Jump to content

Peavey on Undercover Boss


Recommended Posts

  • Members

Ok, I watched it. That was the worst episode I've seen. Sad really. Spoiler alert: 4 months after filming hey closed thier main plan and relocated some but laid off most employees. Really Peavey? Wow, and Hartly Peavey seemed like an eccentric but somewhat level headed guy. Peavey should have been a company proud to make things in the U.S., and that was a selling point. Their employees really had pride in what they built. The failure wasn't anything to do with them but with management.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Disturbing, but not surprising. Seems like the management style that got them into their overall slump, also got them into the PR debacle.

 

Times change, and if you stand still, you can wind up dead last. It's a real pity for the employees though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

There was a big backlash after the Peavey show with everyone saying "I'm never buying Peavey" etc etc but isn't that just going to make it worse for the company and it's employees. I thought their manufacturing processes were a bit outdated, manual soldering of boards, manual assembly of boards into a unit to test them, then take it all apart, then do it all again with the next one. No wonder they cannot keep up on price but at least they tried to keep everything in the US. In reality it all comes down to us, the consumer. In general we want CHEAP and sadly that usually means it will be produced offshore. Even big ticket items that we are prepared to pay more for have to be produced offshore just to keep the price reasonable but that does not put money in US employees pockets. Just go into Walmart and look at how much stuff ISN'T made here and then look at how well Walmart does.

 

Even the fat food industry has proved that we want cheap. they 'could' produce better tasting and healthier food bit it would cost a bit more. Put that next to the garbage they sell us now and Joe Smoe will pick the cheap unhealthy one most of the time. It's just economics most of the time.

 

I find it hard to believe they did not appear to know they might even be considering closing that factory when they were there 'undercover' which is why it sucks so much about the guy that turned down a good job offer to stay and then got shafted so on that item, as managers and company owners, they suck but in general, they really are not any worse than anyone else.

Hartley seems like a guy that has made his money by being in the right place at the right time and now just wants to have some fun and I cannot blame him for that but he's not kept up with the times or his company IMO (not that he cares about my opinion), why else would he NOT want to go into the LA store? And the son in law, lives in a house on an industrial estate with bees. OOOOKKKKKAAAAYYYYYY. Each to his own but WTF comes to mind, not company leader.

 

As for the Undercover boss show itself, well. It's TV, what can I say. It always amuses me that three of four people get picked to be the recipients of the bosses generosity and pretty much every one else gets naff all. Sure they need it and I am not knocking someone that needs help getting it but in the big picture, I doubt that things change that much for most people in spite of what might be said. Hopefully I am wrong on that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I am a former Peavey fanboi, but the overall impression I got was of the King and the Crown Prince sitting in the castle totally unaware that their kingdom was collapsing beneath them and there were precious few peasants left to exploit.

 

Peavey has a few treasures in the box that they can mine into keeping the name alive a while longer, but, for the most part, Peavey simply does not make much in the way of product that I have any great interest in any more. Cirrus bass? Gone (aside from the fugly Sarzo model). The Impulse 12D held great promise, but turned into a train wreck of poor quality control and mediocre performance. Some products announced in NAMM2014 still have not appeared and have quietly faded into vapor. We will see if this year's crop ever actually appear.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Hand assembly -- I serviced a 1992 Yorkville 400W bass amp a few weeks ago that was a real pleasure to work on, because it WAS hand assembled. I bet Yorkville isn't making them like that any more.

 

That said, we no longer consider repairability an asset. That's kind of sad, but a business reality.

 

BTW, bass amp designers still using linear power supplies - please include a 120Hz band in the graphic EQ like Yorkville did. Boy, did that ever make troubleshooting the hum easy. :D

 

Wes

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members
Wow' date=' and Hartly Peavey seemed like an eccentric but somewhat level headed guy. [/quote']

 

He may be level-headed, but he also came off as rather unsympathetic and out of touch. Granted, that could have been a result of the editing, but the comment about how "you'll hear complaints, oh boo hoo woe is me..." really struck me the wrong way.

