On 04/02/2013 04:44 AM, Tim Goetze wrote:
[Len Ovens]
The big difference is that my cheaper guitars are not finished as well as
the more costly guitars... things like nut and fret ends not rounded as
nice etc.
It's one thing when the nut or frets aren't too well-rounded, but
other, similar results of sloppy manufacturing can harm the sound of
the instrument, for example when the nut slots housing the strings
aren't perfectly straight. The string will be twisted, lose sustain
and become slightly more inharmonic, and since this additional
inharmonicity will vary along the length of the string, proper
intonation will be impossible to achieve on all frets. Also, friction
of the string in the nut will increase, negatively affecting tuning
performance and stability.
Still, judging from my recent experience with new Fender Strats, I
think that for $500-600 you can get a superb guitar that will play and
sound just as good as a model costing ten times that much. You may
need to examine a few more of the cheaper ones to find a thoroughly
good instrument, but the average quality is already surprisingly good.
My church band's lead guitarist has one of the new Fender Strats
(they're made in Mexico). He also has an ES-335. The ES-335 sounds a lot
better and is much more versatile (according to him). The 335 cost about
$2500, IIRC. He also has a Gibson Les Paul (the solid heavy model).
That's the guitar I always wanted decades ago.
Classical guitars seem to be different though, I tried to find an
inexpensive "rare gem" recently but every time I tried the next more
expensive one it did seem to play and sound better. This tendency
didn't stop until the most expensive one I played that day, at $4k.
My Garcia Concert Model 3 has beautiful tone, even now, many decades
after I bought it. It cost around $200 back then.
Another guitar I thought had great tone back then was a Yamaha FG-250
12-string I found in a small music shop in a very small town in northern
California. (Couldn't convince my parents to buy it for me!). I wonder
how its tone has held up over the decades?
--
David
gnome@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
authenticity, honesty, community
http://clanjones.org/david/
http://dancing-treefrog.deviantart.com/
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