Is a new mass-produced bass ever worth more than £1500

[Woodinblack]

1 hour ago, NancyJohnson said:

I'm unsure whether we've reached tipping point just yet; I very much doubt the guys at Musicman are thinking their basses are too expensive and if they did stop selling I doubt they'd reduce prices to aid sales. 

 

There will always be people who can afford the crazy prices, so the easy way is just bring in cheaper ranges, so that people can buy that, knowing they are going to aspire to get the crazy priced thing later. Luckily with the second hand market being totally mad at the moment, it helps the new market to not seem so bad.

[tegs07]

6 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

 

There will always be people who can afford the crazy prices, so the easy way is just bring in cheaper ranges, so that people can buy that, knowing they are going to aspire to get the crazy priced thing later. Luckily with the second hand market being totally mad at the moment, it helps the new market to not seem so bad.

I do wonder if rather than things being “mad” we are reaching a turning point where the era of cheap goods and cheap debt is over. I have tried to point this out for several months now.

[Woodinblack]

37 minutes ago, tegs07 said:

I do wonder if rather than things being “mad” we are reaching a turning point where the era of cheap goods and cheap debt is over. I have tried to point this out for several months now.

 

THere could be some element of that, but currently, the things (that we are discussing here) haven't got more expensive to make due to a lack of cheap goods or cheap debt, they have just got a more expensive price because they are making more profit. Not refering to musicman and fender and the like, the reason they seem bad is down to our economic choices tanking our exchange rate, but elsewhere.

I do believe that the era of cheap goods and debt is coming to an end, but we haven't got their yet. And when we do, our era of expensive housing is really going to bite us.

[tegs07]

1 hour ago, Woodinblack said:

 

THere could be some element of that, but currently, the things (that we are discussing here) haven't got more expensive to make due to a lack of cheap goods or cheap debt, they have just got a more expensive price because they are making more profit. Not refering to musicman and fender and the like, the reason they seem bad is down to our economic choices tanking our exchange rate, but elsewhere.

I do believe that the era of cheap goods and debt is coming to an end, but we haven't got their yet. And when we do, our era of expensive housing is really going to bite us.

Im sure there’s an element of “greedflation” from the manufacturers but if commodities like electricity, oil, gas, wood, electronic components are all going up in price then I would expect those costs to be passed on to the consumer. 

 

Some of these costs may be transitory depending upon geopolitics (labour excluded).

OPEC and Saudi, Sanctions and Russia, Taiwan and China, the US $ and interest rate hikes etc etc 

 

Similarly if a manufacturer wants to borrow money from a bank to expand and increase their productivity (or just modernise, repair and maintain) then those costs are also increasing which will also be passed back to the consumer.

 

Commercial property is also subject to financing linked to bank lending rates. As the lease rolls over the cost will increase.

 

Staff will want higher pay.

 

 

This is unlikely to be transitory unless the two decades of QE stimulus is continuous in which case any physical good will be a better store of value than the money it’s bought with.

 

All this stuff is interlinked. Prices of instruments are not in some hermetically sealed bubble.

 

I suspect prices will continue to rise until central banks either get inflation back to manageable levels (price increases will stabilise but remain higher) or they induce a recession and curtail demand which will lead to deflation. 

 

Edited April 11, 2023 by tegs07

[Greg Edwards69]

4 hours ago, Woodinblack said:

 

THere could be some element of that, but currently, the things (that we are discussing here) haven't got more expensive to make due to a lack of cheap goods or cheap debt, they have just got a more expensive price because they are making more profit. Not refering to musicman and fender and the like, the reason they seem bad is down to our economic choices tanking our exchange rate, but elsewhere.

I do believe that the era of cheap goods and debt is coming to an end, but we haven't got their yet. And when we do, our era of expensive housing is really going to bite us.

Just keep your fingers crossed that you or your loved ones will never need to move into a residential care home. Now that is all about profit!

[SteveXFR]

2 hours ago, Greg Edwards69 said:

Just keep your fingers crossed that you or your loved ones will never need to move into a residential care home. Now that is all about profit!

 

Care homes are businesses, all businesses exist purely to make profit.

I'll never get there, I'm checking out at 65, it's the only way I can avoid working up to 70.

[Waddo Soqable]

4 minutes ago, SteveXFR said:

 

Care homes are businesses, all businesses exist purely to make profit.

I'll never get there, I'm checking out at 65, it's the only way I can avoid working up to 70.

... So you're rappin' all night 'bout your suicide... How you'll kick it in the head when you're.. 65? 😁

[Woodinblack]

2 hours ago, Greg Edwards69 said:

Just keep your fingers crossed that you or your loved ones will never need to move into a residential care home. Now that is all about profit!

