$90 Strat vs. $1000 Strat

Do you know what beats "better" for me? Interesting...

[stratokatsu]

I've liked the value of some Squier lines for a while now, but honestly, I prefer the SX and Agile lines sold by Rondo Music. I think the SX Hawk and SX Funnian, their Strat and Tele respectively, beat the Squier and MIM lines at a fraction of the price.

[Bogie54]

I played a (purchased new) 95 Strat Plus for over 10 years and thought it was great. When relics lost their appeal I was offered a used master built custom shop strat for a price I couldn't pass up.

Better playability, better sound. Big difference.

[Davis Webb]

Originally Posted by Bob Womack

Playing the guitars that way will rather quickly reveal any shortcomings in the noise-rejection capabilities of the two.

Bob

Thanks Bob, I will do some A/B tests next week. You make a cogent point about how the guitar reacts to high gain. I am gonna check this out.

[tstrahle]

I heard a difference between the two. But for me it was not better or worse. Just different. I make my living doing session work and writing and sometimes the lo-fi Squire sound is preferred for me. I have many Strats new and old and several Squiers. Here I talk about my $99 Squier...

http://proguitarsecrets.blogspot.com...ire-strat.html

And here's the $89 Squier Tele I bought to string up African tuning, I just used that guitar on a song I wrote for Taboo's (Black Eyed Peas) new record....

http://proguitarsecrets.blogspot.com...an-guitar.html

The great thing about cheap guitars is you can have several for different string combinations and tunings like...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6N0eL15HSYc

Originally Posted by tstrahle

I heard a difference between the two. But for me it was not better or worse. Just different. I make my living doing session work and writing and sometimes the lo-fi Squire sound is preferred for me. I have many Strats new and old and several Squiers. Here I talk about my $99 Squier...

http://proguitarsecrets.blogspot.com...ire-strat.html

And here's the $89 Squier Tele I bought to string up African tuning, I just used that guitar on a song I wrote for Taboo's (Black Eyed Peas) new record....

http://proguitarsecrets.blogspot.com...an-guitar.html

The great thing about cheap guitars is you can have several for different string combinations and tunings like...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6N0eL15HSYc

Tom, thanks for chiming in here and just to let you know that I've been previously grateful for your blogposts and vids.

For me, the biggest myth is that the greatest music has almost always featured "great tone" when I would argue that it has most often featured "truly interesting tone."

Here's to keeping things interesting!

[sweiss]

They did sound different. The Squier was always the louder of the two, but louder doesn't equate to better.

A tiny sample of two guitars through one amp tells me absolutely nothing.

[tstrahle]

Originally Posted by Fret Buzz

Here's to keeping things interesting!

I love interesting!

[mikealpine]

Originally Posted by stratokatsu

I've liked the value of some Squier lines for a while now, but honestly, I prefer the SX and Agile lines sold by Rondo Music. I think the SX Hawk and SX Funnian, their Strat and Tele respectively, beat the Squier and MIM lines at a fraction of the price.

I also like Rondo. I have a terrific Agile 3200 (LP style) and put in custom Porter Pickups. Anyone who hears it or plays it can't believe it is less than a $1500 instrument, especially with the new pickups. I paid $900, including the pickups. Only issue is that they are very heavy, around 10lbs if not more. I don't play it that often because I hurt both shoulders recently and find the weight is an issue if playing more than an hour. It'll be up for sale soon, unfortunatly.

Anyway...I haven't tried the other lines from Rondo, but seriously think you can get a well built and inexpensive guitar from them, and mod the heck out of it if you want it to do anything more, and still come out cheaper than much of what else is out there.

Additionally, I discovered Carvin guitars, and am very impressed with their fit and finish. I don't love the tone of all of their pickups, but think the finishing compares very well against PRS. They have some twin-blade humbuckers that fit into single-coil slots that sound awesome, and there is a guitar in the GIS (Guitars-in-stock) that is a beautiful green with a birdseye maple fretboard that has these pickups, and that guitar is about $900. I think that guitar is a fantastic buy for anyone looking to go higher up. And they give you 10 days, no questions asked, so you can return it for just the cost of shipping.

Many options for low, mid and high pricing, which makes our hobby so much fun!!

