Africa, the dumping ground for damaged/substandard gear? (Ibanez = Issues??)

djpauw

Anyone else have any light to shed on this matter?

I visited my local music shop again yesterday and chatted with the tech in his workshop as usual.

Interestingly enough he was working on a brand new Ibanez tuner pedal which would only work intermittently due to a bad connection on the PCB... The connection was not only bad electrically, you could physically see how bad it looked. Looked like a child soldered it.

Nosing around I found an equally brand new Ibanez SA320X guitar standing there with the electronics hanging out. Apparently it arrived with some kind of issue with the switch that selects between the electric pups and the piezo... they replaced the switch only to discover there are some even deeper issues. Now they have a schematic there and they are scratching their heads trying to figure out what is wrong.

Now the way I see it, either Ibanez is having some serious quality issues on electronics (perhaps someone out there can confirm or dispell this) or Namibia is getting the broken junk...

What do you think or what do you know?

Thanks

singemonkey

Don't know the branding story with Ibanez, but Japanese brands sell guitars made in different factories/countries under the same name - unlike, say, Gibson/Epiphone or Fender/Squier. Possible source of quality issues?

Because, for myself, my 20 year old TS10 developed dirty pots and I gave it to Cannon from whom I'd already bought a TS9 (cos I wanted one anyway), and my buddy's Ibanez flanger is giving him all kinds of problems - 'course it's 30 years old. So maybe? ? Canon also sold me a resprayed AD9 with no bottom and the battery clip soldered out... and it sounds brilliant. I'll wager it's been around awhile too.

Never heard of any real quality issues from Ibanez. Played a Jem about 10 years ago. Built in the 80's (no one wanted dayglo Jems in the late '90s/ early '00s). That was, despite my distaste at the time, probably the highest quality guitar I'd played at that point.

Still don't care for Ibanez Super-strats, but in my experience they're very well made guitars.

AlanRatcliffe

Every manufacturer has their issues now and then. Sometimes they come in clusters - luck of the draw. Could also be that the shop in question sells a lot of Ibanez - then it wouldn't be surprising to see more in for repair.

Jack-Flash-Jr

Just stand back in case of eye gouging. Good Lord. Someone had to bring that up again.

djpauw

So it would now seem that this is a more general issue and not specific to Ibanez.

When I went to the shop yesterday to check that they passed on my latest order, the tech was having a hard time fixing yet another brand new bass (Cruiser by Crafter) that was sold, but on testing before the new owner took it home they found a problem with the "blending" pot that mixes the two pups...

My friendly self as usual I helped him solve the problem, but fact remains that they are getting this sort of thing more often than not. So it looks like whatever I buy locally, I will probably need to work on it just to get it to a working state in the first place...

Anyone with similar experiences or knowledge? Are techs in SA also spending their days repairing brand new gear?

DJ

Jack-Flash-Jr

djpauw wrote So it looks like whatever I buy locally, I will probably need to work on it just to get it to a working state in the first place...

DJ

Hell no. Give the supplier stick and maybe the pressure will translate upwards. Also check for QC certification and raise issues with the manufacturer directly.