One expensive guitar or several inexpensive ones?

Budda said:
But that doesnt really work because personal fit is exactly that. Great isnt dependent on personal fit, just craftsmanship (attention to detail, quality of parts, fit and finish). Another example would be a nik huber krautster - incredibly well built guitars, but if you dont like flat-top guitars you will never want to buy one.
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thank you for the universal definition of great.
How naïve of me to expect personal preference to play any part when someone refers to a great car, or great house, or great fill-in-the-blank.
 
As I mature, I gravitate towards fewer, but high end instruments.
I figured I spent my youth figuring out what I didn't like by buying every guitar under the sun at least once it seems. Then spent my young adulthood playing a lot of perfectly serviceable instruments that I generally modded to fit my playing style.
Now I just don't want to compromise, I'm gonna get what I want and that's that.
 
I think there are a lot of valid points made in the thred! My initial thought was just to see what people thought of what made the guitars that have in their arsonal good or great regardless of what they spent.

It wasn't so much of a dollar amount though it for some it does matter because of a personal standard you want nothing wrong with that for be it for me to dictate how someone should spend their hard earned cash!
 
I don't have any 'high end' guitars, but I would call them great for the simple reason that all of them play extremely well. I'm not sure why, but I seem to have a knack for setting up guitars. I did spent a fair amount of time messing around with the different aspects of a setup; neck relief, nut slot depth, action, fret leveling, and have developed an approach that seems to work. I have yet to set a guitar up for someone and not have them like it right off the bat. I've also never had anyone play my guitars without commenting on how well they play.

My approach to purchasing guitars is making sure they have a good reputation for build quality, have a neck profile and nut width I prefer and the craftsmanship must be above average. Maybe I've been lucky but my collection doesn't really have much separation in playability and quality of tone.

My quiver:
2009 PRS CE-24 - TV Jones Power'tron set (Plus in the bridge), 3-way toggle instead of rotary pickup selector.
2004 Fender USA Deluxe V-Neck - Custom Paint job, Dimarzio Virtual Solo (B), Virtual Vintage '54 Pro (M/N).
Reverend Tricky Gomez RT - Mostly stock; replaced the nut with a bone nut.
Fender '69 Thinline body with MIM Strat neck with 60's C profile- Lindy Fralin Split Blades (High Output)
Fender MIM Triple Tele; Stock except for Kluson tuners.
Ibanez JS2400- Completely Stock.
Ibanez RGDIR6M - Bareknuckle Black Dog set

The most expensive guitar is the PRS CE, paid $1200 for it quite a few years back. The Strat, JS2400 and Reverend were right at or under $1000. The others were under $600. The only guitar I purchased "new" is the RGDIR6M, but it was a closeout sale.
 
I'm a 1-guitar guy. Each time I had "the one", it was all I played. First was a LP Custom Silverburst, then a PRS standard 24, and now the Enchanted Forest Majesty in my pic. I love it, it gets played for hours every day, it doesn't limit me in any way, I rarely have to touch the tuners, and it sounds fantastic. I love it so much I bought a 2nd one, on a whim. I just don't find having different guitars appealing, but I also have a problem with letting go of ones that don't get played. Dunno why...
 
guitaroholic said:
thank you for the universal definition of great.
How naïve of me to expect personal preference to play any part when someone refers to a great car, or great house, or great fill-in-the-blank.
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Many of the things people think are personal taste are still objective ,you don't have to like a Suhr Modern to accept it as excellent. And as for tone; is anybody out there going to say a Dumble OD doesn't sound awesome even if and especially if that is not your type of tone. We need to get away from "mine is best" and look at objective facts , ergonomics etc. There are quite a lot of beautifully built guitars that just don't play as well as they could because of design choices and poor ergonomics . These ARE worse instruments objectively but many people love them and play them anyway. Most aspects of guitar design and building IS objective.