 

Even the fat food industry has proved that we want cheap. they 'could' produce better tasting and healthier food bit it would cost a bit more. Put that next to the garbage they sell us now and Joe Smoe will pick the cheap unhealthy one most of the time. It's just economics most of the time.

 

Actually, fast food isn't doing that well anymore. McDonalds is seeing big declines in sales and BK's growth is pretty slim. In many places, particularly young urban areas, competitors are moving in and delivering better products for a comparable price. Some are chains, but many are locally-owned. That's what the whole food truck thing is.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Not to get too far off topic, but I think that when the decline of America is written sometime in the future it will have a lot to do with our present "want everything for nothing" mentality. We want luxury items but don't want to pay for them, so we source it all out overseas and then complain that there are no good paying jobs in America. We complain of "existential threats" on par with WWII all around the world, but don't want to be taxed to pay for the wars and don't want a draft in case we or our own children might get called up to fight. Can you imagine anyone being asked to ration anything for a war effort in 2015? Our "commitment" is often no deeper than maybe a Yellow Ribbon sticker on the back of a gas-guzzling SUV and a dozen or so "likes" per day for tough-sounding rhetoric on Facebook.

 

As far as Undercover Boss goes, maybe I'll look up this episode just because its Peavey but I'm not much of a fan of this show. I enjoyed it for the first few episodes I saw a couple of years back, but I quickly tired of it because the formula was so exactly the same every episode and too many of the shows started to seem not only scripted, but seeming of a boss who decides he wants to do the show just in order to get free advertising for the company.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • CMS Author
I quickly tired of it because the formula was so exactly the same every episode and too many of the shows started to seem not only scripted' date=' but seeming of a boss who decides he wants to do the show just in order to get free advertising for the company.[/quote']

 

This.

 

Regarding Peavey and the layoffs, I hope Jim Hartman, known here as "SoundMan" is still okay. Haven't heard from him in a while.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

BTW Hartley's son Joe works at QSC as an engineer on the leading edge products that could have kept Peavey relevant - rumor is he clashed with "my way or the highway" daddy once too often. Hartley found his ideal yes man in his stepson "Hammer Mechanic Cortland".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members
Not to get too far off topic, but I think that when the decline of America is written sometime in the future it will have a lot to do with our present "want everything for nothing" mentality. We want luxury items but don't want to pay for them, so we source it all out overseas and then complain that there are no good paying jobs in America.

--snip--

I'm not claiming pious sainthood by any means -- love my foreign-build X32 and all my other inexpensive toys -- but I did just spend $1,050 on a single pair of state-of-the-art alpine-touring skis. Being built in Salt Lake City does make one feel better about the price.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I'm not claiming pious sainthood by any means -- love my foreign-build X32 and all my other inexpensive toys -- but I did just spend $1,050 on a single pair of state-of-the-art alpine-touring skis. Being built in Salt Lake City does make one feel better about the price.

 

Because I can afford to, I will sometimes pay more for locally made stuff. Usually not musical gear. So much stuff you can't buy "made in America" these days anyway. And I'm not necessarily swayed to pay more just because something is made in the states. But if its more local to me than that? Yeah, I try to help out the local businesses when I can. But I can understand why people just go for the cheapest as well. Especially if you're on a tight budget.

 

The internet doesn't help. So many people just surf around until they find the place that will sell whatever for a dollar less and free shipping. Tough to compete with that if your name isn't Jeff Bezos.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Fwiw some companies are investing in R&D off the capital they made building oversees. And some startup companies in China etc are investing in making new products in hopes of being a supplier to an American company selling in the us. They could try and sell direct but that's still a large barrier, and there is no trust between end users and sellers because no relationship has exsist end before.

 

the real winners are the shipping companies.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Took the time to watch the video. It was sad in a way. More than anything it just shows how times have changed. 50 years ago it was 1965. The U.S was getting ready to land on the moon in a few years. Solid state PA systems were still fairly new. Peavey came out with some very solid , reliable products like the SP2 and CS800 amp. There is still some 150 watt sp2's and the 4 rack space CS800 amps being used locally around here today. These were priced for the "working,gigging" bands to afford and would hold up. You could think of these like a ford model T. They ran well and opened the door to many who never were able to use a product like these before. Great products at just the right time in the market.

