Originally Posted by: JeffS65Compared to when I was first starting, there was a huge gap between the 'quality' brands and everyone else. You had few choices. Go cheap and not as playable or spend the bucks.
Guitars here were very expensive when I bought my first ('73) and second (late '74 or early '75). Yamaha and Ibanez both were [u]very[/u] new players in the guitar industry, both then Made in Japan because the JPY like the DM at the time, was a rubbish currency rendering Japanese and German production favourably competitive. Even established acoustic brand Takamine was expensive compared with Yamaha product. And Ibanez branding evoked a "Who?" response. A complete unknown. I bought my Yamaha acoustic through recommendation and on affordability. I was a student paying my own way with a part time job, and my Ibanez later because it was a fraction of the price of a Gibson SG, but not a fraction of the quality.
Unfortunately the word "cheap" today is more frequently misconstrued than not in a dumbed down society. Cheap isn't a synonym for "junk" without qualifiying context, even where it is miscomprehended as such in the minds of those knowing no better.
[br]The future of Gibson and Fender over the next two decades will be interesting, although I doubt I'll still be here to witness the result. Their current sales model depends on their marketing sustaining self-propogation of the brand association mythology to maintain their price points with sufficient numbers buying it, figuratively and literally. They're fortunate in having their core brand influenced buying demographic in the US where of course, coincidentially their pricing structures are at their affordable optimum.
[br][u]Today[/u], Squier and Epiphone product generally is [u]relative[/u] rubbish compared with Yamaha and Cort [u]at any near equivalent price point[/u], and in many cases considerably more. Fitted OEM hardware, build quality, finish, quality control & price point. Of course, the cost of Asian manufacture is increasing, something which predictably must continue given current globalisation policies, which with the exception of the PRC whose currency is outside the control of the banking cartel must effect substantially increased prices in time. But they've a lot of meat to carve before Fender or Gibson can begin to play a truly level playing field relying on other than nostalgia associative branding to gouge their pound of flesh.
Current marketplace choices and affordability has never been better for guitarists IME of the past three years, and, a long time ago. The caveat, admission I was out of that awareness picture of course for many decades.
My Ibanez SG (1974 Japanese manuf. origin) was of [u]exceptionally[/u] high build quality and finish. More importantly, its price permitted me to buy an electric guitar immediately whereas I would have been saving another year or more for a Gibson, yet neither enjoyed nor played it any better.
I don't really like condecension in anyone, but I do hold in contempt brand and price status snobs who believe in their own mind an expensive instrument is necessary to affect competency or deliver stellar performance from it. Case in point.
