Two years later and Marshall is of to Chinese owners 💀💀💀💀

[Disturber]

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/chinas-hongshan-buys-majority-stake-122233888.html?guccounter=1 

 

 

 

[Steve Haynie]

I wonder what Victoria has been thinking in the last year or two. 

 

The Chinese can make high quality products, but they are not really known for it.  They do best with high production.  The announcement says nothing about moving all the production out of England, but there have already been Asian-made Marshalls.  At some point they could move everything to China and Indonesia. 

The Chinese made Ampeg SVT is like a Chinese made Chevrolet Corvette.  It just cannot be.  The same will be true for Chinese made plexi's and JCM 800's if that ever starts happening. 

[Disturber]

38 minutes ago, Steve Haynie said:

I wonder what Victoria has been thinking in the last year or two. 

 

The Chinese can make high quality products, but they are not really known for it.  They do best with high production.  The announcement says nothing about moving all the production out of England, but there have already been Asian-made Marshalls.  At some point they could move everything to China and Indonesia. 

The Chinese made Ampeg SVT is like a Chinese made Chevrolet Corvette.  It just cannot be.  The same will be true for Chinese made plexi's and JCM 800's if that ever starts happening. 

If they move the factory to China then I am selling off my collection of Marshall's. All hope is lost. Rock N Roll is truly dead.

[django49]

Almost as bad as Mesa selling out to Gibson(?) 😏

[alantig]

2 minutes ago, django49 said:

Almost as bad as Mesa selling out to Gibson(?) 😏

Nah - I'm sure there are people in China who care about music.

[Steve Haynie]

1 hour ago, Disturber said:

If they move the factory to China then I am selling off my collection of Marshall's. All hope is lost. Rock N Roll is truly dead.

Keep them.  They will be "real" Marshall's.  

Let's hope someone in upper management knows to keep Marshall British.

[Jimbilly]

Will there be handwired clones via Ali-express?  "The Chinese" have had a reputation for valuing production numbers over attention to detail, but they do make regular product improvements it seems.  The recent MIC Epi LP Custom I have is very good, much better than the similar models from a decade or two ago.   I suppose this all depends on what the younger buyers worldwide care about.

[Disturber]

The major focus will probably continue to be towards the home electronic market: heaphones etc. The guitar amp part of the company is  no longer the companies major operation. It's just a small part of what they do. I heard before Chrismtas that they want to use the amp side to build the content of the brand name so that they can use the value of the brand name when selling other products. Let us hope they stay with that plan and continue to build great amps in the UK.

https://group.marshall.com/2025/01/24/marshall-to-turn-up-the-volume-with-hsg-as-new-majority-shareholder/ 

"The Marshall family will retain a meaningful stake of over 20 percent in the company under the terms of the deal. HSG will work closely with the Marshall family and the management team to strengthen the Marshall brand and fuel its sustainable and profitable growth.

Terry Marshall, Board member at Marshall Group, who founded the now legendary British brand with his father in 1962 comments: “We are now over 60 years into our journey, and the pioneering sound of Marshall continues to resonate across the world. Together with HSG and our team, we can further build on our history to amplify the love for music and the Marshall brand for decades to come.”

“Marshall is one of the world’s most iconic brands, firmly rooted in music culture. By building on this legacy, we are convinced that Marshall will strengthen its position as the go-to brand for guitarists and as the most exciting brand for music lovers globally. We are thrilled to partner with the Marshall family and the team at Marshall to write music history,” said Steve Jia, Partner at HSG."

 

After all, this interview with Terry is only a month old. He must have been way in to the negotiations with HSG at that time, and he does not sound worried about destroying the legacy. It is an interesting interview. Well worth a watch:

 

 

[Jim85IROC]

14 hours ago, Jimbilly said:

Will there be handwired clones via Ali-express?  "The Chinese" have had a reputation for valuing production numbers over attention to detail, but they do make regular product improvements it seems.  The recent MIC Epi LP Custom I have is very good, much better than the similar models from a decade or two ago.   I suppose this all depends on what the younger buyers worldwide care about.

