Rath Trombones sold to John Packer

[Vegasbound]

Just announced

Michael Rath trombones has been sold to John Packer Musical Instruments

[Kbiggs]

Different circumstances, but it reminds me of the sale of S.E. Shires to Eastman.

[Burgerbob]

Good for Mick!

Good for us? I'm not as sure.

[Digidog]

I'm just not enthusiastic at all to hear this.....

[Trav1s]

[hyperbolica]

Yeah, wow. Not good news.

[BGuttman]

I wonder if next we'll have a brand called Mick's Trombones.

[harrisonreed]

It'll probably be okay. Once really big names jump ship and get endorsed by them, in that case, welllll.....

[Mikebmiller]

From their FB page, it says Mick will stick around for a few years to make sure things go smoothly. How many of you guys that are whining actually play a Rath? I do and the company is great to work with. And Packer makes very good instuments. I have a JP274 euphonium and it is an excellent horn. There is no way I could have afforded a Willson or Adams and the JP is nearly as good for 1/4 the price.

[Bach5G]

Mick Rath is 60. According to Wikipedia:

‘Rath Trombones was founded in 1996 by instrument technician Michael Rath, and is Britain's only trombone manufacturer.[1] Rath's 12 craftspeople create as many as 500 trombones per year, exporting instruments through 25 distributors in North and South America, Japan, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Taiwan”.

Running a business is hard work and I’m sure Mr. Rath is looking forward to slowing down a bit while watching what he’s built over the past 25 years continue into the future. Congratulations.

[sf105]

I had no idea Packer's was so large

[mikerspencer]

The news release on Packer's site: https://johnpacker.co.uk/blogs/news/joh ... -to-expand

[blast]

Mick cannot keep building trombones forever. This is a very sensible way of allowing the brand to continue and even grow. Not an aggressive takeover, so Mick will continue to be very active within the new corporate setup.

[WGWTR180]

Mick cannot keep building trombones forever. This is a very sensible way of allowing the brand to continue and even grow. Not an aggressive takeover, so Mick will continue to be very active within the new corporate setup.

[JohnL]

Mick cannot keep building trombones forever. This is a very sensible way of allowing the brand to continue and even grow. Not an aggressive takeover, so Mick will continue to be very active within the new corporate setup.

Hopefully he made enough out the transaction to fund a comfortable retirement when the time comes to hang 'em up.

[Digidog]

Mick cannot keep building trombones forever. This is a very sensible way of allowing the brand to continue and even grow. Not an aggressive takeover, so Mick will continue to be very active within the new corporate setup.

Nevertheless, this is the inevitable start of what's coined as enshittification.

For those unfamiliar with the term, this is the process which starts with the individual company delivering quality and customer services in order to build a brand, tie up clients and build a solid customer base. This phase is where the company is for its customers and when it's main goals are delivering products that will attract and keep clients.

The second phase, is when the company has succeeded in attracting customers and users and is beginning to turn its attention to attracting investors and sponsors. Making more and more content and products to attract investors with prospects of good investments returns; thus making both the company and its products becoming more and more adapted for investment returns, than for delivering quality and content. This phase is where advertisements appear in large scale, and production costs are heavily optimized and often cut.

The third phase, is when the company has become fully focused on producing returns for the investors, rather than products or content for its customers. The holding investors are more focused on producing products for production's sake, than to deliver quality and meaningful content. Thus making the company superfluous to customers seeking secure and consistent quality, when it's producing to standards, but not to the level where it can be seen as reliable and/or trustworthy in its products/content.

By this third stage, a company can be said to be enshittficated, since it's main focus is producing, rather than securing a worth for its customers. Rendering it, more or less, useless as a reliable provider.

I am sure that noone openly wants Rath trombones to slack off in quality, but given the nature of "the laws of returns for made investments", I'd say that this merger will produce a decline in the standards of the products. If best taking some time; for the worst almost immediately discernible.

For Michael Rath himself, this affair is absolutely a beneficial trade. Of course he deserves to retire and enjoy the rewards of his building of a business and his many hours of trading his craft.

