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Another Cheap vs Expensive thread...

#21
Florox said:
Just before the thread continues with misunderstandings like these and thus turns into a flame war and thus takes away the point of the discussion...
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(snipped gigantic words)

Relax, I basically agree with you. :) Like I said, you could organize a blind taste-test of wines and I probably wouldn't be able to tell the $100 from the $10.

But I absolutely believe there are wine connoisseurs who can tell the difference, just as I believe there are bass players who could tell the MIA from the Squier. :)
 
#25
Mushroo said:
Ah, the old "I can't tell a difference, therefore there is no difference" fallacy.
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Oh, I think there's a difference. Higher end instruments tend to have better quality hardware and electronics. But with decent specs and CNC machines, those Asian cheapies can be great and (to me at least) often compete with their much more expensive bretheren as far as overall feel and sound.

I always say that (in general) a Squier is 90% of a Fender at 10-25% of the price, just my personal opinion and experience though. (I WILL say that back 15 years and more ago, asian cheapies were often unplayable junk. But that ain't the case anymore for the most part.)

I can't really tell the difference between a $10 bottle of wine and a $100 bottle of wine... but I believe that some people can tell the difference and enjoy spending the extra $90 on something they really like and appreciate.
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It's actually been shown in numerous studies that if you repackage a cheap wine and lead people to believe it is some exotic, vintage wine, even supposed "experts" will fawn all over it. I read of one in which the people conducting the study put Riunite box wine into some fancy-schmancy French bottle (famous in wine-tasting circles) and the experts went on and on about the depth and richness of notes, the overtones, the history of the vintage and the area in which the grapes were grown, etc.

Similarly, one can find audio A/B comparisons all over the internet of the cheapest Squiers or Epiphones played next to the highest-end Fenders and Gibsons and a high percentage of listeners can't tell much of a difference or actually choose the cheaper model as the better sounding one.

It's like anything else in life: the difference only makes a difference to you if it is important to you! ;)
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Now that's the truth! I couldn't care less what other people play. More power to the people who like to own high-end instruments. That can be a wonderful thing, as can owning dozens of basses (which also doesn't interest me in the slightest) but as long as it intonates well, has decent action, holds tune and sounds decent, I'll play it and love it whether it cost me $125 or $2500. 99% of an audience won't care or be able to tell the difference anyway.
 
#27
I've been playing for forty-plus years, lots of gigging experience, first year music college, etc. So I'm at a point where I can get a decent sound out of just about anything, as long as I can get the pickups to balance and the thing to intonate properly with minor adjustments.

So in a limited sense, there is little practical difference between a VM Squier and more expensive Fenders.

But after all those years, i guess I'm a little jaded. My main reason for sampling other basses, is for inspiration, and while I like almost all basses to some extent, it takes something pretty special in a Fender to inspire me.

We're talking about subtleties here, but those subtleties mean something to me. Sometimes an unfamiliar bass can draw something out in my playing, that I wouldn't have found otherwise. I've never made that "connection" with a Squier, but I have with a couple of Am Vintage Fenders.

I wouldn't pay full pop for one, but I would (and have) spent the extra few hundred $$$ for a used instrument that speaks to me. And never regretted those purchases.

Good musical instruments hold their value so well over time, and give so much pleasure, that it seems silly to me to settle for an instrument that you merely "like", if one you could really "love" is only a paycheque or two more expensive.

Go with what moves you, whether it's a Squier, a Fender, or an Alembic...
 
#32
Mushroo said:
(snipped gigantic words)

Relax, I basically agree with you. :) Like I said, you could organize a blind taste-test of wines and I probably wouldn't be able to tell the $100 from the $10.

But I absolutely believe there are wine connoisseurs who can tell the difference, just as I believe there are bass players who could tell the MIA from the Squier. :)
Click to expand...

Threads like these always interest me. The caps thing was just so everyone could obviously notice the point because ironically, although some people complained about me doing so, others really couldn't get the point with normal fonts :). It just drives me insane when people create a flamewar out of something that was never the subject, as it always happens with blindfold-type threads.

I really couldn't notice a huge difference between the my old Squier Jazz and a Geddy when I played it, because the strings I had on the Jazz already gave a similar tone. However, it has been my experience that the longer you stay with an instrument, the longer you start noticing its subtleties and they become very apparent and obvious when playing other basses, even if they're similar. Fender basses in specific are like that.

At first I really though my ATK sounded almost like a Stingray, but the longer I've owned it I've noticed that although it is on the same ballpark, it definitely doesn't sound the same, has it's own thing going.

P.S. I would like to also point out that although there's basses that sound similar, it's really the subtleties that make an instrument. When you have a bunch, it really lays out the character of the bass, and it is the sound you EQ around and thus making the instrument sounding noticeably different.
 
#34
Mushroo said:
(snipped gigantic words)

Relax, I basically agree with you. :) Like I said, you could organize a blind taste-test of wines and I probably wouldn't be able to tell the $100 from the $10.

But I absolutely believe there are wine connoisseurs who can tell the difference, just as I believe there are bass players who could tell the MIA from the Squier. :)
Click to expand...

But if you made two pots of beef stew using the same wines, would the connoisseurs be able to distinguish between the two? I honestly don't know.
 
#37
Lesfunk said:
Me neither. That's why I play modulus, Status, and Warwick! :ninja:
With those you can tell the difference!:bassist:
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Hey, I play Modulus , Ken Smith and Alembic and I CAN tell the difference. But let me add that I ALSO can tell the difference between a MIA Fender and a Squire. Not a lot, but different wood and parts and it's different. On the other hand I also could tell the difference between my MIM Jazz and a MIA one...UNTIL I ripped out the MIM pickups and put in the SCN that used to be used in MIA. Once I did that I came to a conclusion about tonewood.

Namely that the Agathis in my Squier clearly had a different feel than the Alder in my MIM JAzz. Sound was pretty good in both cases though. However, I found absolutely ZERO difference in feel or sound between the 2 or 3 piece alder MIA bodies and my MIM body made of about 12 alder sticks glued together.
 
#39
Small touches like rolling the fretboard edges can make a difference in playability and better electronics can make a different sound. But generally the Squiers these day get you most of what more expensive basses give you.

I'd rather save the extra scratch for the amp I want. That will make a bigger difference in my tone than dropping an extra $1K on the instrument itself.
 

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