Also being super comfortable on something just because you have been playing it for years absolutely does not make it ergonomic or even the best choice for you.
 
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Another example of excellent ergonomic design that many people don't like is the Ibanez Wizard neck profile . Many people complain of hand cramps on thin necks but this is down to poor technique not a poorly designed neck. The issue is thumb over players feel a more acute angle of finger bend required to fret the notes in their usual way and as you age and suffer mobility issues these moments become at the extreme ends of joint motion (Cramp.) if however you had good ergonomic playing technique this never arises . Two examples of 60+ guys playing thin necks would be Vai and Gambale neither even slightly hindered in fact the opposite. If you do play with your thumb on the middle to top third of the back of the neck the thickness actually makes very little difference to your playing position but you can play with a relaxed hand. In fact the skinny D profile neck is the most suited to perfect technique and comfortable relaxed hands during extended playing. This neck profile first appeared on early 60 Strats and 60 Les Pauls.
 
Andy Eagle said:
Many of the things people think are personal taste are still objective ,you don't have to like a Suhr Modern to accept it as excellent. And as for tone; is anybody out there going to say a Dumble OD doesn't sound awesome even if and especially if that is not your type of tone. We need to get away from "mine is best" and look at objective facts , ergonomics etc. There are quite a lot of beautifully built guitars that just don't play as well as they could because of design choices and poor ergonomics . These ARE worse instruments objectively but many people love them and play them anyway. Most aspects of guitar design and building IS objective.
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If people said favorite instead of greatest we wouldn't be having a discussion. "Great" isn't exactly an objective measure anyway, so I could see why people would use the terms interchangeably. The title of this thread should have been "Several cheap or one expensive guitar."
 
Purplestrats said:
If people said favorite instead of greatest we wouldn't be having a discussion. "Great" isn't exactly an objective measure anyway, so I could see why people would use the terms interchangeably. The title of this thread should have been "Several cheap or one expensive guitar."
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Yes I see your point but I still have several not expensive guitars that are in terms of musical instruments as good as anything you will find. For example the Ibanez Genesis RG550 I picked up recently (there is a thread on it) plays perfectly and has an acoustic tone as good as anything you will find at any price. Electrics not so but I can swap them out and still end up with a relatively cheap sub £1500 after parts that can hold it's own against anything. I payed a lot less but I'm trade and frequently people offer me stuff to buy. I don't look for gear for me anymore (got it or had it ) and I only buy pieces that are exceptional examples and the right price.
 
Andy Eagle said:
Yes I see your point but I still have several not expensive guitars that are in terms of musical instruments as good as anything you will find. For example the Ibanez Genesis RG550 I picked up recently (there is a thread on it) plays perfectly and has an acoustic tone as good as anything you will find at any price. Electrics not so but I can swap them out and still end up with a relatively cheap sub £1500 after parts that can hold it's own against anything. I payed a lot less but I'm trade and frequently people offer me stuff to buy. I don't look for gear for me anymore (got it or had it ) and I only buy pieces that are exceptional examples and the right price.
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Yeah but now you're doing the same thing everyone else is doing, lol. You picked up a guitar that after a few modifications "can hold its own against anything." Sounds subjective to me...

If we're going to be objective about it, we really need to be talking about manufacturing standards and tolerances, material quality in wood, steel, wires and what have you. It becomes a technical discussion with spreadsheets and curves and all kinds of drudgery. Who wants to get into that in a forum about guitars? :)

Edit: what you really seem to be saying is that your opinion is closer to objective truth than most people's, because of your experience working on guitars. That's fair enough, but still just a slightly less subjective opinion. In my subjective opinion.
 
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Purplestrats said:
Yeah but now you're doing the same thing everyone else is doing, lol. You picked up a guitar that after a few modifications "can hold its own against anything." Sounds subjective to me...