For the trombones, I'm - for the long run - highly sceptical of how this will turn out.

[AtomicClock]

Nevertheless, this is the inevitable start of what's coined as enshittification.

Maybe so, but that's how room is made for the next generation of makers. Would Rath or Shires be as successful as they are if Conn and Bach had kept dominating the market with excellent products?

[Digidog]

Maybe so, but that's how room is made for the next generation of makers. Would Rath or Shires be as successful as they are if Conn and Bach had kept dominating the market with excellent products?

Conn and Bach are both perfect examples of enshittification. They are no longer seen as reliable providers of quality trombones for their customers, and thus can not be regarded as being for the clients rather than for their investors.

I'm not valueing the process itself; it can - as you say - be a part of evolution, progress and development, but it's a recurring process that makes for a lot of needless production of superfluous products that nobody has a use for.

Personally, I'd rather have few highly reliable and useful products, than large quantities of hit-and-miss products, where such a large proportion of what's produced is useless, making the whole production not reliable as a source for useful, quality goods.

[JohnL]

Mick cannot keep building trombones forever. This is a very sensible way of allowing the brand to continue and even grow. Not an aggressive takeover, so Mick will continue to be very active within the new corporate setup.

Nevertheless, this is the inevitable start of what's coined as enshittification.

Perhaps not just yet. The onset of enshittification often coincides with the transition to corporate ownership,

It looks to me like the majority shareholder in John Packer Limited is John Packer; he owns a controlling interest ("more than 50% but less than 75%"), so the only investor he has to keep happy is himself (assuming he hasn't leveraged the existing business in order to purchase Rath).

UK forumites: What's your impression of John Packer?

The long term is another matter. John Packer is not a young man (I believe he's older the Mick Rath), so what happens when he's no longer in the picture?

[Matt K]

I'm not valueing the process itself; it can - as you say - be a part of evolution, progress and development, but it's a recurring process that makes for a lot of needless production of superfluous products that nobody has a use for.

If you’re suggesting that the process produces superfluous results, that’s definitionally valuing the process as being superfluous.

[OneTon]

Generalizations are often dangerous. The companies that Berkshire Hathaway acquires tend to do well and as long as they are performing, Warren Buffet leaves them alone. BNSF has done well enough under his stewardship. Yamaha is corporate owned and cannot be accused of producing schlock. Part of the problem may lay in how our industry is capitalized. Eliminating pensions and driving employees into 401Ks may have availed publicly held companies with more capital than their productivity can utilize. With Class A and B shares, rank annd file investors may have no input on corporate strategy. Some Class A shareholders simply acquire companies to gut them for personal gain. Eastman has a decent reputation with their string instruments. Problems at Shires may be growing pains. John Packer could become a Cinderella story for Rath. Perhaps we should give both of them a chance.

[Digidog]

I'm not valueing the process itself; it can - as you say - be a part of evolution, progress and development, but it's a recurring process that makes for a lot of needless production of superfluous products that nobody has a use for.

If you’re suggesting that the process produces superfluous results, that’s definitionally valuing the process as being superfluous.

As I'm not a native English speaker, I may not be aware of if the word "superfluous" has any inherent value that makes for a preconcieving of any scentence containing the word. I, from how I have percieved the word, lay no value to it and regard it as open to both positive and negative connotations depending on how it is applied. Like: "The apple tree produces a superfluous amount of blossoms each spring, since not all flowers can develop to apples." or "Your comment is superfluous. Everybody already know this."

An excessive amount of something can be a good thing, but you are right here; I consider an overproduction of instruments to not be beneficial to anyone. For many reasons.

[Matt K]

Your language skills are fine, better than most native speakers. In your scenario, you are putting a value judgment on the apple tree and, likewise, in this context the implication in the context you indicated is that the company is producing unnecessary output. You're ignoring other peoples' preferences entirely; none of these companies would stay in business if they produced instruments people didn't want to buy. And, unlike an apple tree, companies can change their produce mix to suit customer tastes. Not every person who wants a trombone needs to have a boutique instrument of the highest manufacturing precision.

