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Who's right?

My brother and i got into a very heated discussion about guitars, instruments and specially prices. One of us are saying "Prices are the measurement of quality of the guitar. Someone using a Squier or Epiphone are lower-level then Gibson or Fender. And studios use only their instruments, for CD's recording you can't use yours."

Other thing discussed is about quality of one guy. The strokes guitarrist, Nick Valensi had a signature Epiphone. My brother said: "he had a signature epiphone because he's bad. If he was good he had one Gibson signature." after i replied " well, is because nick use a Epiphone, since he started." he answered "Well, he's stupid. Gibson always would be better than epiphones"

Well. Is this something real? I wish to understand that. If he is right, i'm wrong about almost everything i belive in music, so give me what are your thoughts, please!
 
Instruments that cost less do so because they either:

1) have cheaper parts
2) have cheaper design
3) have cheaper assembly costs

whether any of those translate to "better" or "worse" is for you to decide.

Endorsements are financial transactions, not necessarily a measure of any skill other than increasing profit margins.

And if you pay a studio to record, you choose what gear you want used, not them.
 
I've seen a few instances where players started off with the tres-spendy signature models, then had subsequent ones offered on the "lower tier" line...does your brother think that means the player was awesome then got really bad so they punished him/her? Thoughts?
 
It doesn't matter what brand it is... it matters how much work they put into it.

For instance, an $800 Epiphone is probably going to be better than an $800 Gibson.
This is because an $800 guitar would be high-end for Epi, while 800 is measly pocket change from Gibson.
So Gibs would slap the guitar together and ship it out, while Epi would be much more careful with theirs.

If you're on a budget, get a high-end guitar from a budget company. Much better quality for the same price.