There already are.  Have been for years.  Roughly $500 will get you a handwired Marshall head.

[hamerhead]

18 hours ago, Steve Haynie said:

...The Chinese made Ampeg SVT is like a Chinese made Chevrolet Corvette....

I had to look it up:

What percentage of Corvette is made in America?

 

While the Corvette's engines and transmissions are manufactured in the USA, the study's details show just 22% of Body, Interior, and Electrical is from the U.S./Canada for the Z06, and it's 19% for the Stingray. Dec 16, 2024

 

Since I don't know for sure where the seeds are from, I'm not sure if the salsa made from my own garden is 100% Made in USA. Still tastes better than what's in the store.

 

Greed globally fucks everyone everyday. Why is any of this a surprise? It's ALWAYS been about the money.

[Hbom]

I looked at the Marshall 20 watters a couple of years ago and they were manufactured in Vietnam. I didn't buy any.

[Steve Haynie]

My comment about a Chinese Corvette was not made based on knowing where the parts come from.  It was about an American icon that I would hate to see made in China.  Think about buying an American flag that is made in China. 

 

[LucSulla]

4 hours ago, Hbom said:

I looked at the Marshall 20 watters a couple of years ago and they were manufactured in Vietnam. I didn't buy any.

The DSLs are. The Plexi, JTM, 800, and Jube are all made in England to the extent that anything can be. I've owned two, but you can go to Sweetwater and see it for yourself. 

However, it would be utterly impossible to make an amp completely out of western parts. For better or worse there just aren't a lot of electronics components made here anymore. 

 

11 hours ago, Disturber said:

The major focus will probably continue to be towards the home electronic market: heaphones etc. The guitar amp part of the company is  no longer the companies major operation. It's just a small part of what they do. I heard before Chrismtas that they want to use the amp side to build the content of the brand name so that they can use the value of the brand name when selling other products. Let us hope they stay with that plan and continue to build great amps in the UK.

https://group.marshall.com/2025/01/24/marshall-to-turn-up-the-volume-with-hsg-as-new-majority-shareholder/ 

"The Marshall family will retain a meaningful stake of over 20 percent in the company under the terms of the deal. HSG will work closely with the Marshall family and the management team to strengthen the Marshall brand and fuel its sustainable and profitable growth.

Terry Marshall, Board member at Marshall Group, who founded the now legendary British brand with his father in 1962 comments: “We are now over 60 years into our journey, and the pioneering sound of Marshall continues to resonate across the world. Together with HSG and our team, we can further build on our history to amplify the love for music and the Marshall brand for decades to come.”

“Marshall is one of the world’s most iconic brands, firmly rooted in music culture. By building on this legacy, we are convinced that Marshall will strengthen its position as the go-to brand for guitarists and as the most exciting brand for music lovers globally. We are thrilled to partner with the Marshall family and the team at Marshall to write music history,” said Steve Jia, Partner at HSG."

 

After all, this interview with Terry is only a month old. He must have been way in to the negotiations with HSG at that time, and he does not sound worried about destroying the legacy. It is an interesting interview. Well worth a watch:

 

 

I'd be surprised if they moved manufacturing out of England completely. In that video I posted about the mod series, Lee Anderton noted that the studio series amps have been making killing for Marshall, and, as noted above, those are assembled in Bletchley still. The cabinetry and chassis are also made there. That are leaning into the Bletchley thing really hard on the mod series apparently. They are wearing a badge on the front noting where they were made. 

Be kind of weird to roll all of that out at NAMM (along with the 20 watt 900) just to move it. So far, the line has been that they realize the use of the amplifiers is what continues to give the brand value, and I imagine there is some truth to that. I guess we'll see what happens.

Edited January 25 by LucSulla

[HSB0531]

23 hours ago, Disturber said:

If they move the factory to China then I am selling off my collection of Marshall's. All hope is lost. Rock N Roll is truly dead.

If your Marshall collection is pre-China deal and all made in the UK, I would consider keeping it all, not selling.