Even so, there are still plenty of extremely high-quality makers ranging from small shops to mid-sized companies and larger international ones. M&W, Edwards/Getzen, Schilke/Greenhoe, and Butler all produce great horns and are US-based. Thein, Lätzsch, Schmelzer, and Schagerl immediately come to mind in the EU. And Yamaha trombones, while offering less customizability than others on this list, still produce very high-quality instruments, as pointed out by others here, despite being a large international company selling an assortment of other products including consumer electronics, motorbikes, jet-skis, woodwind, brasswind, percussion, a string instruments.

[elmsandr]

Maybe so, but that's how room is made for the next generation of makers. Would Rath or Shires be as successful as they are if Conn and Bach had kept dominating the market with excellent products?

Conn and Bach are both perfect examples of enshittification. They are no longer seen as reliable providers of quality trombones for their customers, and thus can not be regarded as being for the clients rather than for their investors.

I'm not valueing the process itself; it can - as you say - be a part of evolution, progress and development, but it's a recurring process that makes for a lot of needless production of superfluous products that nobody has a use for.

Personally, I'd rather have few highly reliable and useful products, than large quantities of hit-and-miss products, where such a large proportion of what's produced is useless, making the whole production not reliable as a source for useful, quality goods.

I have two issues here..

First, general concept… yes, enshittification, as you put it, can and does happen. It is not a given, and assuming that every time a founder sells a company it will happen is a very cynical world view that I don’t think actually matches history.

Second, Conn and Bach are still seen as high quality goods that deliver well for their customers. We bag on them all the time, but they’ve sold more trombones this year than they did for all the decades that VB made them. Perhaps some of us fringe customers have issues (though I think that gets overplayed here), but for the vast majority of the market they are still thriving. They have a waitlist! We here are not the main characters. I’d wager they poll rather well with the larger potential customer base.

Cheers,
Andy

[Matt K]

Greenhoe quality doesn't seem to have dropped since their acquisition by Schilke, to Andy's point that acquisitions do not always equate to lower quality.

[Posaunus]

I spent much of my professional career involved with manufacturing. (Alas, much of it now "off-shored" to the detriment of product quality, but that's another story.) During that time, I watched (even supervised) as products from small, "boutique" fabricators were acquired and absorbed into a larger corporate culture. In my cases, this invariably resulted in improved consistency (more controlled work processes, fewer outliers at both ends of the quality spectrum) and lower costs (economies of scale - including supply chain, overhead, etc.) and - usually - better overall quality and value. Corporate ownership and large-scale manufacturing are not necessarily bad for the consumer.

[Burgerbob]

I wonder why we haven't seen that with Shires. Or with Bach or Conn lately.

[JohnL]

I wonder why we haven't seen that with Shires. Or with Bach or Conn lately.

It killed Olds and Reynolds off completely.

Sometimes corporate ownership means more resources and removing the burden of managerial and administrative tasks from the skilled craftspeople so they can focus on the product.

Other times, it means a bunch of beancounters who don't understand the product (and don't want to - it just gets in the way) going on a cost-cutting crusade.

[Bach5G]

I wonder why we haven't seen that with Shires. Or with Bach or Conn lately.

It killed Olds and Reynolds off completely.

Sometimes corporate ownership means more resources and removing the burden of managerial and administrative tasks from the skilled craftspeople so they can focus on the product.

Other times, it means a bunch of beancounters who don't understand the product (and don't want to - it just gets in the way) going on a cost-cutting crusade.

I think of CBS acquiring Fender back in the day.

[Posaunus]

I wonder why we haven't seen that with Shires. Or with Bach or Conn lately.

Sometimes corporate ownership means more resources and removing the burden of managerial and administrative tasks from the skilled craftspeople so they can focus on the product.

Other times, it means a bunch of beancounters who don't understand the product (and don't want to - it just gets in the way) going on a cost-cutting crusade.

