Ivy educated teachers?

cobrat
Mon, 11 Nov 2013 13:20:58 +0000

As to musical instruments in this conversation about “conspicuous consumption goes,” I know nothing of guitars. However, I was originally a music major at college and I can state categorically that a cheap flute sounds incredibly inferior to an expensive flute. I know this because I was the proud owner of a cheap flute. While it was in the shop one day, my flute professor loaned me a gold flute (as in made of) which had been donated to the university. As a worshipper of James Galway “Man with the Golden Flute,” I was astounded that this instrument would be trusted to a lowly freshman. My God, I couldn’t believe how much better my tone was with this flute. The action was easier, so I could play difficult material with greater ease. I HATED to give that flute back after my recital. It had nothing to do with with the brand or cost of that instrument, but with the quality. I’m guessing that an expensive guitar is just going to sound better than a cheapy, regardless of the talent of the musician. If you are a serious musician, you are going to want the best quality instrument your money can buy, and usually, that is associated with a brand name.



With acoustic guitars, there’s definitely a correlation between price paid and quality as you described.

However, the general consensus I’ve heard from experienced guitarists…including established musicians is the same isn’t always necessarily the case with electric guitars.

Especially considering the general quality of the low-mid end guitars has improved so much within the last 15 years that many experienced guitarists I’ve known IRL and on a guitar forum I frequent are happy to use low-mid-end guitars as their main instruments. Some have even gone so far as to sell off their older higher-end instruments because they found the tone of the newer lower-mid end electric guitars to be better than their older higher-end ones.

It isn’t helped by the fact one well-known brand known for targeting the higher-end segment of the electric guitar market has had some hit-or-miss quality control/workmanship issues which some guitarist friends felt were unacceptable for an instrument retailing for $2200+…especially when those same issues aren’t common in guitars retailing for as little as $200-300.

I’ve also heard about the infamous deterioration in QC/workmanship Fender went through in the '70s and early '80s. According to most who lived through that era or experienced many such guitars, the QC/workmanship on a US made Fender of that era was so hit-or-miss due to worn machines and corporate corner cutting that one had to test play dozens of guitars to find a decent/good one.

It’s a factor in why the '70s era Fenders still have some stigma associated with poor QC/workmanship among those who lived/experienced them and to them is proof price doesn’t always == quality. Especially when that era factored into many younger guitarists to move to import brands like Ibanez which were not only much more inexpensive than Fenders back then, but increasingly perceived as having better QC/workmanship.