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-   -   It's official..Composite Acoustics has been bought by Peavy (https://www.acousticguitarforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=189981)

chistrummer 07-30-2010 09:46 AM

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?

Doubleneck 07-30-2010 02:16 PM

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

Dsinned 07-30-2010 09:00 PM

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

Doubleneck 07-31-2010 03:04 AM

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

BuckMahoney 07-31-2010 03:28 AM

Hopefully Peavey will take notice to this thread and all the great suggestions will be noted.Especially mine:D


LEFTY CARGO!

That is all

Acousticado 07-31-2010 07:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doubleneck (Post 2300234)
Heard they are going to try to have the whole lineup in stores by December, it will be fascinating to see the guitars again. They will be under CA name not Peavey I was told. Bet ya they get a great Cargo out first.
Steve

Interesting. Two thoughts:

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?

Cannon 07-31-2010 09:49 AM

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.

Ted @ LA Guitar Sales 08-01-2010 12:30 PM

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

gerardo1000 08-01-2010 12:37 PM

Tarpman, I am just curious to know why you think that Mac Nichols road trips damage the guitar's brand ?
Thanks !

SpruceTop 08-01-2010 01:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tbeltrans (Post 2294478)
Jay:

To me, "please be gentle" implies that one's natural response to you, CA, or the content of your post might be to do otherwise. In my case, I don't need to "be gentle" because my three RT Cargos are the best guitars I have ever owned, and I personally have really appreciated your company's innovation.

Years ago, I broke one of the bones in my right wrist. Apparently, it would have been better to have broken both because it would have healed differently. As a direct result of that accident, I do not have the rotational movement of my right hand, so I can't really get into the "correct" hand position for classical guitar, which is really also best for fingerstyle in general. The Cargo, because of its shape and size, allows me to get that hand position and therefore to be able to play better with it than I can with any other guitar. The very short scale is also perfect for me as I get older.

I would not engage in pointless discussion as to whether my Cargos are "better" than my 1996 Collings 0003 or my 1968 Guild Artist Award archtop. Instead, I would say that the Cargo is more suitable in very unique ways than either of those guitars for my unique physical needs. So, in reality, I could say the Cargo is more suitable. At the same time, the Cargo's unique design does not sacrifice tone for being as small as it is. To me, the Cargo stands apart from the other carbon fiber instruments of similar size in all of what I described here. It is truly innovative.

With regard to the spirited discussions in this thread, I have every respect for Larry Pattis (except that I am envious that he plays so much better than I do ;)). I understand his position on neck angle, even though I don't claim to have previously been cognizant of such issues. That is why, in my earlier post here, I said that I am very fortunate that the Cargo works so well for me. The lack of such adjustment, to me, would mean that the Cargo works well for some and not for others and that can't change. But for those it does work for, MAN DOES IT WORK WELL (as it is a life-saver for me with my wrist situation). There have been many times over the years that I have all but given up playing guitar and taken up keyboard in frustration over that wrist issue. I could practice and practice and not play as clean as such practice might otherwise yield - until the Cargo came along.

So, a big THANK YOU to CA Guitars for having created the Cargo. I sincerely hope that CA Guitars with Peavey's backing can continue to innovate and produce such unique instruments.

Being a software engineer, I have been involved in a number of companies that were acquired. Some of these acquisitions worked and some didn't, though all started with seemingly the best of intentions. If the acquiring company understands exactly what the company it is acquiring is all about, and works to preserve that company's reason for existing (as well as its market space) while improving in areas that the acquired company might need help with, then I could see the acquisition working. If instead, the acquiring company, as it begins to understand what it acquired, decides it is not really a good fit for the acquiring company's market interests after all (or the acquired company doesn't survive the transition during the operating phase of the acquisition), then the acquired company usually disappears and some key employees and technologies just get absorbed into the acquiring company. Let us hope that doesn't happen to CA Guitars.

Regards,

Tony

Tony,

Very Well Put!

Regards,

SpruceTop/RainDance

Larry Pattis 08-01-2010 02:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tarpman (Post 2302341)
<<snip>>

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. <<snip>>

Okay, honestly, I don't get this.

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!

Comfort Player 08-01-2010 02:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Larry Pattis (Post 2302424)
... I have a CF Emerald X7 coming to me this Tuesday to demo...


Looking forward to your impressions of the X7.

gitnoob 08-01-2010 02:26 PM

Road trips are great. Dealer setups can be great. One dealer bashing another dealer on a public forum -- not so great.

Larry Pattis 08-01-2010 02:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gitnoob (Post 2302436)
Road trips are great. Dealer setups can be great. One dealer bashing another dealer on a public forum -- not so great.

Well, yeah, I agree...I wasn't sure how to respond to that part of things...not to mention how dealers may have been burned by CA, and this being mentioned now, here.

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.

geetarman 08-01-2010 03:05 PM

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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