Acoustic1, you are new around here and may not realize that this forum is quite different from most others on the net in that we tend to avoid flaming, fighting, emotionally charged disagreements, and personal attacks. All are welcome, as are all reasonably presented opinions. You have yours, and I have mine, and both are cool. As for one company being influenced by another, it happens all the time in all industries. Are Chevy, Toyota, Nissan, Audi, Ferrari, and virtually every auto maker producing counterfeit Fords because they all adopted the manufacturing methods first developed by Ford? Are all five string basses with the fifth string being a low b counterfeit Alembics because Alembic developed that instrument first? How about active electronics? Truly innovative designs can be patented and those that want to copy them pay a fee. Those that don't are subject to civil damages. Alembic enthusiastically defends their name, logo, and proprietary designs. Many is the time that Mica has sent cease and desist communications to vendors on eBay listing non-Alembics as real ones. When other companies produce neck-thru hippie sandwich constructed instruments they are paying homage to the trail originally blazed by Alembic, but, again in my opinion, that is quite different from producing a direct copy, putting an Alembic logo on it, and trying to pass it off as a true Alembic.
Bill, tgo
