Will be interesting to see all the opinions on this one... ?

Only thing I wish to say is...don't buy a cheapie and then spend thousands on upgrades. However I guess the way to go is to buy the best you can afford at the time...even if it means buying used.

my opnion is always buy the lower of the top range than top of the lower range. This is an economic principle i try an live by.

I would assess whether the difference in price between two brands (or two items within a brand) warrant the difference in quality. In the case of Epiphone and Gibson guitars, the high end Epis are probably (i.e. the Joe Bonamassa sig Epi looks sweet) fairly similar in quality to the lowest end Gibsons. Of course, even though the lowest end Gibsons may be of lower quality than the high-end Epis, they'll probably hold their value better, as ICM said.

You could also opt for a different brand altogether, if you can live with the different brand name/different design/possible peer anti-pressure. This is what I have done. So yeah, I'd opt for the best guitar for the money I'm willing to spend.

Hard to have a hard and fast rule. I'd rather buy a bottom end Larrivee than a high-end Cort, but then you get pesky brands like Takamine whose top end instruments are pretty damn good.

Very tough situation.

In the Epi vs Gibson, I'd have to say an Epi. The MIJ Elitists are lovely guitars.

Nice to see the EPI scapegoats shining thru here!

I'll agree with vic , long as the one model does not need endless upgrades cos we all know that if you just need to buy top end pup's and tuners it can set you back thousands i been burnt like that it's way cheaper to initially pay more but after that never have to mod for your needs or to make it a pro level instrument . So buy whatever serves your needs

Oh and to add to my previous post . I also think people often underestimate the value of the label on the head stock i seen pretty poor quality les paul's prob easily out classed by other top end copies of a les paul but they sell at good prices just cos it was a gibson . So if resale may be an option in near future think about that .

Vic wrote: Only thing I wish to say is...don't buy a cheapie and then spend thousands on upgrades. However I guess the way to go is to buy the best you can afford at the time...even if it means buying used.

Absolutely agree...... I can never understand why people would go that route!!! ???

IceCreamMan wrote: my opnion is always buy the lower of the top range than top of the lower range.

Agree again ....... I'd rather have a PRS SE than ......... nahh, won't mention names!

However, there are good brands that I would only ever consider their top end, but that's not the purpose of this thread!

MikeM wrote: Very tough situation.

In the Epi vs Gibson, I'd have to say an Epi. The MIJ Elitists are lovely guitars.

Just what I was thinking here.

Totally depends on the brand. If the brand is associated with romance but doesn't put out great low-end products? Rather an Armani T-shirt than a top end suit from Woolies? It can get pretty stupid, so you have to judge these things on their merits. Many well-known brands put out a cheapie version that's not much better than rubbish. Sometimes an entire brand can have largely gone to seed but still be expensive on name recognition.

Sometimes the lesser brands start to get really good early on. Over time they develop a reputation. And they hold their value among people who know what they're after, even if you can't sell them to the undiscerning buyer.

as you've probably noticed, this is more than just an epi v gibson discussion. someone - aubs i think - mentioned prs se's. now there's great value for money. but you might not be interested for any number of reasons. in that same price bracket are the chinese-made tokais if you're specifically looking for the lp shape, also offering great value. but you'd probably want to upgrade the odd component here and there eventually*. when you look at the japanese-made ones, you're moving up in price, and you'd probably be able to get a used american gibson for the price if you were lucky.

the best advice you'll ever get, and you've already got it, is to get the best guitar you can afford at the time. two reasons - one, you get to spend a whole whack of time playing a whole whack of different guitars until you find the best compromise between quality and price - i.e. value - and two, well, you'll end up happier in the long run, and you'll probably keep that guitar for longer. that's been my experience anyway.

good luck, and have fun.
dh

*then again, i've heard of people replacing the odd component on high-end gibsons too - even prs's get things changed around - we're a really odd bunch, ain't we - buy the perfect guitar, and change a few things around to suit our own personal taste. ain't life grand?

