Some very interesting points most of which I would largely agree with.
Notwithstanding the fact that a) I almost never buy any guitars/amps new, and b) that I would rather play the Blond Tolex Bassman shown in an earlier post than any Rivera amp, I don't see £2k as completely off the wall.
Regardless, I really can't get that worried about the price of gear, especially of that I'm never going to buy...
I would agree, many of pro guys I know don't have that expensive kit, mainly because they don't earn much. Furthermore, many bands hire backline, so they tend to use easily sourced amps, which is mainly Fender or Marshall. They also don't tend to use channel switching amps........
The people I know with the most valuable gear are either collectors, semi-pros using their hobby to subsidize their gear purchases, or guitar dealers.
Part of the reason pro gear is more expensive (and don't just mean guitars and amps, look at say tools) is that it is built to last and with stand the inevitable (ab)use.
The first decent guitar I bought was a USA Strat back in 1989. It was my main guitar for several years and at one stage I was doing 100-150 gigs a year. It never let me down. At the same time I also had a Squier Silver series, and very quickly parts started to fail on it, eg switch, pots, even though I was only using as a spare, or for the occassional gig.
Bottom line is, to find the true cost of an item you need to consider the lifetime cost of a purchase, which includes maintenance, depreciation etc (and why I by second-hand gear!).
Guitars are more labour intensive, and have multiple price variables, whereas amps are fairly straightforward to manufacture and have a finite production cost. Did the Rivera cost £700 more to make, or take 4 times as long to make as a Marshall DSL 50 combo? I doubt it.
I can't say I agree with this. Amps can be very labour intensive. Rivera amps, from what I understand, are hand soldered. This is far more labour intensive than using a machine to stuff the board and wave soldering.
There are just as many multiple price variables on an amp than a guitar eg What do you use for the chassis? Mild steel, aluminium, stainless steel. What thickness? What coating/ passivationg do you use? What specification do you have your transfomers made to etc. What specifications do you have your PCBs made to? Do you mount pots on the PCB, etc.
Further more a manufacturer such as Rivera WILL be complying with all the necessary safety regs, testing, RoHS etc. This costs alot of money. I certainly know of at least 2 US manufacturers whose amps are being sold in the UK that don't comply to RoHS and contravene EU safety regulations (not to say that they are unsafe).
There are reasons for using a PCB other than reducing cost (although obviously if you are making an amp as cheaply as possible in volume you would of course use a PCB). PCBs provide the best reproducibility of manufacture.
The top end PCBs, as used by THD and Rivera, are at least as expensive to produce as say eyelet board, and development costs become more significant at lower production runs. Furthermore, using hand soldering on a PCB can be as labour intensive as say eyelet ot turret board, especially if the pots and valve sockets are mounted off the board, which they should be for maximum reliability.
Regardaing the comparison of the price difference between the Rivera and the Marshall DSL50, a fairer comparison would be to compare the
US price of the Marshall with the
UK price of the Rivera.
As for differences in build quality, I'm afraid the Marshall is a very poor second.....
