Fender company dissapointmet

[Nuuska]

Hello

Nearby is an used Fender Acoustasonic Junior Type PR 334 for sale. Seller has no specific info or links - so I tried to see Fender website if they had any info of their legacy products. To my big surprise - NONE ! ! !

Some big companies have some effort to serve their customers - at least providing some basic information - maybe sales ads - user manuals etc - the best even give you the service manuals - while it is clear to them, that if you wish to fix an old 1975 amp, the alternative is definitely not that they deny that info and try to sell some new stuff.

BUT - if they give you the info you're after - that'll leave good taste - and maybe later that has a payoff for them via you showing some interest in thei present line-up.

Nearby in this case is not close enough for me to drive over and test it - which would be easiest for gathering info. I have seen some Fender Acoustasonic amps - so I have no too high hopes for them - but have also many of them deliver what was asked. How can I find out if this is one that I might like ? ? ?

 

[GAD]

I certainly agree with you. I often have to resort to alternate manual sources. Does this help?

Fender Acoustasonic Junior Service Manual | Manualzz

View online (10 pages) or download PDF (3 MB) Fender Acoustasonic Junior Service manual • Acoustasonic Junior Musical Instrument Amplifier PDF manual download and more Fender online manuals

manualzz.com

 

[Nuuska]

Thanks - I found that one, too - but because the seller did not give better pics and says it weighs about 4kg less . . . not sure.

In any case - it might be a nice amp for acoustic guitar gigs.

 

[BradHK]

Not sure if this amp has a model and/or serial number visible but I have had really good luck emailing Fender‘s customer service with older guitar serial numbers and each time they responded very quickly with really detailed specs.

 

[Teleguy61]

Apparently Fender doesn't have any info on guitars prior to 1993, so they could not help me with a 77-78 serial number.
Stuff they have, they are very prompt with however.

 

[dreadnut]

Well, you are not a primary customer, you are a secondary one.

 

[Teleguy61]

Well, you are not a primary customer, you are a secondary one.

Absolutely correct sir.
I am grateful for the service they do provide.

 

[dreadnut]

Try this:

FENDER ACOUSTASONIC JUNIOR SERVICE MANUAL Pdf Download

View and Download Fender ACOUSTASONIC JUNIOR service manual online. ACOUSTASONIC JUNIOR speakers pdf manual download.

www.manualslib.com

 

[Guildedagain]

Car dealerships that don't service older cars are the norm. My local Chevy dealer "scrapped all of their vintage factory tools", and then also went out of business.

Manuals are hit/miss.

I see a lot of manuals online now that require a purchase rather than a free download.

The Acoustisonics were fairly well regarded. With Fender's experience with amps, I wouldn't expect anything less.

 

[chazmo]

We heard Fender Acoustisonics at our LMG events. They are very good amps.

Good luck in the hunt, Nuuska!

 

[Canard]

I have tried a number of different Fender Acousticsonic amps in shops over the years. All, including the inexpensive ones, were quite nice.

The best service I have ever received from amp companies has been from Trace Elliot when they were still a British owned company. I have a TA-70CR, one of the first truly great acoustic guitar amps (since surpassed in everything except build and materials quality). It had not been a production model for quite some time when I contacted Trace-Elliot. They asked for my address and then snail-mailed me hard copies of both a service manual and a user manual. I have no idea what they are like now as corporate overlords have changed a couple of times. I did get a helpful response from them once on a different matter when Peavey owned them.

Yamaha was also great. Within hours of emailing them, I received PDFs of manuals for my G50-112II. And it was a really old amp at that time.

I contacted Celestion once to ask about the best replacement for one of their older speakers. I got a very friendly reply. They were interested in me (or at least tried to sustain that impression). They wanted to know what I was doing with the speaker, how it had been damaged, and what amp it had come out of. They gave me a couple of suggestions for choices from their current models.

Eminence has been helpful, too.

I went away from these companies feeling that they actually cared about the people who used their products, that they had a sense of pride in their products and their history, and that I could have confidence in them.

Other companies ... hmmm ... not so much. The best I got from them was an apology saying that they couldn't help me. The worst was a complete lack of acknowledgement of my enquiry. One company denied any knowledge of ever having made the amp I was asking about - corporate senility?

In a competitive business, corners must often be cut. Cutting end user service is, I suspect, short sighted. Much of what drives sales is word of mouth reputation among musicians. You can place ads here and there, but if knowledgeable players and service people are bad mouthing your product and saying your company doesn't give a flyin' F about anything except profit, well ....