Ok, but what if the best guitar you can afford at the time is either a top of the range LTD, or a bottom grade ESP? (or exchange it for any other brand, Fender/Squier, PRS/PRS SE etc.)

IceCreamMan wrote: my opnion is always buy the lower of the top range than top of the lower range. This is an economic principle i try an live by.

Do you buy with intent to sell or keep for along time? I think that makes quite a difference.

Brand be damned. That's tantamount to listening with your eyes. I look at whatever is in my price range (and - to be honest - a few beyond it) and choose the one that fills my needs. One thing that does enter into it for me is I'd rather have a well made guitar with decent wood and cheaper hardware and electronics than one with cheap wood and fancy, brand-name hardware - the former gives you room for upgrade as and when you can afford it.

One acceptable reason for buying the name guitar is if you know it's something you'll sell on at some point to upgrade as the name will always help with resale.

also are you looking at new or second hand? Loads more bang for your buck by going for something that's used, but mint

I have a serious affair with Jackson, Ibanez and Charvel. The latter almost never comes up for sale, but I've tried the lower end Jackson and Ibanez models and while the woods are the same, there are as many different grades of wood used by manufacturing. I'm not too phased about hardware unless the guitar came out with something really nice like the super 58's on my artist. but the wood used and craftsmanship is more important to me than hardware.

My AR Artist is basically one down from the prestige Artist AR 3000 and sells for about R9000 new. Second hand price with a few extras put me back R2000. Minus the extras that I sold and I paid a 1/10th of the price of a new one.

I don't think that I'll ever buy a new guitar as the knock is similar to buying a new car if you're ever planning to sell it on again.

Aubs1 wrote:

Vic wrote: Only thing I wish to say is...don't buy a cheapie and then spend thousands on upgrades. However I guess the way to go is to buy the best you can afford at the time...even if it means buying used.

Absolutely agree...... I can never understand why people would go that route!!! ???

Its not always a case of thousands on upgrades though...For instance you can get a squire standard for about R3k/R4k new (thumbsuck figure since i only know second hand prices of anything) and throw in some tonerider pickups for another R1k and for R4k/R5k you have something that sounds better than a Stock MIM Strat and plays about equally well from what I've heard about the Squire standards...plus you'd pay R7k for a MIM Strat brand new. so you still have R2k/R3k worth of changing bridges and tuners and pots and nut if you like to make it far surpass the MIM strat...

As far as buying a cheapie goes though, just make sure you're getting the right wood (eg not plywood...) and that the playability and sustain unplugged is good

Donovan Banks wrote: Ok, but what if the best guitar you can afford at the time is either a top of the range LTD, or a bottom grade ESP? (or exchange it for any other brand, Fender/Squier, PRS/PRS SE etc.)

Point is, you can't claim brands are interchangeable. Even ESP's bottom of the range, all MIC, brands (Ltd. and Grassroots) have a solid reputation for a certain quality, and anything they put out with ESP as its only mark is made well, of quality materials and components, and carefully checked - as Alan points out, that doesn't make it a good guitar, just a well made one. You cannot say that for every high-end manufacturer - many of whom excrete sh^% at their bottom-end.

So it depends, and pretending otherwise doesn't do anything but make for more discussion around the fact.

p.s. 90% of Squiers are rubbish. Changing components means you get good pickups etc. that'd sound way better in a good guitar, hiding the worst of them being rubbish. Most MIMs smoke squiers, and I speak from recent experience. Put toneriders in them rather.

singemonkey wrote: p.s. 90% of Squiers are rubbish. Changing components means you get good pickups etc. that'd sound way better in a good guitar, hiding the worst of them being rubbish. Most MIMs smoke squiers, and I speak from recent experience. Put toneriders in them rather.

Wise words. I've learnt this the hard way, and THIS is why Toneriders are awesome. They're great value pups for budget guitars. Not gonna stick em in a high end guitar though.

Great topic

I think guitarists are very prejudiced (me included) and so if we had say to make all our guitar choices blindfolded (as in walk intro a shop with a budget and try out all possible guitars without knowing what make they were) we would all be pleasantly surprised by the choices made (me included)!