 

I didn't know you could even do that any more, but yes, I had already been put off. The woman next door works in a care home. The one who is always yelling at her kid to 'shut the f*** up'.

[Boodang]

1 hour ago, SteveXFR said:

 

Care homes are businesses, all businesses exist purely to make profit.

I'll never get there, I'm checking out at 65, it's the only way I can avoid working up to 70.

Surely it has to be 64!

[SteveXFR]

45 minutes ago, Boodang said:

Surely it has to be 64!

 

I'll work to 65, get the mortgage cleared and that's enough. I don't think I'll be capable of my job at 70. I've seen a few try to work past 65 but none have lasted.

[Waddo Soqable]

1 hour ago, Boodang said:

Surely it has to be 64!

Nah, that's the Yellow Submarine... 

[Minininjarob]

On 31/03/2023 at 13:49, TheLowDown said:

For me, no. There are fantastic basses for £300/400, above that and the value for money drops sharply for what I require.

Fender know they can produce garbage but people will still want to have "Fender" on the headstock. The market decides.

 

Exactly what I wanted for my first bass. I wanted a Fender P and I realised after trying a few cheaper options that were probably as good that I just wanted the Fender name on the headstock. Was it better quality than the £400 squire? Not really, but it was better than the £200 stuff. Is it as good as the made in the USA models? Dunno really but my £700 PB isn’t £300 better than the Squire, no way. 
From a build quality perspective I couldn’t see the difference between my Player series and the next models up which were pretty much twice the price. 

[Minininjarob]

I think basses and electric guitars are generally pretty cheap nowadays and you can get great quality for not much money. I’ve seen a lot of videos where famous players talk about never even thinking they could afford a fender or even a decent copy, having to play on poor quality copies as younger musicians. Nowadays all a teen needs to do is have a summer job for a few weeks and he/she can get a Fender P and an amp. 
 

[Twincam]

A few things that spring to mind.

 

1. Prices going up but quality has stayed the same in the best cases. Much of the time it seems the quality has went down due to penny pinching of materials or faster production. 

 

2. 1950s to 90s there was a more clear gulf between the better basses and the cheapo budget instruments. And more stages in between. Now a inexpensive cheapo instrument can be extremely well setup and last for years without issue. 

 

3. Not many peoples pay has kept up with general living costs. And everything has has went up. 

 

 

[Dan Dare]

3 hours ago, Twincam said:

A few things that spring to mind.

 

1. Prices going up but quality has stayed the same in the best cases. Much of the time it seems the quality has went down due to penny pinching of materials or faster production. 

 

2. 1950s to 90s there was a more clear gulf between the better basses and the cheapo budget instruments. And more stages in between. Now a inexpensive cheapo instrument can be extremely well setup and last for years without issue. 

 

3. Not many peoples pay has kept up with general living costs. And everything has has went up.

 

My thoughts:

 

1. If costs are rising, manufacturers either have to increase their prices or reduce costs, which means economising on materials, etc. So you either get the same quality for more money or lesser quality for the same price.

2. That's because the greatest improvements happened in budget instruments, as automated production, computer aided design and CNC machining enabled manufacturers to give the customer more for the same money. There was less room for improvement for high-end stuff, which was built more for quality than to meet a price point. So the gap in quality  between inexpensive and expensive instruments narrowed. I'm 70 this year and my first instruments were terrible. Today's starter instruments blow them out of the water.

3. That is relatively recent. For several decades, people have been able to afford better quality due to improvements in manufacturing techniques, opening of factories in low-wage economies and similar. It couldn't last for ever. We are seeing a period of consolidation at the moment, as equilibrium re-establishes itself.

[tauzero]

4 hours ago, Dan Dare said:

 

My thoughts:

 

1. If costs are rising, manufacturers either have to increase their prices or reduce costs, which means economising on materials, etc. So you either get the same quality for more money or lesser quality for the same price.

 

Reducing costs can be done by making the manufacturing process more efficient, which has been happening with increased automation. It does require capital investment, but that's spread across tens or hundreds of thousands of instruments, and you can always sell the decrepit old machinery to Gibson and recoup some of the cost.

[Ralf1e]

Cost cutting in the workplace doesn't have to be replacing people with machines.

Example.

Cut out the unofficial coffee breaks, cigarette breaks, unnecessary phone and texting breaks, talking breaks and here I mean people who do very little but talk ALL day long and think that is work when in fact they are not putting in any effort to do even a scrap of the physical part of their job. i.e. making product.

