Suhr Guitars at Winter NAMM 2006
Suhr Guitars' debut at NAMM (January 19~22, 2006) was a smashing success and, as overwhelming as all of it was, we all had a great time meeting with our dealers, fans, customers and our awe-inspiring roster of artists. As far as artists are concerned, John and I agree that we wouldn't trade our roster of artists for that of any other company's in the world - not only because they're the very best players in the world, but because they're all genuinely nice guys who are fun to work with and who really love our instruments. We enjoy a very close and personal working relationship with all of our artists and we give each artist the attention they deserve. And we're just getting started. Many more new Suhr artists to come! But most of all, we enjoyed meeting our dealers and many customers in person. It's really a cool thing to finally meet all these people that you've only been corresponding by phone or email or meeting on the Internet newsgroups.
Suhr Guitars introduced some exciting new products at NAMM – the Badger 18w cathode-biased all-tube head, the affordable Pro Series line of guitars, and the Backplate SSC (BPSSC) System which dramatically reduces the single-coil hum while retaining the tone of the pure single-coil pickups. All of these products were extremely well received at NAMM and there is much buzz going around the guitar community about how cool these products are. The Badger has been tweaked since its NAMM debut to sound even better with more useful features. The Badger is finally expected to ship in late-May or early-June. The Pro Series guitars were hailed as having the best performance-to-price ratio in its price point by our dealers. We expect to ship the Pro Series guitars in limited quantities in early-May. The BPSSC is winning many adherents who want to get rid of the noise while retaining the sound of their beloved single-coil pickups in non-Suhr guitars.
Our presence at NAMM was further boosted by a series of Suhr-sponsored concerts at Tone Merchants, one of the top Suhr dealers conveniently located about 3 miles away from the Anaheim Convention Center. The concerts featured Al Estrada and his Van Halen tribute band called Eruption, teenage wunderkind Nick Sterling, Berklee faculty member and jazz/funk/blues fusion master Tomo Fujita, shred extraordinaire Robert Marcello of Danger Danger, Doug Nofsinger and his fusion outfit UNIT 7, and NY session ace and all-around fusion monster Joel Hoekstra. It goes without saying that the concerts were superb with some amazing performances by these extraordinary players. We'd like to thank the artists, the dealers, and the loyal Suhr owners and fans who helped make NAMM 2006 a truly memorable event.