First off when examining "Boston Engineering" pedals, I thought that JB Music ordered these from Elder Audio and rebadged them.
The story looks a little more complicated than that. After opening the plastic wah/volume pedal, I recognized that it was inconsistent with the quality of the Boston pedals I was used to modding. The plastic wah/volume pedal was of shoddy quality.
Then later on, researching on the products of Elder Audio (
www.elderaudio.com) , I was wondering why the Boston "Orange" amps were not on their website.
Then the final realization. I bought a set of "Boston Engineering" drum mikes from JB after comparing them with "Maxtone" and "Nady". Well...the Nady condensers kicked the Boston's butt but the dynamic mikes were very good and they let the wood sound of the drums we auditioned them on really ring out. So I bought them.
I won't go to how exactly I found out, but after some internet research, I found that these mikes were made by a China-based company called Soundking. (
www.soundking.com)
So it seems that the "Boston Engineering" brand is really a special rebadge for JB Music and the products under this brand really come from various manufacturers.
It also means that each of the products under this brand should be auditioned and evaluated individually and not be given the blanket "Okay yan, boston e" generalization. Because, as I said, the brand is a conglomeration of products from multiple manufacturers. There will be both good and bad products under this rebadged brand name.
Being a marketing and businessman myself, I'm unsure of how to feel about it...it can go "Kudos" to JB for an innovative brand-name building exercise to "shame on you" for confusing the market with an American-sounding brand name slapped on Chinese products (although I'm more inclined towards the kudos...would have been perfect had it not been busted).
Or maybe, let's just suspend all judgement on the matter, and take it as it is.
Thus that's the more pragmatic thesis : Audition and test each Boston Engineering product as they do not come from a single manufacturer...some will be gems and some will be lemons. DO NOT generalize them all as good just because they share the same badge.