Gibson R8 or Harley Benton with Pickup Upgrades?

redrighthand

This might be of interest - spotted it last night. Someone's done a quick comparison of the new HB Junior and a couple of much more expensive Juniors.



Sadly he concludes it doesn't have a chubby neck - which would be my preference. Though for anyone that way inclined, the following YouTuber seems to have found a HB with a very big neck (going by how much he bangs on about it anyway) 



I've been eyeing up HBs for a while but yet to pull the trigger. I'm not expecting them to feel as nice as a Gibson/Fender by any stretch, but as a cheap way of trying a few different guitar styles for a while they're very appealing.

Simon_M

I did the sound for a jazz gig a couple of years back and the guitarist proudly told me that his jazz box was made in the 1950s and the that the pickup was from the 1930s. “Great” i unenthusiastically thought as I inevitably repaired the fault which was causing a horrendous buzz with electrical tape as the poor guitarist couldn’t work out what had possibly gone wrong. 

I don’t subscribe to ‘vintage = better’. Not frpm a technicians point of view anyway.

Freebird

thegummy said:

Sometimes people want an audio signal to be louder without sounding any different tonally.

Just get a Kemper and adjust the input signal 

Kittyfrisk

redrighthand said:

This might be of interest - spotted it last night. Someone's done a quick comparison of the new HB Junior and a couple of much more expensive Juniors.



Sadly he concludes it doesn't have a chubby neck - which would be my preference. Though for anyone that way inclined, the following YouTuber seems to have found a HB with a very big neck (going by how much he bangs on about it anyway) 



I've been eyeing up HBs for a while but yet to pull the trigger. I'm not expecting them to feel as nice as a Gibson/Fender by any stretch, but as a cheap way of trying a few different guitar styles for a while they're very appealing.

The second youtube would be the enormously talented Dave Simpson. Half Hendrix, half bonkers red setter   
I'm just jealous   

thegummy

Kittyfrisk said:

Hmmm... I can do louder, I just turn things up 

But seriously, I do get it, I just get amused by the time & effort people go to to add & subtract effects to/from a sound or signal while usually describing it as 'clean' or 'transparent' when it isn't.

The term possibly gets some errant use in the guitar world.

I'm more aware of it from the recording world where one would (sometimes) want a mic preamp that boosts the signal from the mic without colouring it in any way. We're living in a time where even cheap products provide a good amount of clean gain but possibly to a mastering engineer with 100 grand speakers, his idea of clean might require a more expensive unit.

I'd guess that using a clean boost for guitar would be to distort the amp even more than the amp's gain up at full would. So the result wouldn't be clean at all but the colour would all be from the amp rather than the pedal itself.

Could be wrong, maybe someone will suggest a different use for a clean boost in guitar. I don't use them personally so just guessing.

guitars4you

Three-ColourSunburst said:

guitars4you said:

Wrong - When you buy a new BMW, Audi etc in a UK showroom the vat alone will be collected as a UK transaction -

I think the point you are overlooking is that, ultimately, it is making things that actually generates wealth. Vat and so on just involve shifting money around that has already been created elsewhere.

I'm not overlooking the point, but I would agree I wish we manufactured more in the UK  - Different story though and I'm not going there, certainly on this thread

Fifty9

So is the answer to the original question knock yourself out and buy what you prefer/can afford? Or have we somehow arrived at this parallel universe where a Harley Benton with a pup swap is genuinely as good a guitar as a Gibson R8?

Simon_M

Fifty9 said:

So is the answer to the original question knock yourself out and buy what you prefer/can afford? Or have we somehow arrived at this parallel universe where a Harley Benton with a pup swap is genuinely as good a guitar as a Gibson R8?

It’s all a dream. Awooooooohhhhhhh....

thegummy

Fifty9 said:

So is the answer to the original question knock yourself out and buy what you prefer/can afford? Or have we somehow arrived at this parallel universe where a Harley Benton with a pup swap is genuinely as good a guitar as a Gibson R8?

Some people do seem to believe that.

I don't but, like I said, I don't have any more real proof for my belief than they do for theirs.

The entire electric guitar business could be a huge conspiracy.

Kittyfrisk

^  'The entire electric guitar business could be a huge authentic conspiracy'

thegummy

Just to clarify, I do definitely think that Gibson and Fender add a percentage on to the price of their instruments because they know their brand has a strong appeal and that people will pay extra for those brands, all else being equal.

I don't think that percentage is over 1000% though.

Philly_Q

redrighthand said:

Though for anyone that way inclined, the following YouTuber seems to have found a HB with a very big neck (going by how much he bangs on about it anyway) 

Gosh, I have never heard anyone go on so much about a guitar neck.

If it really is that huge I'm almost tempted to buy one.

Freebird

thegummy said:

Fifty9 said:

So is the answer to the original question knock yourself out and buy what you prefer/can afford? Or have we somehow arrived at this parallel universe where a Harley Benton with a pup swap is genuinely as good a guitar as a Gibson R8?