Beancounters - the bane of my existence! Once the "money folks" took over:
• (Company A) "off-shored" the new, improved manufacturing systems that we had developed [think Elkhart to Abilene!];
• (Company B) reversed the manufacturing improvements that our team had so successfully managed, by cutting corners to save money.
In both cases (in a competitive, quality-oriented marketplace) the companies were doomed, and no longer exist. But the execs had long-before pocketed the money and moved on. Our improvements proved to be ephemeral!

[hyperbolica]

It's the tendency of everything to consolidate. In human affairs, bigger usually means forgetting original principals. It's rare for things to actually improve (for customers or employees) when governments or corporations get bigger past a certain point. Once you go past the human scale, Things just get shittier. To expect anything else is naive. Aiden's comment above was tongue in cheek, Shires and UMI/Steinway are perfect examples of this.

Kanstul on the other hand never really attained critical mass. You've got to reach a certain size to be viable, but once over a different threshold, things go downhill. Right now Getzen/Edwards and Greenhoe/Schilke are American examples of keeping it alive between the limits.

In nature we have the black hole - ultimate consolidation. A pile of stuff in space will tend to clump together. Under a certain limit - it's a dead rock - a planet. Over a certain limit, it becomes a star. The bigger the star, the faster it dies, and the biggest stars form black holes - ultimate suck.

It's hard to keep a business above the failure line, while at the same time to avoid the desire to grow, which in its limit is disasterous. The human body follows the same sort of system rules. You have to grow a certain amount to be viable, but growing too much is self-destructive.

[harrisonreed]

...Conn and Bach are still seen as high quality goods that deliver well for their customers. We bag on them all the time, but they’ve sold more trombones this year than they did for all the decades that VB made them. Perhaps some of us fringe customers have issues (though I think that gets overplayed here), but for the vast majority of the market they are still thriving. They have a waitlist! We here are not the main characters. I’d wager they poll rather well with the larger potential customer base.

Cheers,
Andy

Whoa whoa whoa. Who sees Bach and Conn, that is to say models being made this year, as high quality delivered to customers? High schools? Endorsed artists? Someone in some other market getting the good ones?

I haven't tried a new Conn since the move to Elkhart that did not have slide, valve, or soldering issues. Bach, maybe I'm the wrong one to ask because I don't really "get" the designs, but they've played like a sock was left in the slide crook. I'm talking new horns, not Mt. Vernon's. Not 60's Elkies. Not Minick Beryllium Customs.

I'm not contesting that they are selling more than ever, but the customers you're talking about must be getting a different product from what I've had access to.

Totally possible that it could be like Jack Daniels whiskey. It is pretty charcoal-ley and astringent to my palate*. In Mongolia I was offered some at a gathering, and the people were like "whoa this is a big deal. This is awesome, go America." -- it was like a completely different, mellower product from what is offered in the USA. Really good. Maybe Conn is sending the good ones out over the pond?

*Edited sp.

[Matt K]

I mean, the average new trombone likely goes to:

1. A band director who has at best like a 30% chance of being a brass instrumentalist themself, for their school
2. A 10-18 year old (probably on average somewhere closer to 14-15, and may rent before then), paid for by a parent who can barely play the radio (that's my parents joke when they bought mine!)

I once overheard a conversation in line at a music store where someone was complaining their Xeno trumpet was low quality because you could see the seam in the bell. What constitutes "low quality" for people who fall into buckets 1/2 is a LOT different from what people like us consider low quality.

[OneTon]

The 5 blind men describing an elephant could be in effect as well. Someone residing in southeast Michigan could have a radically different experience with Conn Selmer products due to proximity to the rivalry between Michigan University and Michigan State, some 59 miles apart. A slightly more robust environment there may persist for brick and mortar stores that “dealer prep” all new instruments as a habit, which would induce local consumers to expect new instruments that play in tune and are free of fit and finish defects. Elsewhere, competition from on-line merchants, music programs stressed by economic cuts, and stores that sprang up more recently, ignorant of the need or lacking competent sales and repair staff, have endangered the dealer prep expectation that repaired defects prior to the consumer laying hands on the instrument.

