Are you a boutique person?

both.

all my cabs are boutique (Bergantino).

2 heads are boutique (iAmp, Genz), one is not (GK, very old). when i bought them if one wanted small, one had to buy boutique.

guitar amp is not (Sunn, very old)

1 Fender P, 1 Gibson LP, 1 Mike Lull M4V (boutique)
 
The only thing I splurge on are pickups and cables. Everything else is a bang for the buck sort of thing.
 
So I was over at a friend 's house today. He's a pro musician; I won't name him here out of respect for his endorsements. We were standing there looking at the guts of a Trainwreck Express clone on his dining room table and we also had a little dirt pedal fest today. He said something about these boutique (clones specifically) amps and pedals I had actually never considered. He asked me "What are you paying for? It's not the engineering because the R&D was done years ago. It's not the parts because a $4k boutique amp has a few hundred dollars worth of parts in it." It really made me think...
 
altoidman said:
So I was over at a friend 's house today. He's a pro musician; I won't name him here out of respect for his endorsements. We were standing there looking at the guts of a Trainwreck Express clone on his dining room table and we also had a little dirt pedal fest today. He said something about these boutique (clones specifically) amps and pedals I had actually never considered. He asked me "What are you paying for? It's not the engineering because the R&D was done years ago. It's not the parts because a $4k boutique amp has a few hundred dollars worth of parts in it." It really made me think...
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OTOH, what are you getting with modern production amplifiers? PC mounted pots and switches, underpowered transformers, low value components, crappy speakers and tubes, and as many production units as the line can cough out that day.

so it's either overpay for handbuilt gear that 30 years ago would have been nothing special, or put aftermarket upgrades into production amps and never get your money back. its a lose/lose situation.
 
altoidman said:
He asked me "What are you paying for? It's not the engineering because the R&D was done years ago. It's not the parts because a $4k boutique amp has a few hundred dollars worth of parts in it." It really made me think...
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Have you ever built a point-to-point amp? I have. It's no picnic. There's labor involved.
 
Buying boutique gear for my use is like your grandmother buying silicone breast implants.
 
Divided by 13 shipped this BTR 23 to my house two weeks ago. Hand made with elfin magic. If only I had some gigs. It's always something you know.

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I actually wasn't questioning value as much as thinking about the economics of the boutique business. I've wondered for years how in the world it makes sense that I can buy 5e3 or plexi clones from 400 different builders, the vast majority of them operating out of basements and garages. I think I now know that the answer to that is margins. Many of these builder can probably exist on selling 1 or 2 amps a month.
 
I always have to laugh at these grosly inaccurate generalizations of what botique or production level gear really is....just because some dude slaved over some perf board in his basement, using grail amp schems, doesn't make that product necessarily any better or worse than an amp spit of those assembly lines & wave solider stations. I've been fortunate to know some guys who have a passion for the flavor of the month high end gear and have had a chance to sit down with a bunch of different guitars, amps and pedals that would qualify for the botique tag. Some of it has been extraordinary while some were just plain questionable at best.

Excuse me while I go play my FAB amp and burn my neighborhood down :grin:
 
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Tig said:
Buying boutique gear for my use is like your grandmother buying silicone breast implants.
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A friend of a friend plays guitar in a pretty average-at-best local bar cover band....you know, the usual Mustang Sally stuff that sounds like a bad TV show soundtrack. While the rest of the band plays pretty run of the mill instruments, he rolls in w/ a full Top Hat amp rig, a couple grand in the pedal board and three guitars that combined cost more than my car. It makes me chuckls but he loves his gear so I say as long as grandma likes her new boobs, whatever. Hell, I have more gear than I would have to right to own if talent was a prerequisite.
 
Lerxst said:
It makes me chuckls but he loves his gear so I say as long as grandma likes her new boobs, whatever. Hell, I have more gear than I would have to right to own if talent was a prerequisite.
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Yep.
I ride with a few oncologists that don't race, but love a good bike and own several $5000+ bicycles. Owning and playing high end gear because you simply love it and can afford it isn't that much different than someone with the same passion that owns lower budget level gear.
Totally_jammin_out
 
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