, but I think the price/features are reasonable enough compared to whats out there. Still a higher quality parts than Ceriatone/Marshall etc. Built nicely enough too, dummy load, speaker sim output.

Peavey did well to keep building in the US as long as they did, but even they couldn't make the numbers work. It just costs so much more to build in the US than it does in Asia.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

I completely disagree. The Runts, JJ Jr etc are unreliable pieces of shit. I’d take a Studio series Marshall or Ceriatone over one any day of the week.

Yeah, I totally disagree. Marshall and Ceriatone use cheaper spec parts all round. Runt PCB is thicker and more durable/reliable than Marshall. Marshall use a machine to solder the PCB’s, and haven’t really had the best history of well designed long lasting PCB’s (DSL, JTM60, 2210). Even the classic amps PCB’s are pretty crap and prone to traces lifting etc. Ceriatone are nicely built, look stunning but the caps/resistors/transformers are all off brand/in house stuff to get the cost down. I live 10 minutes from Marshalls factory and own way too many of their amps, I’m a huge Marshall guy. But their build quality is nothing special, they’re all about mass production and getting costs down.

But each to their own.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

Take Lyle with a pinch of salt but he goes through the construction quite thoroughly.



I used to speak to Friedmans UK repair guy a bit, the only real issue I knew of was when they had a bad batch of ARS caps. Seen some earlier HW builds that looked a bit ropy, mind.

 

[redsnapper]

Take Lyle with a pinch of salt but he goes through the construction quite thoroughly.



I used to speak to Friedmans UK repair guy a bit, the only real issue I knew of was when they had a bad batch of ARS caps. Seen some earlier HW builds that looked a bit ropy, mind.

I've seen Friedman's JJ amps on the inside... What a cheap POS! Switches put together with caulk, chassis medal sides with spot welds, and other cheap crap! Marshall's are a whole lot better, but not worth the price they charge. The only Marshall PCB issues I know of are the early 2000
s JCM2000 bias drift/PCB conduction issue; and it was solved a few years later.

 

[0XI0]

mesa price drops when

 

[Eagle]

You can buy a pretty much mint condition S/H JVM 410 in the UK for £650 easily and a new Mesa MKVII for £4150. So stop moaning about Marshall. Oh a new Studio JCM800 20w £850.

 

[Byrdman]

You can buy a pretty much mint condition S/H JVM 410 in the UK for £650 easily and a new Mesa MKVII for £4150. So stop moaning about Marshall. Oh a new Studio JCM800 20w £850.

We all want cheaper ways to make our sounds. IMO, almost all amps are on the high side and should not be playing these pricing games just because they can. Marshall, Mesa, Fender, Friedman, etc. should be priced the same everywhere in the world and the only difference should be Import/Export taxes & shipping costs.

 

[GuitarBilly74]

I gigged with a Runt 50 for a while and had zero issues with it. The amp sounded good, was really quiet ( as in no hum/hiss), awesome effects loop, great master volume etc. I'd have no issues getting another one of them if I wanted that sound.

That said, I do prefer Marshalls, the Friedmans are more polite and hi-fi sounding while the Marshalls are more raw and aggressive.

 

[Spaced Out Ace]

Egnater on the other hand...