A 1966 hardtop Chevrolet Captice that the family purchased new started to shock me through the horn ring after it had rained. 8 years after delivery it was found to have been delivered with the electrical wiring for the interior landau lights bare and exposed, buried beneath the rear seat carpet. Our paradigm shifted with Walter Deming and Japanese quality. And Schilke, though much later. Olds had a few hiccups along. Olds appears to have refused to cut cornets, the Fullerton myth not withstanding; Consumers bought cheaper instruments, manufactured by entities willing to cut such corners.

[JohnL]

Olds appears to have refused to cut cornets, the Fullerton myth not withstanding; Consumers bought cheaper instruments, manufactured by entities willing to cut such corners.

Olds' problem wasn't a matter of workmanship. I think the issue was that they were saddled with a product line that was overly focused on student level instruments while too many of their professional models were out of step with what professionals wanted. When they finally started putting money into product development, it was too late.

[musicofnote]

It's long been well established and known, that different products are made differently for different markets. Most US food brands sold in the EU are made differently for the EU market than for the US market, mostly because a lot of the additives legal in the US are illegal in the EU and yes, that does effect the taste and texture.

An old joke, not without it's exceptions, but with a kernal of truth is, "You get the best Emmentaler cheese outside of Switzerland". The exception: if you actually go to the Emmental and buy it there at the village dairy producer or at the farmer's barn who produced it. But besides that, the best Emmentaler I've had was in a Swiss cheese shop in Calgary. Completely different than any Emmentaler I've ever had, before or since in Switzerland and also completely different. But terrific. The logic being, that the Swiss cheese makers themselves save the best for export, where they cna charge and receive a much higher price.

So it wouldn't surprise me, if certain trombones are built a little differently for different market - probably industry secrets us mere mortals aren't privey to - because someone determined sometime that "they over there" prefer XYZ compared to US expectations. Get a US player who learned to play in the US on instruments manufactured and bought in the US gets a gig in another demographic and .... can't find "a decent" horn until going back to the US and picks one off the shelf. Or visa versa.

[elmsandr]

...Conn and Bach are still seen as high quality goods that deliver well for their customers. We bag on them all the time, but they’ve sold more trombones this year than they did for all the decades that VB made them. Perhaps some of us fringe customers have issues (though I think that gets overplayed here), but for the vast majority of the market they are still thriving. They have a waitlist! We here are not the main characters. I’d wager they poll rather well with the larger potential customer base.

Cheers,
Andy

Whoa whoa whoa. Who sees Bach and Conn, that is to say models being made this year, as high quality delivered to customers? High schools? Endorsed artists? Someone in some other market getting the good ones?

I haven't tried a new Conn since the move to Elkhart that did not have slide, valve, or soldering issues. Bach, maybe I'm the wrong one to ask because I don't really "get" the designs, but they've played like a sock was left in the slide crook. I'm talking new horns, not Mt. Vernon's. Not 60's Elkies. Not Minick Beryllium Customs.

I'm not contesting that they are selling more than ever, but the customers you're talking about must be getting a different product from what I've had access to.

Totally possible that it could be like Jack Daniels whiskey. It is pretty charcoal-ley and astringent to my palate*. In Mongolia I was offered some at a gathering, and the people were like "whoa this is a big deal. This is awesome, go America." -- it was like a completely different, mellower product from what is offered in the USA. Really good. Maybe Conn is sending the good ones out over the pond?

*Edited sp.

Well, the people who are buying them? They have a list of folks waiting to buy more?

In reality, I sit near some high school kids and and a couple of them bough new Bachs. They are fine. I wouldn’t trade any of mine selected over the last couple of decades… but they are fine. I’ve been to the factory a couple of times. Last time I wanted to be enamored with the new artisans… I wasn’t. I didn’t find them interesting at all. I was distinctly unimpressed as these were horns they brought out to wow enthusiasts… and they didn’t do that. But they were fine.

