Robert Delahunt
Showmasterologist
Re: Gibson Last straw...
Stolen technology? How is it stolen when guitar companies go to other countries with blueprints and want things built, and are only there to take advantage of their cheaper labor costs? I'm confused. These American companies went there in the first place to make cheaper products, so it's not that quality was lost on them (as if somehow ethnically they don't get the concept), it's more like what they were asked to make by the company.
Quality isn't a function of where it's made necessarily, but more a function of cost. It's cheaper to have one quality inspector take a quick glance at a guitar and strum one chord (maybe, if you're lucky) than have two take one hour each to inspect the dickens out of each instrument.
So if Gibson goes overseas to have cheap instruments built, they went there with that main intent, so at that point they're also intentionally compromising on quality, which is a function more of cost of labor and precision than of the country itself, ethnically speaking.
This is why South Korea needs to have a company come forward that makes its own guitars and does a much better QA/QC job than Gibson: they'd blow them out of the water. Look at Schecter: guitars made in Korea, set up in the states. They are capable of quality, as is any other country, but it's more a function of price in my opinion. Case in point: buy a Tommy Kaira ZZ (afaik Japanese make). There are examples of both budget and luxury cars from Germany, Italy, and Japan, and I could bet easily that there would be one from South Korea if I bothered to look long enough. For example, the bus ride from Seoul airport to Gunsan, South Korea: Seoul as a city is very elegant: it puts most any major city I've driven through to shame.
Stolen technology? How is it stolen when guitar companies go to other countries with blueprints and want things built, and are only there to take advantage of their cheaper labor costs? I'm confused. These American companies went there in the first place to make cheaper products, so it's not that quality was lost on them (as if somehow ethnically they don't get the concept), it's more like what they were asked to make by the company.
Quality isn't a function of where it's made necessarily, but more a function of cost. It's cheaper to have one quality inspector take a quick glance at a guitar and strum one chord (maybe, if you're lucky) than have two take one hour each to inspect the dickens out of each instrument.
So if Gibson goes overseas to have cheap instruments built, they went there with that main intent, so at that point they're also intentionally compromising on quality, which is a function more of cost of labor and precision than of the country itself, ethnically speaking.
This is why South Korea needs to have a company come forward that makes its own guitars and does a much better QA/QC job than Gibson: they'd blow them out of the water. Look at Schecter: guitars made in Korea, set up in the states. They are capable of quality, as is any other country, but it's more a function of price in my opinion. Case in point: buy a Tommy Kaira ZZ (afaik Japanese make). There are examples of both budget and luxury cars from Germany, Italy, and Japan, and I could bet easily that there would be one from South Korea if I bothered to look long enough. For example, the bus ride from Seoul airport to Gunsan, South Korea: Seoul as a city is very elegant: it puts most any major city I've driven through to shame.
