I have bought quite a few Harley Bentons from Thomann Germany. Usually they are spotless out of the box, and with some fresh strings and intonation you will have a great playing guitar. Some cases needed neck / bridge adjustment, some others fret leveling; then I have modded some of them (which was totally a personal choice). Mostly tuning pegs and/or pickups. To cut it short, in my case buying a budget guitar (USD150-400) and spending some more (USD100-400?) for adjustments, repairs or modding will give you a guitar with almost perfect playability and sound. Buying a guitar over USD 1500-2000 price range is totally emotional or personal preference nowadays

 

Last edited: Nov 25, 2023

$3000 guitars are like $1000 sneakers. They aren't better than the $300 guitars/$100 sneakers, they just sell them at that price because people will pay for them and to not make and sell them is to leave money on the table.

People who believe sincerely that the expense is getting them something genuinely 100% better than the basic option, rather than 10% better at 10 times the cost, get what they want. The rest of us get the privilege of knowing we're savvy enough buyers that we don't just 'buy the badge'.

 

TBH usually people that call BS on Jim call BS on Glenn too, I see you're not like that, wrong assumption from my side and I'm glad it was. I agree on nearly everything you said except the PRS part. Glenn did a clean + edge of breakup blind shootout between 4 humbuckers on Fender, Gibson, PRS and Harley Benton (posted that video in a comment on 1st page). There were people that were like "definitely X sample is Y guitar it's obvious" and they were wrong. The comment that originally pushed Glenn to make this video was like "if they sound the same why does Fender and Gibson sound so different ?". They indeed all sounded different, but a humongus majority of people got the test wrong. Fender was often picked right, not because there is a Fender mojo, but because the pickup used was bright and the assumption was easy. Still, a lot picked the HB thinking it was the Fender.

 

This video is so lame and not true at all first of all a SLIDE sound very similar on ANY guitar why didnt he do this test on e guitar with a FRETBOARD?
Beacuse hge wants VIEWS and start discussion from idiots that dont kinow a shit about guitars.
Secondly i bet to 99,99% accyracy that he messed with the audio in video aka copy paste add some eq to make it sound a little bit different.
Isnt it a little bit strange that he managed to get his table to sound very similar to his Tele?
Why didnt he tried it with several guitars like a Les Paul a 335 etc etc?
I have several guitars fitted with the SAME PICKUPS but with DIFFERENT woods in the body and neck and fretboard and they all sounds different
That wouldnt be the case if that youtube idiot was right about his statetement.
God i hate those assholes they only want to make money and have tons of views as they know 99% of those who watch have no clue at all about what they tell you.
How many of those who play guitar does actually mess with their guitars?
Very few they change strings and it often stops there they wont thouch the electrics they cant do fret levels they think if i take off the neck the guitar will fall apart.
I say tonewood DO matter in elctric guitars you might not here it in a HIGH gain sound but play it with clean sounds or even edge of breakup sound and even crunch and if you do have a LITTLE bit of ear training you do HEAR differtence i hope that ytoutube idiot stop dfoing his shit soon as he dont know what he is a snake oils salesmen

 

Normally I make every $3000 guitar sounds like a crappy $200, that's for sure.

 

Well go ahead and make a video to debunk him. Just make sure to match scale length, set of strings (fresh), pickup height relative to the strings and pickup position relative to the bridge. Millimeter accuracy of course, or else the results are skewed. Super easy to make ! A simple DI track for both guitars and if every variable has been set to the same, the result would be absolutely undisputable.
It's funny because you say he's a snake oil salesman when he actually doesn't sell anything. On the contrary, his point is to show you don't have to spend the big bucks to get a good sound. Y'all are just blinded by frustration that 70 years of beliefs in electric guitars were wrong. Just move on and select wood for its look.

Yes, every single viewer found it strange. As well as Jim. That's the whole point of this video, unbelievable yet true

 

Last edited: Nov 25, 2023

the answer is an obviously absurd of course no.

 

A horse and a buggy can take you to the grocery store too...



A Porsche IS better, looks better, goes faster and because of that costs more... quality matters.

 

Last edited: Nov 25, 2023

If you can’t tell the difference.. move on, happy ignorants you will always remain! a few points.. though
- Tone is in the fingers.. period, but as they say in car / bike racing “it might be 90% driver / rider and 10% car or bike.. but no one wants to go to the starting grid with 10% less chance for winning!”
- What amazes me most is some people’s taste for audio plugins, good, bad, better you can tell the difference in sound.. but you can’t tell the difference between a better sounding guitar? OK, what is better sounding then? Example, a busy loud live stage with 2 technically equal guitarists playing one cheap and one expensive guitar in two identical amplifiers. You will notice the difference right away. The better guitar will always cut through the stage mix.. period! The same situation is true in the studio. The better guitar will always sit in the mix better, will stand out.
- For an amateur player it does not make a great difference when starting to learn the instrument. But.. experience says that a talented student will progress faster with a good expensive guitar, period.