Markets are fracturing due to labor costs and availability globally for all consumer products. The standard is getting higher all the time… but again, we are not the average customers. I would be interested to look at some hard data to see if the quality is actually getting better but not keeping pace with the change in the market (think 90’s GM.. cars were getting better, but not at a good enough rate to maintain their market dominance).

Cheers,
Andy

[Digidog]

Conn and Bach are both perfect examples of enshittification. They are no longer seen as reliable providers of quality trombones for their customers, and thus can not be regarded as being for the clients rather than for their investors.

I'm not valueing the process itself; it can - as you say - be a part of evolution, progress and development, but it's a recurring process that makes for a lot of needless production of superfluous products that nobody has a use for.

Personally, I'd rather have few highly reliable and useful products, than large quantities of hit-and-miss products, where such a large proportion of what's produced is useless, making the whole production not reliable as a source for useful, quality goods.

I have two issues here..

First, general concept… yes, enshittification, as you put it, can and does happen. It is not a given, and assuming that every time a founder sells a company it will happen is a very cynical world view that I don’t think actually matches history.

Second, Conn and Bach are still seen as high quality goods that deliver well for their customers. We bag on them all the time, but they’ve sold more trombones this year than they did for all the decades that VB made them. Perhaps some of us fringe customers have issues (though I think that gets overplayed here), but for the vast majority of the market they are still thriving. They have a waitlist! We here are not the main characters. I’d wager they poll rather well with the larger potential customer base.

Cheers,
Andy

First: It isn't I who coined the term "enshittification". You can look it up on this link: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification

Second: Manufacturers of mass produced consumer goods, produce in accordance of statistics.

A manufacturer that produces f.ex. 1000 trombones per month, produces those trombones at a cost for a price where they have a set limit of sales to break even, included those horns that are faulty and the costs of handling those. If that limit is, say, 200 sold, they have no rational reasons to produce better products than an amount enough to be covered by the break even sales. If that also is, say, 200, it will be rational to build 1000 trombones per month to a standard where 200 can be sold at retail prices, 200 can be defect and faulty, while the remaining balance of 600 will generate a profit.

All mass produced goods is made and produced along similar statistical assumptions; with almost no exceptions.

A small builder whom builds 5 trombones per month, can not afford to let slip one faulty horn from that production - though the proportions are the same (20%) as for the large manufacturer. This because the effort to build each horn is so much bigger, than for a mass producer. This means that for the small builder, it is rational to secure as close to a 100% quality of his production as possible.

I don't know how other people reason, but I'd take a large - wide and varied - number of small builders with high quality over a couple of big mass producing companies where a carefully statistically calculated proportion of their production is faulty; every day. Regardless of whatever some needy schoolchildren or immature university brats may gripe about.

[Burgerbob]

I think we're allowed to want the big makers to be held to a higher standard.

"Schools buy them!" is true, but it doesn't mean anything. People buy Mitsubishi Mirages, too.

[ghmerrill]

I don't know how other people reason, but I'd take a large - wide and varied - number of small builders with high quality over a couple of big mass producing companies where a carefully statistically calculated proportion of their production is faulty; every day. Regardless of whatever some needy schoolchildren or immature university brats may gripe about.

This certainly is one possibly coherent view about how musical instruments "should" be manufactured and offered to musicians (from students through professionals). But -- and leaving aside the accuracy of the business and production analysis -- it appears to be entirely incompatible with the history of instrument production world-wide, at least since the advent of the industrial revolution, which is generally recognized as having yielded a number of significant benefits that couldn't be matched by nations of small shopkeepers toiling at the crafts. And of course it's not really a binary choice of one or the other.

[ghmerrill]

People buy Mitsubishi Mirages, too.

Decades ago, I had one of those. It in fact -- for a variety of practical reasons -- was one of the best auto purchases I ever made.

[harrisonreed]

"Schools buy them!" is true, but it doesn't mean anything. People buy Mitsubishi Mirages, too.

I actually liked my Mirage. It got 45 mpg, cost almost nothing for a brand new car, and got me from A to B for two years. I'm not driving for others, so some fancy ride quality is not required. No one but me would notice how underpowered the engine is.

