[MrSandMan]

Just found this on another guitar message forum and thought I post it here since it's important Egnater news- I never realized Bruce Egnater was in Berkley Michigan. It's cool his amps are growing, just sucks to see stuff outsourced outside the United States. But can't really blame him for trying to keep prices low so more people can afford his great Egnater Amps and products -

The success of all the new Egnater products over the past couple of years has been amazing and overwhelming at the same time. The demands required to make this all happen has made it almost impossible for us to continue hand building the modular products as we have been for almost 10 years. For this reason, I have decided to take the manufacturing outside of our small shop in Berkley, Michigan. This decision does not come easy and without careful consideration of all the options. So, please accept this letter as official confirmation that the Egnater Modular products will no longer be hand built by Terri, Ian and Myself but will be produced by an outside contract manufacturer. Of course, I will continue to have complete control over every phase of design, production and quality. The good things that will come out of this are that the Modular products will be much more readily available and will have the worldwide exposure that never existed in the past. I will also be updating some features as well as adding a few cool new things to every model. At this time, we are completely sold out of M4 preamps. Those will not be available again until the new production takes place later this year. We do have a quantity of MOD50 heads available that we are hand building right now. These will be the last of the “hand built” ones available. Once they’re gone, they’re gone. We will also be reintroducing an updated version of the MOD100 and will finally have the E2 preamp become a reality later this year. My hope is that the expanded production and worldwide distribution will bring the Modular amps and preamps into the hands of players who previously found Egnater Modular difficult or impossible to purchase or just too expensive. I sincerely thank all of you who have remained “Eggie” fans and supporters for all these years. The future looks bright for Egnater as we move into this new phase of “Global” domination.

[owrry]

VHT are doing it too. Really sucks.

[MrSandMan]

It's the way of the world. I'm all for increasing import taxes. Make the taxes so high that outsourcing overseas is more costly than paying American workers.

-My soapbox of the day.

[owrry]

Originally Posted by MrSandMan

It's the way of the world. I'm all for increasing import taxes. Make the taxes so high that outsourcing overseas is more costly than paying American workers.

-My soapbox of the day.

True shit, also makes Quality Assurance decrease by atleast 70%! VHT's are one of my fav tube amps. They used to label their shit in the back "Made by rockers in USA", now currently and futurely, they're saying MFR'd in China lol... and prices stay the same. <- that bad

[MrSandMan]

Well, they could still use "Designed by rockers in USA - Made in China". I'm surprised their prices stayed the same though. I understand wanting to build line of amp at a 'lower cost' to meet the demands from the bad economy. But to keep the prices the same is a facepalm. Guess they want more profit for less quality. Shame they would go that rout.

Man, if I had the capital to make my own USA guitar factory, I would in a heartbeat. Off topic a bit, but I think these companies are getting so greedy that they are missing a great opportunity in building in America. With the technology of CNC machines, it would be easy to build low cost guitar in America. You could build American guitars that could easily sell for under $500-$600. I don't know about you, but if there is two items on the shelf within the same price range. One stamped "Made in America" and the other stamped "Made in China", I'm buying the American.

My point is, and I think you agree, "Made is America" is an important factor for most Americans.

[owrry]

Originally Posted by MrSandMan

Well, they could still use "Designed by rockers in USA - Made in China". I'm surprised their prices stayed the same though. I understand wanting to build line of amp at a 'lower cost' to meet the demands from the bad economy. But to keep the prices the same is a facepalm. Guess they want more profit for less quality. Shame they would go that rout.

Man, if I had the capital to make my own USA guitar factory, I would in a heartbeat. Off topic a bit, but I think these companies are getting so greedy that they are missing a great opportunity in building in America. With the technology of CNC machines, it would be easy to build low cost guitar in America. You could build American guitars that could easily sell for under $500-$600. I don't know about you, but if there is two items on the shelf within the same price range. One stamped "Made in America" and the other stamped "Made in China", I'm buying the American.

My point is, and I think you agree, "Made is America" is an important factor for most Americans.

It's definitely sad the prices stay the same, after turning to outsourcing. But yeah I'd definitely buy the American too but I don't know about business and contracts and paying everybody but it's ridiculous that they'd do that after being in America for so long. I'd rather sell outright then ruin the reputation of the company like that, it's like downgrading.

[MrSandMan]

Yeah, I agree its definitely downgrading.