If we're going to be objective about it, we really need to be talking about manufacturing standards and tolerances, material quality in wood, steel, wires and what have you. It becomes a technical discussion with spreadsheets and curves and all kinds of drudgery. Who wants to get into that in a forum about guitars? :)
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It has budget pickups, nothing subjective here they just aren't at the standard of the rest of the instrument. The rest is good to go. The thing that really matters is the acoustic properties and mechanical function and both are top of the tree from the factory on this guitar .
With anything built to a price point corners will be cut . The bargain instruments get the balance right .You don't waste money on fancy tops or gold hardware ,pearl plastic pick guards etc . Build a simple painted guitar no binding dot inlays and fit quality hardware. pickups as long as they are standard sizes can be swapped easily. Gibson got it right with their student ( junior ) models in the 50s.
 
Andy Eagle said:
It has budget pickups, nothing subjective here they just aren't at the standard of the rest of the instrument. The rest is good to go. The thing that really matters is the acoustic properties and mechanical function and both are top of the tree from the factory on this guitar .
With anything built to a price point corners will be cut . The bargain instruments get the balance right .You don't waste money on fancy tops or gold hardware ,pearl plastic pick guards etc . Build a simple painted guitar no binding dot inlays and fit quality hardware. pickups as long as they are standard sizes can be swapped easily. Gibson got it right with their student ( junior ) models in the 50s.
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If you don't understand the difference between subjective and objective, we won't get very far. We'll just get more old man yells at cloud stuff. Your personal opinion about the guitars you've worked on over the years is all you've offered so far, which is more or less the definition of subjective data. Full of bias, anecdotal evidence and what have you. Unless you have actual data to present from a sizable sample of guitars, there's no objective fact to speak of.

Not that subjective experiences are useless, just don't call it objective fact.
 
Purplestrats said:
If you don't understand the difference between subjective and objective, we won't get very far. We'll just get more old man yells at cloud stuff. Your personal opinion about the guitars you've worked on over the years is all you've offered so far, which is more or less the definition of subjective data. Full of bias, anecdotal evidence and what have you. Unless you have actual data to present from a sizable sample of guitars, there's no objective fact to speak of.

Not that subjective experiences are useless, just don't call it objective fact.
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Thousands of guitars over thirty plus years . Analysed, set up , refretted, played ,compared, A/B tested , This is not anecdotal evidence but granted it is the accumulation of experience, a very large amount of it plus experimental evidence. By your definition everything is subjective and that is just rubbish. I can go in to tolerances, workmanship, materials, ergonomics, asthetics and tone. only the last two are is any way subjective and you could probably get 80%+ agreement in those too.
 
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Andy Eagle said:
Thousands of guitars over thirty plus years . Analysed, set up , refretted, played ,compared, A/B tested , This is not anecdotal evidence but granted it is the accumulation of experience, a very large amount of it plus experimental evidence.
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Not discounting your experience at all, but this is the very definition of anecdotal evidence. It's based on personal observation, plain and simple. Where's the data, the measurements, the falsifiable evidence? All I have is your word that it is so. Anecdotal.
 
Purplestrats said:
Not discounting your experience at all, but this is the very definition of anecdotal evidence. It's based on personal observation, plain and simple. Where's the data, the measurements, the falsifiable evidence? All I have is your word that it is so. Anecdotal.
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I have accumulated it in my head over the time same as Paul Smith ,John Suhr and all the other guys that know what they are doing . This industry doesn't have peer reviewed journals unfortunately but that doesn't make my observations subjective. You can obviously start from scratch yourself and develop your own "opinion " but plenty people pay for mine.
 
Andy Eagle said:
I have accumulated it in my head over the time same as Paul Smith ,John Suhr and all the other guys that know what they are doing . This industry doesn't have peer reviewed journals unfortunately but that doesn't make my observations subjective. You can obviously start from scratch yourself and develop your own "opinion " but plenty people pay for mine.
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You keep proving my point for me without realizing you are doing so.
 
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