Steve, bet you were talking to Ted about it ;) I don't know any other dealer who has actually talked to the guy in charge, everyone else seems to be taking a wait and see stance.
BTW, just notices over on the McNic forum they deleted a post fro an ex CA worker, what was the deal? |
Yes I talked to Ted, he said he was talking to the Peavey folks, hope they get it done that fast and step up consistency. Unfortunately I think CA has getting very good toward the end, my late year 2009 Legecy from Ted was perfect. It was his shops custom order so maybe they respected him? The delete I thought was unnessary but I respect Michael over there so if he thought it was too much that's ok. I read it but can't remember it all. It had some complaints about the process but who has worked at a company where you agree with it all.
Steve |
Good luck Peavey with CA guitars
I have 3 CAs. One is their first generation from what appeared to be a Rube Goldberg manufacturing facility. But, the product was great. I bought the next one because they went from a 1 11/16 nut to a 1 3/4. I bought the GX because I wanted a cutaway. The 2nd generation were built with fairly modern equipment, C&C machine, autoclave, auto paint booth. I was surprised at the amount of actual labor that was then spent in getting to the finished product. I've been totally pleased with all three. In my humble opinion, their marketing was totally screwed up. They didn't let dealers know what they were doing when they retooled and moved, and their dealer contact was sporadic. Taylor had relatively quick name recognition when they first came out. Martin, Guild, Gibson, Fender are all names known in most households. But, even if Composite Acoustics had lasted for 20 years, the name CA was going to be forgetable. I loved it when they came out with the wider neck, but they should have interspersed the 1 11/16 in the production. They might have picked up some hot pickers that could have promoted their product. Great product, poor marketing. My Martins stay in their cases most of the time while the GX gets played daily.
__________________________________________________ _________________________ CA Legacy, CA GX, 1st gen CA Legacy AE, Martin D28S, Martin HD28VR Custom, Seagull S12 |
Totally agree innovation and marketing are two different animals, shame they couldn't get both down. Also agree about the 1 11/16 neck. I have one of the original X's before they moved the factory in 2005, only made about 100 but it had the that neck and I really like it much better doesn't widen so much up the neck and the edges are not as sharp. But two necks would probably mean two molds, and didn't appear they had deep pockets.
Steve |
Hopefully Peavey will take notice to this thread and all the great suggestions will be noted.Especially mine:D
LEFTY CARGO! That is all |
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1. I wonder if branding under the CA name is a safe choice (for now) to test the waters under a new well-supported marketing strategy and thus, not jeopardizing the Peavey name? 2. I wonder if the Blade will be part of the lineup? |
I had the blade for a week under the MacNichol road show plan, and it sounded great, but had a few issues. Workmanship was one.
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The road trip guitar you got was probably one of the early versions where the whole back had to be unscrewed to work on it. Sadly the Internet chatter on those early guitars and Larry Amy's decision to sell them direct to the public at wholesale at first kept many dealers away from the later models which were fantatic guitars. I had no trouble selling them, the trick was to match the guitar to the client. Problem is not every dealer knows how to sell carbon guitars. I think Peavey needs to have a good long talk with the dealers that sold the most guitars than teach the rest of the dealers how to market them.
BTW, I always felt MacNichols the road trips hurt CA more than helped, and more than one person at CA agreed with me. Same goes for the dealer setups Mike was offering. In truth there is not a whole lot you can do to a CA and insinuating it needs a setup is never good for sales. In Mike's defense he has only been in the guitar business for two years. (Heck I have coffee stains on my desk that are older than that :)) and you can't blame a guy for trying. This is where CA should have stepped in and made some suggestions. It will be a tough road for the new CA. First they will have to overcome what has happened to their dealers in March. As their number one dealer I had over sixty guitars in inventory when I got the call that they were closing. All of a sudden I was looking at $100,000 in inventory that was no longer being supported by the manufacturer. Some of us took huge losses and will need to know exactly what Peavey has in mind before we write any more checks. Then there's the economy. Many of us have had to cut back so lower priced guitars are selling better than higher priced models. This is where the CA RAW, and Rainsong Studio models come in. But some of you would be surprised to hear that when CA came out with the RAW models most of their dealers refused to stock them because of the lower margins. Same thing is happening with the Rainsong Studio line. There are truly amazing guitars but take a visit to any Rainsong dealers websites and see if they mention it. So the new CA will have it's work cut out for them. Stay tuned |
Tarpman, I am just curious to know why you think that Mac Nichols road trips damage the guitar's brand ?
Thanks ! |
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Very Well Put! Regards, SpruceTop/RainDance |
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Guitars generally *do* need set-ups from the factory "specifications" (this term used loosely)...and the Cargo (my only experiences) was *certainly* no exception. Sales be how about delivering a product that is fully playable and fully adjustable (set-up-wise) for the purchasing public? I find road-trips an extremely useful idea, and I have a CF Emerald X7 coming to me this Tuesday to demo. That is a great thing to be able to experience without committing to purchasing a guitar! |
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Looking forward to your impressions of the X7. |
Road trips are great. Dealer setups can be great. One dealer bashing another dealer on a public forum -- not so great.
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The scathing post from an ex-CA employee (which many of us have read) by someone over on the Carbon Forum had a lot to say about things, and I wonder if this was "Jaygits" who has been posting here? It was a pretty defamatory post, and it was deleted by the owner of the forum pretty quickly. It didn't seem like the same person, but perhaps some light can be shed on this here...? Personally, I am less interested in "dirt," and more interested in good guitars. Perhaps Peavey will fix a bunch of things, and do right by the concepts that launched the CA guitar line. |
I thought the MacNichol road trip idea was great although I didn't participate in it prior to buying my OX RAW. Mike was fantastic to deal with and bent over backwards to make sure I was happy with my purchase. BTW I would buy from Mike again in a heartbeat great guy, great service!
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