When I was lightly rear-ended by a huge truck, the air bags worked fine, the car was completely destroyed, and I got every cent I paid for it back in my insurance payment. I think I might have gotten more than I paid for it actually -- they felt bad that I drove one.

[OneTon]

Olds appears to have refused to cut cornets, the Fullerton myth not withstanding.

Olds' problem wasn't a matter of workmanship.

The Fullerton myth is that Olds horns produced at LA were superior in quality to those produced in Fullerton. Robb Stewart and other factory source interviews indicate there was no decrease in quality, which would debunk the myth. Workmanship was of high quality. One Olds insider is claimed to have said there isn’t enough difference between product lines. Yamaha is said to have robust student and intermediate product lines as well.

Ownership is a factor in a complex array of contributors to maintaining quality and formulating business models that sustain profitability.

[Matt K]

"Schools buy them!" is true, but it doesn't mean anything. People buy Mitsubishi Mirages, too.

It means everything! What % of high school band directors are even capable of telling the difference from a small bore to a large bore? Or an "Eh it's a decent pro horn" vs "Hand made by an artisian to a tolerance to .0001""? I'd argue the difference between the various "pro" level horns would be nearly indistinguishable to the vast majority of people who purchase them, especially teenagers.

The "Mirage" of the trombone world is... less of an issue than people driving mediocre quality cars because most people rely on it only as a form of entertainment/avocation/"I like band more then the other available electives".

[Burgerbob]

That's exactly my point though. They can get away with total mediocrity or worse, but we should hold them to a higher standard.

[elmsandr]

I have two issues here..

First, general concept… yes, enshittification, as you put it, can and does happen. It is not a given, and assuming that every time a founder sells a company it will happen is a very cynical world view that I don’t think actually matches history.

Second, Conn and Bach are still seen as high quality goods that deliver well for their customers. We bag on them all the time, but they’ve sold more trombones this year than they did for all the decades that VB made them. Perhaps some of us fringe customers have issues (though I think that gets overplayed here), but for the vast majority of the market they are still thriving. They have a waitlist! We here are not the main characters. I’d wager they poll rather well with the larger potential customer base.

Cheers,
Andy

First: It isn't I who coined the term "enshittification". You can look it up on this link: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification

Second: Manufacturers of mass produced consumer goods, produce in accordance of statistics.

A manufacturer that produces f.ex. 1000 trombones per month, produces those trombones at a cost for a price where they have a set limit of sales to break even, included those horns that are faulty and the costs of handling those. If that limit is, say, 200 sold, they have no rational reasons to produce better products than an amount enough to be covered by the break even sales. If that also is, say, 200, it will be rational to build 1000 trombones per month to a standard where 200 can be sold at retail prices, 200 can be defect and faulty, while the remaining balance of 600 will generate a profit.

All mass produced goods is made and produced along similar statistical assumptions; with almost no exceptions.

A small builder whom builds 5 trombones per month, can not afford to let slip one faulty horn from that production - though the proportions are the same (20%) as for the large manufacturer. This because the effort to build each horn is so much bigger, than for a mass producer. This means that for the small builder, it is rational to secure as close to a 100% quality of his production as possible.

I don't know how other people reason, but I'd take a large - wide and varied - number of small builders with high quality over a couple of big mass producing companies where a carefully statistically calculated proportion of their production is faulty; every day. Regardless of whatever some needy schoolchildren or immature university brats may gripe about.

I’ll just say as somebody that works in manufacturing… no. Just, no. By this logic, since I perform only five times a year and Joe Alessi performs hundreds I should take more care to play every note better than he does? After all, he can miss lots of notes after he’s made his break even? That is a farcical comparison… but that is how I view your assumption of the work in a manufacturing facility. I’m sure they have assumptions about warranty costs and other targets around cost of poor quality. It would be irresponsible to not have them if a warranty is offered, it is a potential liability that must be accounted.

There are many reasons why quality or perceived quality may be higher or lower… this logic is just not it.