[The Dali]

Originally Posted by mikealpine

I also like Rondo. I have a terrific Agile 3200 (LP style) and put in custom Porter Pickups. Anyone who hears it or plays it can't believe it is less than a $1500 instrument, especially with the new pickups. I paid $900, including the pickups. Only issue is that they are very heavy, around 10lbs if not more. I don't play it that often because I hurt both shoulders recently and find the weight is an issue if playing more than an hour. It'll be up for sale soon, unfortunatly.

Anyway...I haven't tried the other lines from Rondo, but seriously think you can get a well built and inexpensive guitar from them, and mod the heck out of it if you want it to do anything more, and still come out cheaper than much of what else is out there.

Additionally, I discovered Carvin guitars, and am very impressed with their fit and finish. I don't love the tone of all of their pickups, but think the finishing compares very well against PRS. They have some twin-blade humbuckers that fit into single-coil slots that sound awesome, and there is a guitar in the GIS (Guitars-in-stock) that is a beautiful green with a birdseye maple fretboard that has these pickups, and that guitar is about $900. I think that guitar is a fantastic buy for anyone looking to go higher up. And they give you 10 days, no questions asked, so you can return it for just the cost of shipping.

Many options for low, mid and high pricing, which makes our hobby so much fun!!

Carvin guitars are great. Excellent build quality for a reasonable price. Their electronics are "meh"... dime-size pots, box switches, small caps... the pickups are ok. Because they use the import pots it can be challending to upgrade the electronics without chipping the finish (opening up the holes for the pots, etc). However, the wood - the important stuff - is great and the guitars offer stainless frets which I love.

[Davis Webb]

I am with Fretbuzz on this one. The Squier sounds different but not worse than its thousand dollar big brother.

[tstrahle]

Originally Posted by Davis Webb

I am with Fretbuzz on this one. The Squier sounds different but not worse than its thousand dollar big brother.

Sometimes that difference can be glorious.

[Davis Webb]

The American strats have silky action and wonderful fret work. The pickups are cleaner and if I ever get a job again I will consider a YJM at least on the bridge. However, when they did the setup for me, and I had a strat specialist do it, they said to leave the pickups alone. That with a band or a backing track they would be just fine. The jury is still out. However, I continue to be amazed how close the two sound.

The Squier however, has these unwanted overtones, which you can work with and make a rather complex sound pallette. Its not clean, its more, blended electronica, not at all unpleasant, but not really clean. I figure the American strats are cleaner, especially the bridge pickup. Without gain, the middle and neck pickups on the Squier sound pretty good, the tone control tames them.

[Davis Webb]

Originally Posted by tstrahle

I heard a difference between the two. But for me it was not better or worse. Just different. I make my living doing session work and writing and sometimes the lo-fi Squire sound is preferred for me. I have many Strats new and old and several Squiers. Here I talk about my $99 Squier...

http://proguitarsecrets.blogspot.com...ire-strat.html

And here's the $89 Squier Tele I bought to string up African tuning, I just used that guitar on a song I wrote for Taboo's (Black Eyed Peas) new record....

http://proguitarsecrets.blogspot.com...an-guitar.html

The great thing about cheap guitars is you can have several for different string combinations and tunings like...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6N0eL15HSYc

I finally got around to watching the full videos. Bang ON! So well presented, you did a great review!

Davis:

First, thanks for starting this thread. Picked up an MIC Bullet Strat and couldn't be happier.

I think you have the Affinity? but give this a try: really lower the neck pup, starting with a sliver, with middle pup less than 1/4" for a start. Tune in the neck pup to a kind of "woody" vs "gooey" fairly transparent (Purple Hazish) and go for a certain transparency with the middle, bass presence but not bass dominance. Frankly even with the noticeable higher bridge pup I go for that transparency. I can always dig in. You can dial in more "glass" and "quack" that way, even with those ceramics. The "quack" source for the 2 and 4 positions is in the middle pup. especially towards the treble side, but too high there can take you out of that too. It takes a lot of patience, tweaking back and forth. I also recommend setting your amp to Treble 10, Bass 0 during this process. Get it "there" with these settings first.

I would also recommend letting the trem float even if you don't use it. Go with 10s, decent relief and towards the acoustic side of action (like Hendrix and Jerry Garcia).

Put simply moderate output ceramics are great for clean break playing, not super clean, but really there's more clarity there than you might think, by going lower with those pups, but really for Strat pups in general. BTW I actually like the ceramics in the MIC Bullets better than the current ceramics in the MIM Standards. By going for more output...you can get less.

Regards, FB