Straight Dope on inexpensive guitars?

Cafe Society
1

There are plenty of guitars priced from$800 - $2000 from manufacturers like Ibanez, Fender, Gibson and others. But more and more I’m finding inexpensive guitars in the $200 range from places like Saein and rondo music dot com that have features seemingly on-par with the expensive ones, from bound & intricately inlaid fingerboards, to neck-through construction, etc.

Lots of review online indicate the inexpensive guitars are crap, but there are very few objective criteria applied. What are the objective measures that I can use to compare a $2000 guitar to a $200 guitar with?

FWIW, I’ve purchased a couple of the el-cheapo’s, and I’ve been really happy with them.

2

In general some objective differences will be: the type of woods, materials, glues, etc. used to construct it. The quality of the tuning heads. The instrument being true and able to be tuned perfectly as opposed to never quite being tunable due to scale or other imperfections. Fret spacing not being true, again preventing good tune. And, I guess the most important, the tone of the instrument. Construction and materials determine how ‘good’ it sounds. A $200 guitar won’t have the rich tone at different frequencies that a $3000.00 guitar has. (assuming both were constructed as well as they could be constructed at their individual price points). That isn’t to say you can’t get a wonderful sounding guitar for much less than another wonderful sounding guitar that is much more expensive. It would be harder to point out key differences between a $2,000.00 student model classical guitar and a $30,000.00 concert quality classical guitar if they are both well made guitars. But a $200.00 guitar would set itself apart from both quickly with cheap, tinny sounds, difficulty tuning, vibrations and buzzes along the neck, etc.

3

I’ve always felt that an el-cheapo guitar is better than no guitar and so have bought many of them in my life. However, they usually don’t sound that great (which doesn’t really matter unless you’re at a certain level) but more frustratingly can be tricky to tune due to imperfections mentioned above.

I look at cheap instruments the same way I look at cheap electronics and cheap cars. It’s fine as long as you go into it with eyes open and don’t have any illusions of what you’re getting. For example I bought a cheap knockoff Mandolin (bout $100). It’s pretty crappy but I like having it around as yet another option. Sort of like that saying: “the best camera is the one you have with you”

4

Lousy action. The stings are too far from the fretboard or they buzz because they’re too close (and no happy medium if you try to adjust the bridge). That just makes cheap guitars harder to play than more expensive ones, which is a shame since almost every beginner starts with a cheap guitar.

5

Beyond tone, there are lots and lots of details that go into making an instrument playable with minimal effort. Often musicians are not aware of many of these until they pick up an instrument that has it wrong.

Might be related to your question:

Recently a friend bought a cheap assed violin, and wanted me to show him how to play it.

It was unplayable without some work on the bridge and the nut to allow the bow to contact one string at a time. The peg holes in the head did not have a taper matching the pegs, so tuning action was iffy at best. The bow it came with was badly warped and the hair had uneven tension between strands.

With a new bow and some attention to the nut and bridge it was playable, if you were willing to futz for a half hour to get it tuned. but the tone was quite muffled…though my fiddle is obnoxiously bright, so all violins sound muffled to me, but this one was way beyond “mellow” toned.

6

Not a guitar player, but I’ve worked with a bunch of great ones (not name players, but professionals who taught me a bunch). The last cat who was strapped bought one of the Korean-made models, and he had nothing but praises for it. I think it all depends on the amp and speakers – that’s something I know about – and also the player. Everyone’s crazy about Epiphone stuff, but isn’t that just a burnoff from Gibson? Doesn’t matter. Plus, any guitar player knows how to solder, so you can roll your own, replace pickups, get the action right.

ETA RIP Les Paul!! 2x4 with pickups, and it sounded fine!

7

Many of the things mentioned in are what prompted me to ask. To wit: I just took a chance on two very inexpensive guitars that looked too good to be true. One is a neck-through all mahogany 7 string, the other is a 6 string with a quilted maple top and a fairly intricate vine inlay on the fingerboard. Both have grover tuners, the action is great, and after a setup they both play beautifully. I may end up swapping out the pickups in the 6 string, but the seven sounds really good as is. And, I’m no stranger to more expensive instruments, I’ve played more than a few name brands and botiques priced in the $1K - $3K range, and these seem just as well constructed.

