My concern doesn't necessarily relate to country of manufacture, although Quingdao will undoubtedly have improved areas such as fit, finish and quality control as it established itself. Instead I'm more interested in the quality of woods used in manufacture. It seems that with every commodity/goods item you buy that the quality has cheapened over the years in order to keep costs low while prices rise. I'm sure that guitars are not exempt from such practice so I worry about this whatever the brand. I think that, as consumers, we only have ourselves to blame sometimes because we often insist that we must have rosewood and mahogany, and will settle for nothing else. I have to say, I'd rather have a superb piece of alternative wood that does the same job than I would a cheap cut of rosewood. Gibson were forced down this route because of the federal seizures of rosewood blanks and players certainly seem satisfied with the alternatives on offer. I think that Epi should similarly investigate alternative woods as a way of maintaining quality and also assuring ecological sustainability. That, coupled with the QC in Quingdao, could make for a winning formula.