 

[Rocky]

Customer Service is the first thing to disappear from a company when the mindset changes from "let's make stuff people want" to "how many boxes can we move?"

 

[fronobulax]

Customer Service is the first thing to disappear from a company when the mindset changes from "let's make stuff people want" to "how many boxes can we move?"

While I agree, I will observe that the original complaint was about the availability of historical data about something the company is no longer making or selling. Good customer service would be having the information, but the absence in connection with legacy products isn't necessarily bad customer service.

Remember most of us don't trust anything CMG/Guild says about products manufactured before 2014.

I'm not certain that is bad customer service if there is a recognition that their customers bought new instruments in 2014 or later.

Supporting legacy equipment is always a tradeoff between the costs of retaining and sharing the knowledge and the good will obtained by doing so.

 

[Rocky]

While I agree, I will observe that the original complaint was about the availability of historical data about something the company is no longer making or selling.

True enough. Probably just projecting personal experience.

It's really cool when companies put up scans of old manuals and such, even when they've changed hands a few times. It sends the message "we have a heritage to live up to, and we plan on doing it." Even if you can't reasonably expect a Customer Service agent to know the difference between Manhattan and Hoboken.

 

[Nuuska]

Meanwhile on the other side of The Pond . . .


Seller has done some new measuring of size and weigth - and that combined w pictures there is a fair chance that it indeed is Junior Type PR 334 - GAD & dreadnut - thx

Now - what remains - is getting it tested - specs are reasonable - 100mls one way drive is not . . .

 

[fronobulax]

100mls one way drive is not . . .

I was going to thank you for not using metric but then realized that maybe that was how much gas you expected to use

I normally think before committing to a 100 mile, one way, trip as well, but I do recall a business trip in Texas where the locals were discussing where to go for dinner and the closest suggestion was 100 miles away. Had a great steak, a wonderful side of beans and a good time but it was a long evening.

 

[amnicon]

A few years back I sent an email to Fender asking for some details about a '99 MIM Strat. They responded quickly with the whole spec sheet, not just what I had asked.

 

[Nuuska]

I was going to thank you for not using metric but then realized that maybe that was how much gas you expected to use

I normally think before committing to a 100 mile, one way, trip as well, but I do recall a business trip in Texas where the locals were discussing where to go for dinner and the closest suggestion was 100 miles away. Had a great steak, a wonderful side of beans and a good time but it was a long evening.

I still have my 1998 MB ML320 petrol engine very very very nice car ( CSNY song? - no that was about kitties )

But for this trip I'd use my 2020 battery-powered SEAT eMii+ - about 4€ instead of 70€ for transport energy cost

Roundtrip would be about 4 hours + whatever time spent there - after all my years on the road I'm becoming reluctant to drive anywhere without a good reason - I can still drive 12 hours if needed - but this Fender . . .

I've been coaxing the seller to somehow have the amp travel to my town w maybe some friend or otherwise - if I could test the amp for 5 minutes I could definitively say YES or NO - this is a bit of do I REALLY need that amp or not business . . .

 

[mellowgerman]

@Nuuska did you end up getting the amp?

I just picked up a Mexican-made Acoustasonic Junior amp today and I'm really digging it! It's the pre-DSP model, which is my preference. Not being an effects-guy and always wary of complicated mini digital circuit stuff, I run from anything that says DSP on it. Anyway, I saw it on the local classifieds for $100 in like-new condition! I had the time to make the drive (~3hr round trip on the pleasant roads), so I figured why not go check it out. I've been getting back into my original solo project of guitar&vocals only, so this seemed like the perfect rig.

Brought along my '55 Gretsch 6191 and MAN was I impressed! Did not expect an "acoustic amp" to sound so good with this guitar. EQ was effective and easy to dial in quickly and the reverb sounds very nice too. I'm not really into the sound of phaser or chorus effects so I can't really comment on those, but they do work. Volume gets surprisingly loud for 40watts through an 8" speaker. I will say, upon first impression, the microphone channel isn't quite as impressive, but sounds decent enough and will serve it's purpose just fine.

Overall very happy with this one. If I had seen the same amp in a shop for $300 and plugged in my Gretsch, I would have bought it at that price too.

 

[davismanLV]

That's another thing I love about Taylor guitars. Like them or not, my GC8 hasn't been in production for almost 10 years, but every model you look up has full information and a really good bio of the guitar. At the end it just says, "No Longer In Production". Fair enough.... but it's still listed there and if I ever sell it (doubtful) I'll take my info from them. That's really the way it should be in my eyes!!