[tbeltrans]

Another thought regarding McPherson...

Once they have put together a guitar design that works according to what they wanted to build, they don't seem to mess with the basic design much, if at all. Changing the color or the tuners isn't messing with the fundamental design and resulting sound or playability.

In one of those NAMM interviews, McPherson said that with their carbon fiber guitar development, they would not put their name on the guitar until they were satisfied with the quality of the design and implementation. Notice that for a while, they were selling Michael Kelly carbon fiber guitars, and then eventually switched to selling carbon fiber guitars with their name on them.

There is a very noticeable difference in the quality of the guitar, in my experience having played both, between those with the Michael Kelly name and those with the McPherson name. I would be very surprised if there was a similar noticeable difference between last year's McPherson CF guitars and these new models. That stability of their designs once they land on a design that works for them, is one of the things I appreciate about McPherson. I would not want to find out, after having paid $3k for a CF guitar, that well, they really didn't get it right yet, but this year, the magic happens and now what I bought is clearly not the new improved model that is demonstrably much improved, leaving me to have simply funded their R & D on the way to the guitar they wanted to build all along. To me, that would have been the case with the switch from Michael Kelly branded CF guitars and the McPherson models.

Tony