[hamerhead]

3 hours ago, Steve Haynie said:

My comment about a Chinese Corvette was not made based on knowing where the parts come from.  It was about an American icon that I would hate to see made in China. 

I get it, Steve. I'd hate to see it, too. But the fact is a lot of 'American' stuff is supplied by the lowest bidder, most of whom don't reside here. My wife sells test equipment to 'USA' automakers (and even Harley Davidson). What do they test? Parts from other countries.

We used to make a lot of parts for the types of machines that my wife sells. At some point the companies making those machines thought it would be better to get their parts  overseas. This went on for a number of years, until they figured out how horrible the quality control was and that it was costing them more to have us re-make all the stuff they couldn't use. Eventually 90%-95% of that work came back to us.

4 hours ago, Steve Haynie said:

Think about buying an American flag that is made in China. 

Most people do just that, whether they realize it or not.

[LucSulla]

My cousin is an aeronautical engineer by trade. He used to have to go to China to oversea QC for a company he used to work for, and he said the main issue was culture, not ability. At the risk of being reductionist (and my cousin isn't a jingoistic type - very pragmatic like most engineers I know), he said line workers there were (this was probably 15 years ago) bad about not reporting issues due to a cultural norm of not wanting to inconvenience superiors with bad news. His team spent a lot of time training workers and management that reporting defects and other issues was a good thing, not an inconvenience. 

His assessment was that firms who had continuing education on these areas and regularly had QC teams going to factories to make sure the QC process wasn't drifting made as good a product as anywhere. Companies that off-shored and did none of this usually had a lot of problems. 

Obviously, inconvenient cultural ticks aren't reserved for the Chinese. Korean Air had issues with Crew Resource Management for decades due to how hierarchical Korean society is until that went through an intense retraining program in the 90s after several air crashes. No doubt Americans have some cultural attitudes that lead to inefficiencies as well. Everyone does. 

But I also get the Corvette argument too. I understand that the global supply chain means exactly that and that nothing is made exclusively anywhere. Hell, Wangs uses Korean pots in their handwired British-amp clones. But if I'm buying a Marshall or a Corvette, I'd like it to be as much a product of Britain or the USA as possible. That's part of what you're buying, at least for me. 

[Biz Prof]

50 minutes ago, LucSulla said:

Obviously, inconvenient cultural ticks aren't reserved for the Chinese.

Verily. I spent around ten years working with Chinese nationals here in the USA. With one exception, these were masters degreed linguists who taught as visiting professors.

Couple of things I learned:  the Chinese indeed do have a middle class, and they are a hell of a lot like our middle class.  Saving face always has been, and continues to be a massive influence on their culture.  Shit could be completely on fire and crumbling around them, and their response would likely be, "Everything is fine. It will be okay."  This, in essence, is one of the greatest weaknesses of their society. When faced with potential public scrutiny, they favor essence over substance. When it comes to high level political or corporate behavior, we Americans really aren't that different in that respect.

Edited January 25 by Biz Prof

[alantig]

10 hours ago, Steve Haynie said:

Think about buying an American flag that is made in China. 

 NSFW

 

[HSB0531]

8 hours ago, hamerhead said:

I had to look it up:

What percentage of Corvette is made in America?

 

While the Corvette's engines and transmissions are manufactured in the USA, the study's details show just 22% of Body, Interior, and Electrical is from the U.S./Canada for the Z06, and it's 19% for the Stingray. Dec 16, 2024

 

Since I don't know for sure where the seeds are from, I'm not sure if the salsa made from my own garden is 100% Made in USA. Still tastes better than what's in the store.

 

Greed globally fucks everyone everyday. Why is any of this a surprise? It's ALWAYS been about the money.

Are the Corvettes still assembled in Kentucky?

Most seeds come from Bill Gates.  Just google Bill Gates seeds.

American made American flags can still be found.

[Saul Goodman]

On 1/25/2025 at 12:06 PM, Steve Haynie said:

Think about buying an American flag that is made in China. 

 

Like from WalMart?