Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: Hamburg-HongKong-Miami: at work!
Posts: 599
I'm on the Yahoo Steinberger site almost every day, so here's the lowdown on the TransTrems... They don't have anymore, and the company that supplies them, Zen-On, is making life difficult for Music Yo. It seems as though Gibson jerked them around a bit for payment (known as a notorious late payer in the industry) and now they are demanding payment up front for the next batch. This is slowing things down, and for now there are no TransTrems to be had for MusicYo. Although Gibson actually owns the tooling and patent for the TransTrem, part of the arrangement from when they took over Steinberger stipulates that they would go through Zen-On for this. At the time it was to take advantage of the cheap Yen, but that benefit quickly disappeared!
So now they are looking for a way to get TransTrems from Zen-On, whether they negotiate or actually pay up front. Paying up front is a lot of cash for MusicYo, which was originally supposed to sell cheap guitars directly from a website, not high-end ones like Steinbergers. Retooling is also too expensive, since they would spend the same money to retool, and then would have to spend more to even make any units. Again, a lack of money issue. So it will be a while before any TransTrems come back in, since they are completely out of them. Don't forget they have to be manaufactured, then shipped over, then assembled. We're talking about 6 months.
As for myself, I picked up a Steinberger Klein GK-4T in Japan last month. Untouched!