 

Well, lots of periods here, but i can't agree more.
But, yes, it seems that a lot of people here can't tell or hear the difference soundwise.
Funny enough, the same guys talking for days about the 623rd new linear Equalizer plugin.

 

Oh my I give up... I said everything I have to say. Those who still argue expensive sound better, well enjoy tripling your guitar budget while I enjoy doing mixes sounding as good with my $300 axe as mixes I've done with $2k guitars, if not way better because I've spent hundreds of hours experimenting tones that work the best in a mix for me.

For OP and reasonable players, spare your budget and learn how to dial and mix your tone correctly and then show off to aforementioned people.

 

Well, when I was given the choice I picked the 6 ton hydraulic press, but in retrospect would now opt for the 5K C blast furnace and have died in flame because living without a penis really puts a damper on my self confidence, not to mention my sex life. It really hurt too!

 

Definitely NO for those who's learning..
but you will feel a difference when playing with expensive guitar at concert.

 

Has nothing to do with budget really. I have a couple of vintage guitars. The better one, a 1964 335 I bought her in London UK in 1974 for £330. At that time a new Gibson SG Standard (Norlin era) was about £280 new , no case. A “friend” when he saw the guitar a few days later, told me “man.. you could buy a car with the same amount of money and never use the underground or a bus again!” Priorities in life is a personal choice, to each his own. Today this 335 costs 20 to 25 grand. I still play this guitar live in gigs. A few people show up out of curiosity and ask me “is it a real 1964 or a reissue? a Chinese copy maybe?” What is wrong with people nowadays? They can’t believe a serious player when they see one. We live in a fake society with fake You Tube videos telling us the fake “truth”!

 

Please, go ahead and visit every serious recording studio on this planet, and tell them how stupid it is to use neve instead of mackie, neumann instead of samson, not to mention all that crazy expensive 19" outboard gear.
Man, they could save such a lot of money!

 

I have $1500 fender telecaster american standard, and $200 squier telecaster, what makes really different is original pickup and build quality, of course you can change better pickup for squier to match the tone or even for better sound, but the build quality is very different... no rough edge on bridge, fret, dryer, pick guard.. the way you hold the neck, the way you push the fretboard even with same strings brand.. the way you turn the knob & dryer, everything just feel different when you hold the guitar.. from my personal experience.

Sorry for my bad english.

 

Jeff Healy was a great guitarist and favored inexpensive Squier guitars. He seemed to get a pretty decent tone out of them. He was blind so maybe didn't care what the label looked like.

It doesn't seem to matter what guitar that I'm playing as they all seem to sound like it's me playing them. If an electric, for me it just needs to stay in tune and be set up the way that I like it with pickups that don't suck. I've had a few of my own and also played other's expensive instruments like Les Pauls, Rickenbackers and ancient Stratocasters and Telecasters from the 50's. Not all of them sounded as great as their price tags. Right now what I have are a 1983 Westone Thunder 3 and a '93 Levenson Blade R4. I picked up the Westone for CHF 200 (needs a refret though now), the Levenson for CHF 400 but I refurbished it for like another 350. These two guitars cover anything that I want to do with them. I could never justify paying $3000 for an electric just for nice looking wood when I could just swap out pickups on the ones that I have chosen. The Westone is a humbucking monster with up to an optional 35 watt boost, coil tap, phase and active eq. The Blade an HSS, active electronics where I can have three different tones with the flip of a switch and a coil tap on the humbucker. The tuners on both guitars are original and once they are tuned for a session they stay tuned.

As everyone seems to acknowledge, acoustic guitars, mandolins and ukuleles are not quite the same when it comes to price and quality most of the time. J Mouten's Eastman mandoline a case in point though that one needn't spend big bucks to get a fine instrument also. However, I've not played an Eastman mahogany dreadnought that can touch my well played in D-18 for tone, and I've tried. On the other hand I was thinking of supporting a local luthier by having him build me a 00 sized deep bodied cutaway 12 fret with local Moon Spruce and cherry back and sides , his price of CHF 3900 for the choices that I had made for the build way over the top for the percieved sound when playing some of his guitars. Sometimes you just don't get what you pay for.

Here's a Squire for you...

 

Oh come on now, what's this topic about ? Guitars or studio gear ? I'm exclusively talking about guitars, studio gear is another subject. And @hot rats liking the comment Pathetic attempt.

 

This process goes by itself already.

 

You know that many studios rent guitars to their clients for use in recording sessions. Usually they are expensive guitars for a reason. To be used by players who can not afford to buy (or don’t care) more expensive guitars. These guitars are included in the studio gear. The same as good pianos, Rhodes or other synths. Setup of guitars apart - which is a personal thing - that’s the way it is. No attempt to convince you, it’s a take it or leave it pal..