Amongst guitar players, two makes of guitar amplifier inspire fanatical devotion and the expenditure of insane sums (many tens of thousands of dollars) to own one, the Howard Dumble and the Trainwreck. Both were built in very limited numbers by one solitary basement genius, one Alexander Howard Dumble and one Kenny Fischer. Dumble is out of California and Fischer, who committed suicide apparently after determining that he had terminal cancer, from New Jersey.
Both these legendary pieces of equipment-I don't like calling a guitar amplifier an amplifier, because in most cases they are selected not to amplify but to modify and add to the guitar's sound-have, as one might expect, been intently copied by hobbyists and by a few small "boutique" companies-most one man garage operations themselves.
One might ask, why the Chinese don't simply copy them also, sell them cheaply and make a fortune. After all, that is what they are often accused of doing to so many other things. But as it turns out, China isn't as good at copying as many think.
To be sure, I have seen some well built equipment out of China. Often it is good value, reasonably well built, and intelligently engineered-whether they did it themselves or relied heavily on the existing art. But when it's crap, boy is it ever crap.
"Poorly Made in China" is the title of a book-an excellent book, I might add-by one Paul Midler. He has a great blog and I urge all and sundry to avail themselves of it.
http://www.paulmidler.com/
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