r.i.p pawn shop amps?

[jipp]

hey guys watched a namm video. showing off the new color's of the pawn shop pro . showed the Greta with its red 12" cab my guess they did not make any more of them this year.

however, in the video he says once the amps are sold out. the pawn shop line is gone. i figured they were selling better.

anyhow here is the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNgU1KhvpNc

maybe i miss understood him. but, sure sounded like that's why they offered a couple of new colors and speaker upgrade to go out with a bang i think he said.
well im happy with mine. (any one know if this is the shortest amp run fender has done,2 years i think, and poof gone. back to there classics.
hope you all are having a great night. iv been watching all these namm videos. (seems the mustangs are doing well in sales)
in one of the orange videos. it showed booths for danaeletric,magatron and one other 60s name guitar. and im thinking 2013. time warp.

this is just a opinion on what the guy says. maybe i miss understood him.
peace.
chris.

p.s
its to bad he did not demo the acoustic amp, id like to hear it.

i guess i should of listen a little closer, guess the "pawn shop" name wont be dead. maybe just these two models. hell i should of not even made this thread. mods feel free to delete. sorry for wasting your time. i need to listen better.
rockon.

[leebman]

I had heard the excelsior and greta were due to to be discontinued 6 months ago. I think the idea is they will be replaced by a short run of something new. Don't know what yet.

[Lunchie]

I am a happy owner of a GRETA, but I paid the $99 for it when GC had them on sale for christmas. Its a fun little amp but I would of never paid the $179 for it.

I made a little 3 pedal, pedalboard for it. Its a lot of fun!

An inexpensive short run amps every year is a good idea in my opinion. Not sure if it makes sense for financial reasons but its fun for the consumer.

[Axis29]

Originally Posted by leebman

I had heard the excelsior and greta were due to to be discontinued 6 months ago. I think the idea is they will be replaced by a short run of something new. Don't know what yet.

I understand this to be the case as well.

Is it the shortest run? Might be close. But the numbers produced are pretty big compared to something like the 1963 Vibroverb! (Heck, I bet there's more Excelsiors than even the Vibroverb's Reissue from the 90's!)


It would be nice to own two kinda rare Fender amps! LOL

[Mike Eskimo]

Is it the shortest run? Might be close. But the numbers produced are pretty big compared to something like the 1963 Vibroverb! (Heck, I bet there's more Excelsiors than even the Vibroverb's Reissue from the 90's!)

A definite case of less is more...

[IanS]

Originally Posted by leebman

I had heard the excelsior and greta were due to to be discontinued 6 months ago. I think the idea is they will be replaced by a short run of something new. Don't know what yet.

Hi, I just registered the forum to let you know I received an a-mail today that Thomann has shipped the FSR Excelsior in envy green I ordered 2 weeks ago. They also changed the availability for all the FSR Excelsiors. Have a look yourself at Thomann.de.

Ian.

[muffstuff]

Originally Posted by IanS

Hi, I just registered the forum to let you know I received an a-mail today that Thomann has shipped the FSR Excelsior in envy green I ordered 2 weeks ago. They also changed the availability for all the FSR Excelsiors. Have a look yourself at Thomann.de.

Ian.

Hmm i ordered the baby blue version on january 8th. I just checked and saw that all the Fender Excelsior FRS excelsiors are changed to out of stock. Last week I emailed thomann to ask if they will be sending out my order, or that they will not receive any from fender. Hopefully they will respond to me in time, as I wouldn't mind the green envy version if the baby blue will not be available.

The strange thing is, musicstore.com has the frs baby blue and it says available from 15-3-2013. So either thomann doesn't update their stock info, or they will not receieve any frs anymore.

[jipp]

after watching the sticky on this same subject, even tho this video quality is better than the posted as a sticky fender booth namm video. he sure makes it clear in the sticky fender booth namm video, that the pawn shops are dead. he sure made it clear in that video even if i mostly heard some metal in the back ground. now what i do not get, the couple of company s i email asking about, who gave me the numbers to call fender said they would not be selling the greta, yet i look on there webpage and each of them has it listed for the over priced 200.00.
i guess, i should of just let time tell me what i wanted to know. as they sure obv did not know. unless they had to take the model under some contract or whatever.
anyhow, waits for the 99.00 sale to come up, which im sure ill be broke for. heh.
chris.
p/s
cute pedal board for the greta : and of course its desktop competitor comes in army green color this year, blah. i still think the greta should of had a USB port being advertised as a desktop amp and i think the 99.00 was the Right sale point for what it is i think that is the two mistakes on the gerta. just a opinion of course. i think greta, and the Yamaha are the only two being sold as such.
i have a new desk, id like one i think to go along with.

[tele salivas]

Since very early in its release, it was discussed that the Excelsior would be a limited run on a timeline of roughly 1 year. This has been one of the funnest amps I have enjoyed in 30 years of playing electric guitar. I've has some really fine amps, too: Ampeg V-4, Fender '73 SF twin, Laney 100 watter, an old Kustom, a Princeton Reverb RI. But there is something about this cheap , not so little amp, that gets that vibe going, its dry and smacks you in the face. it's got that honky tonk thing going, and a nasty disposition when heated up.

[muchxs]

One of the traditional problems with manufacturing durable goods is a manufacturer ends up competing with their own product. People don't buy new products because the old ones last forever.

