The BA series is Ampeg's bread and butter and probably one of the few things keeping the company afloat while their new lightweight amps all went up in smoke. It was recently revamped, and after having so many public QC issues, I'll bet Loud was more careful in selecting a contract factory to build their amps. Ampeg as an actual house-produced brand has not existed for nearly a decade excepting the overpriced "Heritage" series, which are still built from parts sourced overseas from the "regular" line. I've always found the BA combos to be nice, but nowadays, almost anything new from any manufacturer is going to be disposable.