Some people do seem to believe that.

I don't but, like I said, I don't have any more real proof for my belief than they do for theirs.

The entire electric guitar business could be a huge conspiracy.

Life is all about what you believe, even though a large percentage of what exists inside an average person's head is far from true. The trick is to leverage those beliefs to your own advantage, otherwise they are worthless 

thegummy

Freebird said:

thegummy said:

Fifty9 said:

So is the answer to the original question knock yourself out and buy what you prefer/can afford? Or have we somehow arrived at this parallel universe where a Harley Benton with a pup swap is genuinely as good a guitar as a Gibson R8?

Some people do seem to believe that.

I don't but, like I said, I don't have any more real proof for my belief than they do for theirs.

The entire electric guitar business could be a huge conspiracy.

Life is all about what you believe, even though a large percentage of what exists inside an average person's head is far from true. The trick is to leverage these beliefs to your advantage, otherwise they are worthless 

I think you're right that the average person goes through life believing a load of nonsense (some even base their lives on it).

I'm different to the average person in that regard though, I only believe things based on evidence if I can help it. There may well be things I believe despite lack of evidence but am unaware of it - if so, my mind would change as soon as I became aware.

Even in the above guitar example, it's not that I specifically believe R8 is better than HB, I'm not convinced either way. Just think it's more likely guitars differ widely in quality than there existing a conspiracy big enough to allow those guitars to be equal.

roberty

Instruments of sound production are difficult to measure objectively as opposed to sound reproduction where you need a flat frequency response and no distortion. Either you can make it sound right for you or you can't. Whether more expensive materials and workmanship bring you closer to your aims is up to you

darthed1981

How did a thread about the relative quality of far-east made guitars and high-end Gibsons turn into nonsense about us all thinking there is a conspiracy...?  This place is odd sometimes.

Any business sells its products for as much as it can get away with, Gibson trade on their name, their history, long neck tenons and all that other stuff to sell their products for a much higher margin than many other brands, I think that's a given.  They are still built for a price though, they still use CNC etc.  They also use much higher spec components, I bought a beautifully machined staytrem bridge recently and all the parts on R8s I've seen are beautifully machined high end parts.

Far East guitars are built for a far lower price and sold for a far lower margin, they are still very capable instruments though, especially if properly set up.  HB if anything are on the right lowest end and have cheap hardware you might not trust for gigging (hence all the stuff about modding), what about LTD or Cort guitars?  Some of those are damn superb for the money and period.

Other odd point I've seen made "people can buy what they want" - well of course they can, I don't think that's really relevant.  Also nobody is bashing anyone personally, except people saying that any of us are jealous of people dropping thousands on guitars.  I'm not, I think they can do what they want, and I'd imagine most people feel the same.

I think the key difference is that some people see an R8/R9 as being designed to possess some of the "magic" of the music played on it, some of us see it as an assembly of wood and metal that could only attain "magic" in the right hands.

But still everyone is likely on a scale, and the top of that scale is the amount we would spend on a guitar.  A friend of mine said most of the value is added between about £300 and £1000, which is probably what I think as well.

tony99

so pound for pound then, what's the most value for money les paul type guitar? 

ICBM

tony99 said:

so pound for pound then, what's the most value for money les paul type guitar? 

The Harley Benton - unless there’s an even cheaper one which is well enough made to be usable.

It’s *always* diminishing returns when you go above something which is the cheapest that will do the job.

thegummy

darthed1981 said:

How did a thread about the relative quality of far-east made guitars and high-end Gibsons turn into nonsense about us all thinking there is a conspiracy...?  This place is odd sometimes.

Because one of the varied opinions (or guesses) at the relative quality differences is that they're basically the same but some companies trick a lot of people in to paying nearly 20 times the amount for the same thing.

It's not really a big leap of logic or an unrelated tangent, just one of the many ideas on the topic.

One might wonder if someone has convinced themselves that there isn't a big difference between a 250 quid and a 4500 quid because they have a cheap guitar and don't want to feel like they're missing out.

A similar accusation could be made that someone who's spent 4 grand on a guitar wouldn't want to believe that they could have gotten pretty much the same thing for 250 quid.

P.S. the "jealous" comment was me saying it about myself, wasn't bashing anyone.

ICBM

thegummy said:

One might wonder if someone has convinced themselves that there isn't a big difference between a 250 quid and a 4500 quid because they have a cheap guitar and don't want to feel like they're missing out.

A similar accusation could be made that someone who's spent 4 grand on a guitar wouldn't want to believe that they could have gotten pretty much the same thing for 250 quid.

Or you may accept that the difference is tiny, and the cost of getting it is out of all proportion to the result, but that there is still a difference.

The real cutoff point is when paying even more *doesn’t* result in a quality improvement, even a small one.