The simple solution is to build in planned obsolescence. Make sure most of your product eventually goes up in smoke so you don't need to compete with it in the future.

I'm not sayin' that's the case here.


There's another plan that's a little more complicated. It's a marketing plan. It works like this:

You offer your goody initially at $500 retail. There's an initial surge of sales because the only way to get that product is to buy it new.

Recent guitar amps tend to sell for around 50% of retail in the aftermarket. That means they sell for half of retail, used. The actual price may be more or less than 50% but it doesn't matter. It's still less than retail.

The trick then is to reduce the retail price so you can sell new product at a price somewhat competitive with used product. Say we drop retail down to $400. Used is now approximately $200, 50% of retail.

The eventual market bomb is the blowout. Discontinue the product and mark the retail price down below cost. Ideally you want to undercut the aftermarket. If the consumer can buy new for less money than used... it's a no brainer.

That puts pressure on the guys who paid retail. They paid $400 or $500. It doesn't make sense to sell into the used market for $200.

Or drop the price, drop the price, drop the price... junk it. Reduce the price until the product is disposable. You won't need to compete with it later if it goes to the dump.

See what happens? Eventually manufacturers don't have to compete with their own products.

Time to roll out The Next Big Thing...

[tele salivas]

double

[Mike Eskimo]

Or drop the price, drop the price, drop the price... junk it. Reduce the price until the product is disposable. You won't need to compete with it later if it goes to the dump.

I'm going to guess that if you put everybody who bought an Excelsior under an interrogation lamp in a tiny room and asked them the following question :

"Are you happy with this amp ?" (and specify that their answer can't contain the words "but" or "except")

- maybe 40% of folks would say yes.

And a lot of those would be subject to the phenomena of not being honest w/ themselves about a purchase (if you're dissatisfied w/ something you bought, especially something you anticipated for awhile - it kind of infers you made a bad decision and some folks can't admit that).

We need a balanced board here so I'll just say my experience was opposite of Tele Saliva's - one of the most un-fun amps I ever owned.

[tele salivas]

Originally Posted by Mike Eskimo

I'm going to guess that if you put everybody who bought an Excelsior under an interrogation lamp in a tiny room and asked them the following question :

"Are you happy with this amp ?" (and specify that their answer can't contain the words "but" or "except")

- maybe 40% of folks would say yes.

And a lot of those would be subject to the phenomena of not being honest w/ themselves about a purchase (if you're dissatisfied w/ something you bought, especially something you anticipated for awhile - it kind of infers you made a bad decision and some folks can't admit that).

We need a balanced board here so I'll just say my experience was opposite of Tele Saliva's - one of the most un-fun amps I ever owned.

wow!
just your whole post

[Axis29]

Sorry Mike. It sounds like you truly didn't enjoy the Excelsior! That's really too bad.

I'm in the love it camp. I was playing mine this afternoon kicking out some fun little blues licks.

I won't say it's the greatest amp ever made. That would be an outright lie. BUT, I really do love the simplicity and tone I get with it!

[tele salivas]

what's better than an Excelsior?
Two Excelsiors!

[IanS]

Originally Posted by muffstuff

Hmm i ordered the baby blue version on january 8th. I just checked and saw that all the Fender Excelsior FRS excelsiors are changed to out of stock. Last week I emailed thomann to ask if they will be sending out my order, or that they will not receive any from fender. Hopefully they will respond to me in time, as I wouldn't mind the green envy version if the baby blue will not be available.

The strange thing is, musicstore.com has the frs baby blue and it says available from 15-3-2013. So either thomann doesn't update their stock info, or they will not receieve any frs anymore.

Mine arrived two days after I posted. A couple of days later Thomann removed the FRS from the site except for the baby blue one. I think they have sold all their new stock.

I like the amp very much. Warm sound and loud. The speaker has a Fender decall saying it is an Eminence made in the USA. Tubes are OK although all that is on them is "China 12AX7" and "China 6v6".

Ian

[Obsessed]

Originally Posted by muchxs

One of the traditional problems with manufacturing durable goods is a manufacturer ends up competing with their own product. People don't buy new products because the old ones last forever.

The simple solution is to build in planned obsolescence. Make sure most of your product eventually goes up in smoke so you don't need to compete with it in the future.

x

Muchxs has it right. I was sent to a University during my career to learn how to develop product obsolescence based upon Marketing's desire for a certain life span for a product. It went against everything I learned in college, to design the best for the least cost. This was 28 years ago!

Marketing and product design are very sophisticated today. There is way more to it than meets the eye and few people at Fender know the whole strategy. There was quite a plan before the Greta and the Excelsior were even first prototyped. If successful, we may get to see it unfold.

[Chautauqua]

Kinda seems possible. Fender loves to do a run for a year or two then go onto something else. Luckilily I think they'll be around in the market for awhile (not "new" but still available) and I'm willing to bet some of the more "urp"-inducing color schemes will not sell well enough to be out of stock anytime soon (seriously WHAT is with all the pastel colors they are making these things in... SO ugly!!! Where's the Tweed Version or something GOOD looking instead of Salmon Over Cream )

[t-luxe]

(seriously WHAT is with all the pastel colors they are making these things in... SO ugly!!! Where's the Tweed Version or something GOOD looking instead of Salmon Over Cream )

Those colors are probably very popular.....in China.
Glad I got one of the brown ones.