And so, at $200 each, I began to wonder why. Maybe the Korean guys are just trying to make a name for themselves. Either that, or I’m just not a very discriminating player :wink:

8

I think Crazyhorse had a great, comprehensive answer. I will just add that every expensive guitar is not good and every cheap guitar is not bad. You just have to play it and evaluate it based on your own experience, skill, and technique.

I have a $2000 (new) archtop guitar that has very good tone and materials but I had to drop a few bucks on a tech to fix some problems in the setup, including frets that were not hammered down properly.

I have a friend who bought a bass for under $200 that played beautifully.

When my son was taking drum lessons at Music & Arts I used to play the guitars there. They are for the student market, lots of things like Squiers. Most of it was low-price and reasonably well made but not professional quality. But I picked up an Ibanez (I think) 335 clone that was the nicest $300 guitar I had ever played. I was just amazed at the value. I was tempted to buy it but I didn’t have GAS that day. :slight_smile:

9

If all you want to do is bang around some simple chords, a cheap guitar will work as well as an expensive guitar. If you want to do more than that though, you can tell the quality of a guitar pretty quickly.

The cheaper woods that they use for the cheaper guitar bodies just doesn’t sound as good as better quality wood. The sound probably doesn’t matter that much if you take the guitar through a bunch of effects and crank up the distortion to the point that the guitar’s sound doesn’t matter, but for most other styles of music a good guitar just sounds better. I personally really like the sound you get from a Les Paul guitar, which is half maple and half mahogany. The two woods combine to give an excellent sound plus great sustain. A cheaper guitar will sound flat because the body doesn’t resonate well, and the sound will deaden quickly because of the poor sustain.

A good guitar will also have a well built neck. Again, if you are just banging out chords, it doesn’t really matter much, but if you are playing more complicated things and like a lower string action, you’ll definitely notice a difference. On cheaper guitars, there will be a more noticeable difference in the heights of all of the frets, since getting the heights exact between all of them takes more work and therefore costs more. The inexact heights of the cheaper ones causes the buzzing that Elmer J. Fudd was talking about, since if you have the action set low, one of the frets that happens to be a bit higher than the others can come in contact with the string as it vibrates. The only way around this on a cheap guitar is to set the action high enough that the strings don’t hit the uneven frets, and that makes the guitar less comfortable and more difficult to play.

Cheaper necks also have an annoying tendency to warp as they age. You can correct the warp to some degree with the truss rods, but you’ll often end up with a neck that is wavy instead of perfectly straight.

A beginner should just buy an el-cheapo guitar and learn on that. When they get better, they’ll develop their own preferences with respect to sound and playability and can buy a fancier guitar that suits their style and preferences. I personally love the way the necks on higher end Ibanez guitars play, but that’s a personal preference.

10

While there will be many factual answers to the OP, there will be opinions. Let’s move this from General Questions to IMHO, where both can coexist.

samclem Moderator

11

Hiya! You are talking to the dope’s expert on cheap electrics here.

There’s three levels of cheap guitars. Crap, cheap-cheap, and cheap.

A beginner should not have a crap guitar. Makes life worse for everyone. Unless, like me, they like to rebuild things. I still have to replace the neck on my Pig. That bottom-end Stratocaster had frets that cut my fingers every time I played. Don’t do dat.

Cheap-cheaps are your Rondos and your Xavieres. The Rondo Agile line, with the full maple cap, are very nice. But I personally prefer the Xavieres, the hardware and pickups are better. (the pickups on an Xaviere are outstanding.) You’re looking at $200, but it’ll require some TLC later. Probably some fret polishing. But the woods are nice… my Telemaster is a three piece that at first and second glance people thought was a one-piece, it was matched well, it’s kiln-baked alder, and so on. The neck is outstanding. Needed some fret polishing, but the shape is good. The inside, the routed out places? It’ll be a little rough there, not polished, probably. You can fix that yourself, though. Little sandpaper, if you feel like it. Maybe add some shielding, these tend to have some slight shielding issues.

