On 04/02/2013 02:35 PM, Peder Hedlund wrote:
And those "certain things" always could
be part of the music and usually
are part of the music, people usually are simply not trained to notice
this, they wouldn't notice, if Jimi Hendrix plays a Flying V or a
Stratocaster, the way Hendrix played guitar I suspect every guitarist
will hear the difference between a Flying V and Stratocaster.
I saw a test where a bunch of professional musicians and engineers
listened to a guitar player playing an old $5000 Les Paul and a $500
copy and were asked to tell which was the expensive one. About half of
them failed, including the guitar player in the group.
The same was true for a Stradivarius and a cheap beginners violin,
though IIRC the violin player was correct.
Personally I have found that like with all things there is a sweet spot
above which you only get diminishing returns, if any. For electric
guitars this sweet spot is in the 500-1000 euro range. I was lucky in
that I found an early 90's Yamaha AS80-Vs for 350 euros in which I
replaced the pickups for Seymour Duncan P-Rails (P90/Singlecoil package
in a humbucker form factor) and modded the cabling to allow
P90/SingleCoil, out-of phase and humbucker configuration, so I paid
pretty much exactly 500 euros for it. I considered shelling out for a
Gibson ES335 or a Yamaha AS 200, whenever I get the money, but honestly
these don't sound or play significantly better..
I found that for classical guitars it's significantly higher though: In
the 1500-2500 euro range (I only found this out because I got the chance
to play some really nice classicals). A guitar student of mine likes my
250 euro yamaha classical guitar better than either the Hans Herb I had
for a while or the Bertrand Martin I play at the moment (they were lent
to me by a friend who appreciates his guitars being actually played :D).
The Hanikas in the 1700 euro range are very nice, too :D I consider
saving up for one for the time when I have to return the Bertrand
Martin. It's the same for any other audio equipment, too. People pay
waaaay too much all the time because they don't trust their ears but
rather listen to the hype.
Flo
--
Florian Paul Schmidt
http://fps.io