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Joined:
May 2002
Posts: 7
Location: Miami | I believe my new (reads less than 30 days old) Celebrity Longneck is my finest, cleanest, sweetest sounding guitar I have played recently, that is why I was so concerned about an embarrasing cutting out problem I encountered. I am very grateful to all respondents to my other post, but specially to Paul Templeman who believed my problem was my 1/4" phono jack.
When I took out the inspection cover and felt around the jack, I could feel the terminals on my jack moving about. When I took the jack out, I knew that there was the culprit. A cheap, plastic jack with barely enough tension in the contacts to keep the plug in place. All this in such a fine instrument. I sought out the stereo Switchcraft jack as Paul recommended and put it in the original's place. PROBLEM SOLVED! If you compare the Switchcraft stereo jack with the factory original, you can see, feel, weigh the difference. When your cord plug goes into this jack, you know it is there to stay until you remove it... it is built well.
I am longingly considering a Melissa 12 and I can guarantee, that one of the first things I will check to see after purchase is which jack does it have. If plastic, like Celebrity, I already have a second Switchcraft jack standing by. (I am just optimistic that I will have a need to use it... translation... bought the Melissa)
Please understand, I am not trying to put Ovation down (Obvious since I am longing for a Melissa 12), I know it was just a business decision that they made on a component that is only a very small percentage of the entire instrument cost... yet in the future they need to remember, the jack is the only thing holding that cord in place as you move about on stage and is critical for reliable performance.
Hope this helps and keeps someone from having an embarrasing and unintended "silent pause" on stage! |
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Joined:
January 2002
Posts: 14127
Location: 6 String Ranch | I would suspect that the USA made guitars would have better quality parts than the imports. Call the factory and find out. I agree that there's nothing more frustrating than a big problem caused by a little corner cutting. |
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Joined:
December 2001
Posts: 10581
Location: NJ | Unfortunately I believe that the switchcraft stuff is now made in Mexico and when that decision was made I thiink the quality of the parts went down some. Although I am not sure what jacks ovation is currently using for production |
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Joined:
January 2002
Posts: 14127
Location: 6 String Ranch | Actually the Ovation preamps have been made in Mexico for 15 or more years. One of those Tequilidoro programs. Nothing wrong with Mexico as one of our own can attest to. It's those places where they serve cat and dog and chilled monkey brains you gotta watch. |
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Joined:
March 2002
Posts: 28
Location: Chicago | So true. Hot monkey brains are much tastier. :eek: |
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Joined:
December 2001
Posts: 10581
Location: NJ | There is also a problem with the 3 way position switches that are coming out of Mexico. There are not an inferior product compared to some of the Asian poviders but they do have reliability issues. I have a stash of old USA made stuff so whenever I have a problem I just swap them out. Funny if you make stuff too well and it lasts nearly forever you cannot sell any more product. |
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Joined:
February 2002
Posts: 5750
Location: Scotland | The current USA Ovations use a jack with a plastic casing, It seems pretty rugged & up to the job. The guitars with an XLR & a 1/4 use a plastic jack mounted onto a PCB, again it seems pretty sturdy. Even the best of these can wear out suprisingly quickly & it's more reasonable to take a pop at the manufacturer of the component than the guitar. The imported guitars because of what they are, will not necessarily have the materials, build quality or consistency of the USA guitars, but that does not make them bad instruments. The jack sockets are most likely bought in from a third party, it's the supplier's quality control that is in question here.
Paul |
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Ovation-Please don't cheap out on your 1/4" phono jacks