Cheap are your Epis and your Fender Pawn Shops, or high-end Squiers. $600 or so. And there’s some very nice choices there. But don’t get a brand-name for less than 500ish. They’re not very good. Maybe an Ibanez at $300-400. Truthfully, better construction… but the pickups won’t be good, you’ll probably want to replace them. But don’t buy a Gibson at this level, trust me.

And then there’s deals, like Malden’s factory cleanout. People are really happy with their Maldens.

Thing is, there’s enough variance here that it really depends on what you want to play, for me to advise a specific sort of inexpensive guitar.

Unless you want one with everything, of course.
http://www2.gibson.com/Products/Electric-Guitars/Designer/Epiphone/Nighthawk-Custom-Reissue.aspx

12

The fact is, modern mass-production techniques have made massive improvements in the quality of cheap guitars. The asian manufacturers are using CNC gear to produce accurate, consistent product for necks and bodies - the real differentiator is fittings and materials, and they have access to local wood stocks that are cheaper than traditional sources (but probably not sustainable sources, sadly) and do a great job.

For something like a Squier, the fittings and the cheap wood add up to a really cheap feeling guitar. No matter what I do to it, my sons Squier just feels rubbish, and I wouldn’t upgrade anything on it. It does tune well and has good action, though, and is an instrument to learn on and lug about without worrying too much.

On the other hand, my 15y.o. Squire Protone (the first tranche of Korean Fenders) had reasonable fittings and good wood, and is a guitar I still love to play. I’ve upgraded the pickups, replaced the pots and locked the floating tremolo, and it is fun to play and rivals many contemporary US made strats (a fact acknowledged by the then Fender CEO when the Protone was withdrawn). And it was quite a bit cheaper.

So anything above the real low price guitars are probably not bad at all, and if you look for a bit you will almost certainly find something you like, and maybe something you will love for years, and can grow with you.

Si

13

Welcome to the #1 flame topic on guitar-geek boards.

A few thoughts:

  • Bottom line? Whatever keeps you happy and playing is okay. Any other considerations about value/quality/bragging rights are secondary. In my case, I am open to owning super-pricey guitars, but the ones with fancy inlays on them “get inside my head” and I can’t play them - they look too fancy and I feel like I can’t whomp on them the way I want to play. If finding a decent $200 guitar is part of the equation that gets you rocking out, then awesome.

  • For all of reasons above - more computer work, better QC in the US and the Far East, etc. - we really are in a golden age of guitars. No reason you can’t grab a $600 Mexi-Strat and rock out with it.

  • While QC has improved, you are dealing with wood, paint, etc. and inconsistencies will always be there. You are more likely to find them in cheaper guitars, but also likely to find that one in a bunch with a few of them - or you can be like E-Sabs and use that to find a blem/2nd who’s issue in minor but the price is even cheaper!

  • To be blunt - for the extra “sumthin’ sumthin” that you can find in pricier guitars - most players can’t really hear the difference and/or are playing through gear that makes the differences irrelevant. If you plug a guitar into a heavily-digital effects chain into a digital modeling amp and layer everything with distortion and echo, the fact that your boutique Strat replica comes with a petrified Mastodon ivory nut is really not going to be the defining factor in your tone.

  • While we use the phrase “cork-sniffer” to mock how some folks get way too pretentious in their gear geekery - and I can be one of those guys - the metaphor of wine really works. Some folks can tell the difference between $2 grape juice, $15 table wine, $50 good stuff and $150 premium stuff - and some can’t. Further, some can tell the difference $150 quality wine vs. a $150 “hype wine” that’s all label and no drinkability - and some can’t. And - even more importantly - some folks CAN tell the difference, BUT choose to go with $15 table wine as their main drinking wine because* it works for them *- and occasionally splurge on $50 or $150 wines.