 

Time marched on and of course if there was money to be made more companies joined in. The slice of pie got smaller and smaller. Soon there were so many cars that no one company ruled the roost anymore. Not only that but used cars (pa systems) were now everywhere. The big push to put a car in every garage was gone. Peaveys rock solid products slowed in some ways their own sales as its not needed to replace a product that is still working. The golden age of cars is pretty much gone. As is the golden age of PA sales. Sure there will always be sales but the pie has a lot of slices now. Even the music industry is changing. No one thing has caused what is happening. Just time itself.

 

Dookietwo

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Peavey could load any mom and pop store full of equipment in their product category, so much they would squeeze out other lines. I remember seeing smaller shops in the 80s and 90s with mostly peavey gear, next to saxes and violins. The stuff was expensive, all of it. Did it work? I don't really know, I couldn't afford it.

 

 

 

i did buy 2 peavey ipr5000s last summer and I'm very impressed. And they will run a solid 2ohms per channel. But that is only 1 product and they've got a log way to go to get out of the weeds. Guitar center going under isn't going to help anyone either.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members
Kinda funny' date=' you could rule the world back then with a pair of CS800's on the PA and a CS400 on monitors - .[/quote']

 

Hey, I had that setup at one point!

 

Also remember taking those amps into the shop quite a bit though. Seemed one side or the other was always frying out. Those CS amps had a reputation for being workhorses, but in retrospect? Maybe for the time period.

 

My first band PA in the late 70s was a CS800, a pair of SP-1s and a 12 channel Peavey mixer. Can't remember the exact model number (Something-1200, I think) but it had the big ol' knobs on it.

 

Then later added a CS-400 for monitors.

 

Bought it all used and sold it a few years later for a good price as well. Certainly got my money's worth out of it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

 

Peavey could load any mom and pop store full of equipment in their product category, so much they would squeeze out other lines. I remember seeing smaller shops in the 80s and 90s with mostly peavey gear, next to saxes and violins. The stuff was expensive, all of it. Did it work? I don't really know, I couldn't afford it.

 

 

Peavey stuff was cheaper than anything else at the time, which is one reason the Mom and Pops carried it. The story going around (don't know how true it was) was that Peavey made their stuff cheap because they were, for whatever reason, able to pay their employees less than those that worked for the other manufacturers.

 

They also initially had a rep for making mostly crap. It was later on that people started understanding that "you know, some of their products really aren't all THAT bad...." Plus they made stuff across almost all product lines. Between all that and their ubiquitous presence in the Mom and Pop stores, they weren't totally unlike Behringer is today.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members
They also initially had a rep for making mostly crap. It was later on that people started understanding that "you know, some of their products really aren't all THAT bad...."

 

I think the moment when people realized that Peavey stuff wasn't THAT bad was when stuff that actually was THAT bad started popping up.

 

Though Peavey's designs might have been unimaginative/inelegant and their construction a bit redneck, they didn't peddle the type of wares that offshore companies started injecting en masse into the marketplace beginning in the 90s.

 

I am talking about truly atrocious stuff like "10 gazillion watt" power amps that were rehoused home stereos, 3/8" particle board enclosures held together by staples and vinyl skin, mics with the frequency response (and capsule) of a telephone handset, plastic chassis electronics that couldn't survive the flex induced with their first small bump, and knockoffs... endless piles and piles of knockoffs, that look but do not function like their obvious target.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

"Regarding Peavey and the layoffs, I hope Jim Hartman, known here as "SoundMan" is still okay. Haven't heard from him in a while."

 

I'm still here and there...

 

I'm not going to comment on the show, for obvious reasons.

 

 

We are hardly hand soldering circuit boards, we've had smt lines for over 20 years and modern wave soldering equipment longer than that.

 

 

"Some products announced in NAMM2014 still have not appeared and have quietly faded into vapor."

 

That's not true either, everything we showed then (prematurely, maybe) will be shipping in the next couple of months.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...