It seems like there is another guitar company sprouting up almost daily lately. There were several I hadn't heard of at the NAMM show alone. Everyone of the new makers I chated with had their instruments made in China. Some of the makers had what you would expect from a Chinese factory, but others had surprisingly quality instruments. Eastman has a new dreadnought out that is all solid wood, East Indian or Mahogany back and sides, and even an Adirondack top. The Adirondack wasn't master grade by any means but the guitars list at $999 for Mahogany and $1299 for Rosewood. Martin's D-18 built to 1937 specifications, which includes an Adirondack top commands $8599 for a list price. Many of the Chinese instruments were less than stellar but it goes to show there are other options out there.

I am going to try to get one of these Eastmans to review. Look for an in-depth review in the future.

Eastman also handles Chinese-made brass instruments and the quality is not bad. I don't know if guitars are any easier or harder to make, but the quality of the brass may say something about the company's commitment to fit & finish & playability.

China is becoming a more developed nation, with there economic improvement, it doesn't surprise me that there manufacturing quality has increased. I would expect plenty of poorly made china instruments but also an increase of quality instruments as well; I am sure this will still be a case to case basis. The company will probably mean more then the country of manufacturer.

I imagine that Chinese-made solid-body guitars will be heavier than US made ones, although the Dingwall Combustion bassI bought a few months back is only 9.2 pounds -- only 1 pound heavier than my USA Lakland and lighter by a couple of pounds than some USA-made StingRay basses. Of course the Dingwall is made to Canadian-made Dingwall bass specs and finished in Canada. I've had Korean-made basses that were pushing 10 pounds. And the quality of woods may not be the best. I'm not sure of machining of metal parts, etc. I once bought an Indian-made baritone gorn and it was useless -- terrible valves and not picthed correctly, thus impossible to tune to A=440.

And therein lies the deal, the cost of
quality. It's not about whose assembly
workforce has the edge, it's about QA.

Any workers can produce excellent stuff
but a less experienced workforce will
almost always produce more rejects than
a more experienced workforce. But even
the better workers still produce some
percentage of bummers. Final quality
sent to market is determined by the QA
dept applying the standards set by the
marketing organization, the owners of
the trademark name.

Acoarst some workforces may simply
lack enuf decent QA staff, and so the
trademark owner must either station
some "home office" staff abroad, or as
with Dingwall, Lakland, NSD etc it may
be more practical, especially for the
smaller companies, to do the final QA
at the "home office".

If it's all about QA then why are some
national workforces known for a lesser
quality level sent to market ? Answer
is in wage rates and other local costs
being lower, but NOT in the workforce
being incapable of quality output.

The cost of quality-via-QA is part of the
overall product cost, such that tighter
QA standards cost more. So the owners
of trademarks set various price points
for various levels of product, and then
they match up the cheaper price point
model with a cheaper workforce AND a
cheaper QA level. Due to price pressure,
the workforce likely to produce a higher
reject rate gets matched with the looser
QA standards. Then consumers blame
that workforce for "making junk".

That same "trashy" workforce "produces"
much better product for trademarks and
model names that can command a higher
selling price such as the aforementioned
Dingwall, Lakland, NSD etc because their
name recognition and higher selling price
allows them to spend more on QA ... it
even *demands* them to spend on more
on QA, to protect their reputations that
bring those higher selling prices.

So it's not what the workforce "produces"
as much as it's what the QA operation is
demanding and inspecting for.



`

Interesting - I've seen the same trend with cymbals. "Dream Cymbals" are made in China and they are using the same materials as the big dogs and putting serious man-hours into hand-hammering cymbals but they're selling at 1/2 the cost. They probably only sound about 3/4's as good as the mac daddy cymbal brands but if you do the math - they almost make sense.

Some of these Chinese factories are actually owned by the companies. Eastman says they have better quality control because they own the factory and can supervise it more closely. These Chinese instruments are a becoming a very strong option for intermediate players. If a player finds an Eastman that is suitably made, they can purchase it for less than half of what some of the big name brands charge.

I think a lot depends on the company's QC practices. For several years I played a Fender 12-string acoustic that was made in China. It had good sound [surprisingly for a Fender acoustic] and was very well made. I think Chinese made instruments are entering into the area where they can compete easily with Korean-built instruments. And for those who naysay Korean-made instruments, I have a Breedlove Atlas series guitar [made in Korea] that is the equal of any Martin or Taylor. I have a friend who has a 1969 Martin D-35 and we've done blindfold tests and cannot tell the difference in sound. I have a friend who has two 400 series Taylors and is jealous because what i paid for the Breedlove is less than half of what he paid for one of his Taylors and mine sounds better.