Ashborygirl

Hold up, for that to be true the other half of the population would have to be above the average, which would mean no-one was of average intelligence. That in turn would mean my school reports were all lies.

You may well be correct, I vaguely recall some rule about omitting multiples of the same number in a data set but its been 40 years since I left school.

Unless my maths has gone the same way as most of my joints, I don't think it does. As an example, we have 10 people of whom 9 have 10 GCSEs & 1 person has 1 GCSE. The average (mean) is 9.1 GCSEs so only 1 person is below average, not 5. The median is 5.5 so, again, 1 person is below the median, not 5.

Er....that's not how averages work.

Steve Harris, there, I've ve said it.

Similar experience here. I tried several CS strats at Coda, all were great but one blew the rest away. It just sang in every position, the neck was exquisite and the finishing flawless. Turned out that guitar was a Ron Thorn masterbuilt. I bought it & everything else has felt dull & lifeless since. I can't say MBs are 100% worth it, only that my particular guitar was worth it to me.

If you ever need to dispose of a body, just post it to yourself using Evri. Problem solved.

No you didn't, you just don't understand an either/or proposition. By your logic if you have enough cash to buy either an amp or a bass you can buy both.

Show me where I said TE was budget. I'll wait..............

When Jim Reilly joined Stiff Little Fingers he sold his kit to get the money to go to the audition. He was offered the job & asked if he had any questions, 'can you fellas lend me a drum kit?'.

Not an audition but I once went to buy a bass from a guy in West Yorkshire (NOT a member on here, i should add). As soon as he opened the door I recognised him as a man I'd previously investigated for possessing indecent images of kids. In the style of the News of the World, I made my excuses & left.

Oh the irony. I did not say TE was a budget brand. Gibson bought an aspirational, class leading brand & shut it down in just 4 years. If you think that was improving the brand, fair enough, I have some magic beans to sell you.

All true, but its odd the supply chain issues only arose once Gibson took ownership. Meanwhile MB's competitors have been able to churn amps out by the thousand. Kudos to Peavey for bringing back TE, especially using UK manufacture. The Elf is a terrific amp. But it doesn't reflect well on Gibson that they sacked all the staff and mothballed the brand yet Peavey have now made the brand a commercial & critical success.

Find me a Gibson made MB for sale in the UK, there are none & haven't been any since Gibson bought them. Gibson shut down production of TE in 2002. Those are demonstrable facts.

Read what I wrote; 'All either disappeared or now just trade names for budget gear' One or the other category, not both. Nowhere have I said, implicitly nor explicitly, that MB & TE are in the latter category. You can't buy a MB in the UK since Gibson's take over & Gibson discontinued TE production. I'd have thought the category those 2 brands fall into was fairly obvious.

Where did I describe Boogie as 'budget' or TE as 'crap'? Gibson bought Boogie in 2021 & there have been no new Boogies in the UK since. Gibson say they will come back, but for now, you can't buy a new one. So that patient, if not dead, has been in ITU for 3 years. Gibson bought TE in October 1998 & moved the majority of manufacturing to the US & Asia. They closed the UK factory in December 2001 & effectively ended TE production. I'd say that was Gibson killing off the brand. Peavey bought the distribution rights in 2006 & relaunched the brand, albeit using the same OEM boards found in some Peavey branded amps. Nothing inherently wrong with that, but I doubt it's what Fred Friedlein envisioned for his company.

Mr kettle, meet Mr Pot.

But what about 54 years ago? I doubt Gibson shifted the name to Japan to improve quality.

Compared to what it was, yes. Unless you think closing down UK production in favour of far-eastern production was to improve the quality, rather than cut costs?

USA Epiphones were out of production for nearly 50 years. In that time the name was used exclusively on cheaper Japanese & Korean made instruments. Hardly progress from their pre-Gibson heyday.

Gibson, their QC hit rock bottom 20+ years ago & it's been downhill from there. The fact you now get a QC checklist signing off things that have clearly never been checked really takes the piss. Oh & their dedication to buying out promissing companies to kill them off. Trace Elliott, Steinberger, Tobias, Epiphone, Kramer & now Mesa Boogie. All either disappeared or now just trade names for budget gear.