On 04/02/2013 04:44 AM, Tim Goetze wrote:
> [Len Ovens]
>> The big difference is that my cheaper guitars are not finished as well as
>> the more costly guitars... things like nut and fret ends not rounded as
>> nice etc.
>
> It's one thing when the nut or frets aren't too well-rounded, but
> other, similar results of sloppy manufacturing can harm the sound of
> the instrument, for example when the nut slots housing the strings
> aren't perfectly straight. The string will be twisted, lose sustain
> and become slightly more inharmonic, and since this additional
> inharmonicity will vary along the length of the string, proper
> intonation will be impossible to achieve on all frets. Also, friction
> of the string in the nut will increase, negatively affecting tuning
> performance and stability.
>
> Still, judging from my recent experience with new Fender Strats, I
> think that for $500-600 you can get a superb guitar that will play and
> sound just as good as a model costing ten times that much. You may
> need to examine a few more of the cheaper ones to find a thoroughly
> good instrument, but the average quality is already surprisingly good.
My church band's lead guitarist has one of the new Fender Strats
(they're made in Mexico). He also has an ES-335. The ES-335 sounds a lot
better and is much more versatile (according to him). The 335 cost about
$2500, IIRC. He also has a Gibson Les Paul (the solid heavy model).
That's the guitar I always wanted decades ago.
> Classical guitars seem to be different though, I tried to find an
> inexpensive "rare gem" recently but every time I tried the next more
> expensive one it did seem to play and sound better. This tendency
> didn't stop until the most expensive one I played that day, at $4k.
My Garcia Concert Model 3 has beautiful tone, even now, many decades
after I bought it. It cost around $200 back then.
Another guitar I thought had great tone back then was a Yamaha FG-250
12-string I found in a small music shop in a very small town in northern
California. (Couldn't convince my parents to buy it for me!). I wonder
how its tone has held up over the decades?
-- David gnome@email-addr-hidden authenticity, honesty, community http://clanjones.org/david/ http://dancing-treefrog.deviantart.com/ _______________________________________________ Linux-audio-user mailing list Linux-audio-user@email-addr-hidden http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-userReceived on Wed Apr 3 00:15:02 2013
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