  • In my experience, the difference between less expensive and more expensive electric guitars is less than with acoustics. Meaning - by the time you get to an ~$2000 Custom Shop Strat or an Historic Les Paul, you are pretty much there - you can go nuts on upgrades and mods, but you are really squeezing out an extra drop. With acoustics, when you get quality stuff in front of you and aren’t just lost in a GC - a $200 guitar sounds and plays nothing like a $2000 which sounds and plays nothing like a $20,000 guitar. I have ignorantly picked up acoustics and stumbled across truly magical guitars, only after the fact to learn that it was a $40,000 pre-war Martin - experiences like that are what illustrated to me how acoustics can really be at a whole 'nother level…BUT - it is no different than trying a $3,000 bottle of '61 Lafite Rothschild - some can appreciate it; some can’t - and some might enjoy an opportunity to sip it, but the $15 table wine is really what they want for every day. It’s all good.

fwiw, I walk this talk in that while I own some valuable electrics - I have discussed my '57 Gibson Les Paul Special on the 'dope before - my main player is a homebrew Tele I pieced together. But my main acoustic is an old, magic Martin :wink: (no, not the $40k one)…

14

Guitar talk has been going on in Cafe Society for quite some time. I’ll move it there.

Ellen Cherry

15

A small bit that I’ll add to the excellent responses above: consistency.

High-end, expensive, big-name guitars will, for the most part, be (expectedly) very consistent in the quality of materials and craftsmanship. If you’ve got $3,000 to spend on a guitar then you can pretty much pick any one you like and be assured you’re getting a quality instrument.

The inexpensive, Mexican/Asian made economy models, OTOH, will always vary greatly in the quality of materials, craftsmanship and sound. Which is not to say that they are universally garbage; in fact if you look at a great many of them you will inevitably come across a gem. I’ve played a $200 Squier starter-kit Strat that played and sounded every bit as good as a $1500 American Series model.

16

Many of the American “boutique” builders also have a lower-priced line, and it seems most of those are built in Korea. And those same Korean factories also turn out instruments for the traditionally lower-priced brands, with the result that many of those lower-priced brands are actually pretty decent instruments that are close in quality to those boutique lower-priced axes.

In the 1980s a $200-$300 guitar was usually a piece of junk. Today a $200-$300 guitar can be quite good. I’ve got a 6-string Rogue (Musician’s Friend house brand) bass guitar that cost me $250 and is one of the best-built instruments I’ve ever played. (Pics here on my Web site - scroll down.)

I was in a local music store some years back (in the '80s, I think), and they had this absolutely-beat-to-shit acoustic guitar sitting there on a stand … with a $1200 price tag - more expensive than any other guitar they had in stock. I thought, “You’ve got to be kidding!” But I picked it up and tried it out, and Oh. My. God. It was the most incredible-sounding acoustic I’ve ever heard, even to this day. Turned out to be a 1946 Martin. I wonder what the asking price would have been had it actually been in good condition!

17

The widespread use of cnc woodworking technologies has made it possible to build a perfectly acceptable solid body electric guitar for not much money. Those techniques can squeeze more product out of less wood and the fit is always good. In a blind test of solid body guitars, I would not trust myself to distinguish between your guitars and very expensive ones.
Acoustic guitars are different animal entirely. I would be very surprised if I could not tell the difference between cheap and expensive acoustic guitars.

18

My guitarist had a genuine Les Paul; He had to retune the beast every two or three songs. I let him use my $200 Fender Squier (Hecho en Mexico) that I added $200 in modified pickups (I am a tinkerer). It would stay in tune for about a dozen songs. He only used the LP when he had to.

It is a combination of things; quality control, materials, strings, pickups, and last but not least, the player.

19

These days in excellent condition, probably north of $15,000.

I had emailed some friends about my first encounter with that pre-war Martin; if I can find it, I will post what I wrote; it articulates what was so stand-out different about the guitar…

20

Good answers above. Working in a music store I see a lot of expensive and inexpensive guitars. I agree that modern manufacturing techniques allow for some pretty good cheap guitars, both in acoustic and electric.

On the plus side for electrics is the ability to change the electronics. I know several players who have selected a cheap guitar because they like the feel of the neck , and then put in higher end pick ups. Mexican strats and the occasional squir, can be turned into good instruments.

In acoustics we’ve had some pretty acceptable low end Alvarez. A Canadian company called Art and Lutherie also has some solid wood guitars that are quite good for the money.