I would have expected better, even from an Esteban.

[ksdaddy]

Yesterday I bought a cheap little guitar amp at a local thrift store for $9.99. It's labeled Esteban, model G-10. Looks like any other little piece of crud amp, volume, bass, treble, headphone jack, and overdrive button. I bought it because I can't walk past a $10 amp. The amp worked, but I noticed the power light, the little red LED was very faint. Just thought it was odd. I took it apart to spray the pots and investigate an intermittent cut out. The cut out turned out to be the fact that the speaker wires were never soldered onto the terminals. They were just fed through the homes and folded back.  No old solder, no signs of the speaker having been replaced. I soldered them in place, then sprayed the pots and jacks. It was then I noticed a problem with the little red LED power light, which is mounted on the circuit board kinda loose, using it's leads as legs sorta. When the amp is assembled, the little LED is supposed to be fed through a hole in the face panel. Instead, it was folded under the circuit board and the circuit board was then jammed into place, pinching the LED and making the light barely visible.

I know it's junk, but the QC was horrible!

They have no intention of anyone working on these amps anyway. The circuit board was partly held in place by a piece of wood glued and nailed behind it. The only way to disassemble it was to crack the glue joint and pull the nails.

I prevailed. The little POS will find a spare room somewhere to be used for convenience. Or it will be thrown in with a First Act junk guitar I will inevitably rescue someday.

[badbluesplayer]

All that fun for only 10 bucks!  Nice.

[Whitefang]

And on a positive note, you DID get what you paid for!  

Whitefang