Wastage by not doing the job properly the first time so it has to be done again (no money in doing it twice)

Teams of overpaid parasitic idiots stood around presentation boards talking testicleese while claiming to be part of 5 or 6 s groups.

Clear away that little lot and you could get over twice as much quality product out the door for less cost.

[iconic]

38 minutes ago, Ralf1e said:

Cost cutting in the workplace doesn't have to be replacing people with machines.

Example.

Cut out the unofficial coffee breaks, cigarette breaks, unnecessary phone and texting breaks, talking breaks and here I mean people who do very little but talk ALL day long and think that is work when in fact they are not putting in any effort to do even a scrap of the physical part of their job. i.e. making product.

Wastage by not doing the job properly the first time so it has to be done again (no money in doing it twice)

Teams of overpaid parasitic idiots stood around presentation boards talking testicleese while claiming to be part of 5 or 6 s groups.

Clear away that little lot and you could get over twice as much quality product out the door for less cost.

I remember when taking a personal call during working hours was a privilege, not a right.....or reading 'letters' in worktime. 

 

I used to employ and oversee as many as 20 and the use of personal phones, was one of my biggest headaches and irritations, being big on manners. 

 

Rant over and relax...anyway basses...

[Ralf1e]

1 minute ago, iconic said:

I remember when taking a personal call during working hours was a privilege, not a right.....or reading 'letters' in worktime. 

 

I used to employ and oversee as many as 20 and the use of personal phones, was one of my biggest headaches and irritations, being big on manners. 

 

Rant over and relax...anyway basses...

Yes basses lovely aren't they.

I have songs to practice today for a rehearsal this evening so I need a clear settled head. Purr purr  purr....

[Waddo Soqable]

The mobile phone thing in the workplace has gone mental, I'd make them check the thing in at the door at the start of shift, give it back for lunch break, then same again for the afternoon session, phones returned at going home time... 

[Ralf1e]

Just now, Waddo Soqable said:

The mobile phone thing in the workplace has gone mental, I'd make them check the thing in at the door at the start of shift, give it back for lunch break, then same again for the afternoon session, phones returned at going home time... 

I did work for a company that used to sack them unless it was being used for emergency by prior consent of a team leader.

[Boodang]

1 hour ago, Ralf1e said:

Cost cutting in the workplace doesn't have to be replacing people with machines.

Example.

Cut out the unofficial coffee breaks, cigarette breaks, unnecessary phone and texting breaks, talking breaks and here I mean people who do very little but talk ALL day long and think that is work when in fact they are not putting in any effort to do even a scrap of the physical part of their job. i.e. making product.

Wastage by not doing the job properly the first time so it has to be done again (no money in doing it twice)

Teams of overpaid parasitic idiots stood around presentation boards talking testicleese while claiming to be part of 5 or 6 s groups.

Clear away that little lot and you could get over twice as much quality product out the door for less cost.

So not being judgemental or have a chip on your shoulder then!!

[tegs07]

1 hour ago, Ralf1e said:

Cost cutting in the workplace doesn't have to be replacing people with machines.

Example.

Cut out the unofficial coffee breaks, cigarette breaks, unnecessary phone and texting breaks, talking breaks and here I mean people who do very little but talk ALL day long and think that is work when in fact they are not putting in any effort to do even a scrap of the physical part of their job. i.e. making product.

Wastage by not doing the job properly the first time so it has to be done again (no money in doing it twice)

Teams of overpaid parasitic idiots stood around presentation boards talking testicleese while claiming to be part of 5 or 6 s groups.

Clear away that little lot and you could get over twice as much quality product out the door for less cost.

Alright Mr Musk

 

 

😂

[Boodang]

1 hour ago, Waddo Soqable said:

The mobile phone thing in the workplace has gone mental, I'd make them check the thing in at the door at the start of shift, give it back for lunch break, then same again for the afternoon session, phones returned at going home time... 

Can you imagine getting a message from the hospital at the end of your shift asking you get there asap! Can you imagine the law suit the company would get for taking the phone off someone in those circumstances!

[Ralf1e]

27 minutes ago, Boodang said:

So not being judgemental or have a chip on your shoulder then!!

Certainly not!

But apparently you are.

Do you not understand that all that first section of time wasting is theft, especially as many manufacturers have a production bonus in place which means you are not just stealing off the company but off your workmates as well.

I am now retired but I spent many happy years in the workplace making improvements to both products and processes which inceased working conditions and profits. It was a win win situation all round. You have no need to come out with negative garbage like the above unless I touched a nerve, which I suspect I did!