And yes, I know you did not coin enshittification, but the cynicism of it isn’t useful when used as an assumption of the outcome.

It would be VERY fascinating to me if there were some independent measures of quality like there are for automotive manufacturers here. I’d be very interested to see if “things gone wrong” per horn shipped are actually any different currently than they were in the past.

Will be interesting to see how the Rath brand evolves from here. Overall, we’ve moved a bit from the modular world to a more fixed custom build area… what is the next trend and who leads it?
Andy

[ghmerrill]

I’ll just say as somebody that works in manufacturing…

If we had an applause icon, I'd insert it here, although I might otherwise have worded this as "As somebody who lives in the real world ...".

[Posaunus]

It would be VERY fascinating to me if there were some independent measures of quality like there are for automotive manufacturers here. I’d be very interested to see if “things gone wrong” per horn shipped are actually any different currently than they were in the past.
Andy

Perhaps we could convince Consumer Reports to review trombones. Objectively.

[Digidog]

I’ll just say as somebody that works in manufacturing… no. Just, no. By this logic, since I perform only five times a year and Joe Alessi performs hundreds I should take more care to play every note better than he does? After all, he can miss lots of notes after he’s made his break even? That is a farcical comparison… but that is how I view your assumption of the work in a manufacturing facility.

A void comparison. The manufacturing of products from raw materials, cannot be compared to a living organism performing a task. Practise makes perfect, as the saying goes, and in your comparison numbers are beneficial since repetition is the foundation for expertise; regarding us humans.

I’m sure they have assumptions about warranty costs and other targets around cost of poor quality. It would be irresponsible to not have them if a warranty is offered, it is a potential liability that must be accounted.

There are many reasons why quality or perceived quality may be higher or lower… this logic is just not it.

It's odd then that you claim to know manufacturing. Right before and during my first years of college, I worked extra as an intern at the holding company for one of the largest manufacturers of industrial air pumps in the world (if you have a modern fish tank, you may have one of their "domestic line" pumps). For one line of pumps they had a decided tolerance of something like 0.6 faulty products per 500 produced. They could lower that figure by increasing the precision on the measured tolerances, or change some materials in some critical valves, but had for reasons of costs landed on those numbers (this is like 30 years ago so I waver some on the exact figures). If I remember correctly, the break even to agents were about 5000 per sold order, which included costs for warranty issues and/or the statistical probability of incurred damage due to failing products.

And yes, I know you did not coin enshittification, but the cynicism of it isn’t useful when used as an assumption of the outcome.

Again: It isn't I who is the cynical one here. I just relay what I picked up from board meeting memos, the talk of the technical executives during conferences and dinners, and discussions from production staff meetings.

It would be VERY fascinating to me if there were some independent measures of quality like there are for automotive manufacturers here. I’d be very interested to see if “things gone wrong” per horn shipped are actually any different currently than they were in the past.

Will be interesting to see how the Rath brand evolves from here. Overall, we’ve moved a bit from the modular world to a more fixed custom build area… what is the next trend and who leads it?
Andy

The trombone market isn't important enough to be legally regulated for standards and quality. If that's for better or for worse I dare not say off hand, but some sheer hardware quality could well be measured by some consumer organisation ambitious enough to care for trombonists.

Of course it will be interesting to see where Rath instruments go from here, but if it's anything I have learned from my not-so-encouraging internship, it is to not trust companies that focus on mass production with having comsumer interests as a top priority - not even in the top ten.

Until proven wrong, as I hope I will be, I'm sceptical of all this.

[Matt K]

That's exactly my point though. They can get away with total mediocrity or worse, but we should hold them to a higher standard.

I don't disagree about holding them to a standard. Just suggesting that... "we" are already doing that. I'd bet the number of people on this forum who have purchased a new 42 or 88 is... very low, at least recently. I can't think of any instance of people here recommending they buy one new but you hear about almost every other major manufacturer get recommended as an option.

The people actually buying them have a much lower standard than "we" do, and while I would like people to have higher standards for their instruments, I can't judge them for not having those standards.