I went down to Andertons today to take advantage of they 4 for 3 on strings and fancied trying out a Victory V30 and the chap said choose whatever guitar you like. I wanted a LP with a chunky neck and the chap picked out a Custom Shop VOS model at just £5k.
Plugged it in and cranked up the V30 and was, well, underwhelmed.
Aside from being told to turn down (how else are you meant to find out what an amp really sounds like) it was a pretty average experience. The V30 had very little clean headroom even into a 100db speaker and was very bass heavy on both channels.
The guitar was certainly a good one but was it £3.5k better than my 17 year old Standard? No bloody way.
It was the most expensive guitar I have played and maybe I was expecting something special. The neck was nice and chunky at least.
Anyone had a similar experience?
Comments
In all the above the best setup guitars in terms of fit and finish and sheer perfection were Duesenburg's .... a bit too bling for me but the attention to detail and ease of playibiity on those guitars is something else !
My actual favourite guitar to gig is a friends bog standard blonde Fender USA Tele ...... which cost about £700 second hand
Some people think (not you OP) that if a guitar is worth so much money it should almost play itself, sadly it is not the case...
I bought a £150 bottle of brandy once. I thought it would taste like the nectar of the gods... turned out it just tasted like brandy, albeit a little smoother.
Hence I went back to old Japanese after clearing my little collection 5 years ago. Now looking for more ha ha.
Ultimately I am sure there is stuff in the Authentic level that is very good but I could just not find the magic.
Pretty much.
I do think there's merit in some high end acoustics though. Solid body guitars seem to become nostalgia or aesthetics beyond an earlier point.
Over valued guitars will always leave a bitter taste however.
On the flip side, this trend, I'm glad I got them if ever they suddenly cost more than what I paid.
It seems £4, 000.00 is today's price.
I generally think that once you get over £800 the law of diminishing returns applies to electric guitars because there are so many other factors from boards/effects/cables/amps /volume/headroom etc
A lot of these £5k guitars are just marketing bullshit wrapped up in a fancy case with nice decals and certificates
I’d say “Ok” - hand them back the guitar, switch off the amp and walk out. If they can’t provision for cranked amps they shouldn’t be in the business of selling them. Terrible.
I like to crank an amp when I try it, but I've never been told to turn down at Andertons.
It's a very subjective experience for me when I try guitars. I just immediately connect with some guitars but not others, even when they're the same model. There's probably some subtlety in the way they're set up. But I suspect that I could probably connect with most guitars once I've had time to get used to them and set them up to my taste, provided the frets aren't too low and the neck isn't too wide, and there isn't a sharp feel to the edge of the neck, and the pickups aren't microphonic and the sound is good etc, etc...
For every grand extra you pay on a £1000 guitar the differences are minimal at best.
(I found it similar with most of the signature models, guitars or amps, when people think they can be/sound like MR XYZ-guitar god only because they have their name written on it...)