Have you ever played guitar in shop with top brand badge on it and wondered "How on earth this piece of shit costs more than Squier?". Well I do pretty often these days...
For example I Played a Gibson Les Paul Traditional which is about 2000$ here, and it sounded flat crap compared to a Telecaster which costs around 800$ here.
Yes, it had Pleck'd neck which was dead on great, it had nice tuners and about everything... But woddiness, richness, 3D sound was away for just like a lifetime...
And for example you can buy a Fender American Standard Stratocaster that apart from badge is soundwise an upgraded Squier, just a bit costly...
And I am hearing on and on that even PRS is not what it used to be. Now this is real crap. In my country there is not a single shop you could hope to buy a decent guitar in... Only sometimes, when shop ppl go to storehouse and pick some. And the biggest shop in Austria (our west border neighbour) which is some 300km from my home, by bad roads and slow traffic (and I mean SLOW, on some parts of it you make only 50km (30 miles) per hour ) ... And even there, you might come after 4 hours of driving and find out, out of 40 Les Pauls (Standards and Traditionals) they don't have a single *REALLY* good one...
Now what happened? Good things are not affordable anymore because anyone buys crap? And don't blame me, I have Epiphone at least... (Try playing today production Cort M520 and then go bashing about Epiphone )
So all in all, it is sad, but the only way to make sure you get a really good guitar is to find some great luthier and have him build you one... It is a bit costly but at least you know you're not gonna get screwed...
Anybody has same experience?