Mid Tier Guitar rant...

[GOHOINC]

Business are only businesses if they turn a profit. Add the fact that they don’t sell direct and the stores maybe pay about 60 percent of what you do. Let’s see how much it would cost you to assemble a Charvel with an OFR and I suspect you’ll be at or more what the store are charging and you won’t be even be touching payroll, taxes, leases and utilities.

I can tell you exactly how much. I've put two together. One Pro Mod San Dimas and one SoCal. I sourced the parts from Ebay over a few months. I have less than $500 in each guitar. I will give you that I have a ton of pickups laying around my house, so I didn't have to purchase those for the build. I suppose that my real rant boils down to this... 10 years ago, guitars in this price range seemed to be more of a value. I have a hard time wrapping my head around $4k Les Pauls, $1,600 US Strats and so on. I love my 2020 Sweetwater US Professional Strat. Its a great guitar. However, it is not a higher quality guitar compared to the 2003 US Strat that I owned and payed $1,000 for new. I understand inflation... but it seems to me that right now the guitar market has raised prices at a much higher rate than other markets. Which is why I usually buy used these days. I also understand that business is in business to make money. I am mainly griping about a small issue that I have. I also know that spending an extra $190 to make a good guitar great is a small price to pay.

Basic economics. The market of people buying mid tier guitars has shown they will still buy at those price points without an ofr. Does the quality or complaint data indicate a real world performance difference between the ofr and others? If not why would we expect the company to use a more expensive part for what data shows is not a real quality issue and only a perception of quality based on name?

 

[scottosan]

Business are only businesses if they turn a profit. Add the fact that they don’t sell direct and the stores maybe pay about 60 percent of what you do. Let’s see how much it would cost you to assemble a Charvel with an OFR and I suspect you’ll be at or more what the store are charging and you won’t be even be touching payroll, taxes, leases and utilities.

I can tell you exactly how much. I've put two together. One Pro Mod San Dimas and one SoCal. I sourced the parts from Ebay over a few months. I have less than $500 in each guitar. I will give you that I have a ton of pickups laying around my house, so I didn't have to purchase those for the build. I suppose that my real rant boils down to this... 10 years ago, guitars in this price range seemed to be more of a value. I have a hard time wrapping my head around $4k Les Pauls, $1,600 US Strats and so on. I love my 2020 Sweetwater US Professional Strat. Its a great guitar. However, it is not a higher quality guitar compared to the 2003 US Strat that I owned and payed $1,000 for new. I understand inflation... but it seems to me that right now the guitar market has raised prices at a much higher rate than other markets. Which is why I usually buy used these days. I also understand that business is in business to make money. I am mainly griping about a small issue that I have. I also know that spending an extra $190 to make a good guitar great is a small price to pay.

i can’t imagine you put together a Charvel for 500 without buying used parts. A German OFR is already $200, not including the nit. A set of new pickups by a brand name is $150. New tuners $30. You are already at $400 and don’t have a neck and body yet. I’ve owned enough Charvels to know that while you can put a clone but you can’t skimp on the neck or else you end up with an okay playing lookalike. On the other hand, I just spent nearly $1500 for top tier parts on my last build.

 

[Rock Bodom]

I think we are also assuming that the majority of people who buy these production models even know the difference between things like a German and Korean Floyd, or have the same levels of experience with both a lot of us do, much less have the skills and desire to do parts builds or a lot of mods. Probably a lot more questions from would be buyers out there on what's the difference between a Floyd Rose Special versus a 1000, than "how do I keep the bar tight on a Korean Floyd."

A lot of people just want a guitar to buy and play, and fits a budget and experience level.

 

[scottosan]

I think we are also assuming that the majority of people who buy these production models even know the difference between things like a German and Korean Floyd, or have the same levels of experience with both a lot of us do, much less have the skills and desire to do parts builds or a lot of mods. Probably a lot more questions from would be buyers out there on what's the difference between a Floyd Rose Special versus a 1000, than "how do I keep the bar tight on a Korean Floyd."

A lot of people just want a guitar to buy and play, and fits a budget and experience level.

In most cases building guitars and amps is not cheaper than buying a cheap or mid tier gear. It’s not until you get into the boutique prices where it’s cheaper, but obtaining similar results becomes harder. I’ve been scouring the classifieds for used parts and see a crap ton of otherwise high quality parts screwed up during builds.

 

[Rock Bodom]

I think we are also assuming that the majority of people who buy these production models even know the difference between things like a German and Korean Floyd, or have the same levels of experience with both a lot of us do, much less have the skills and desire to do parts builds or a lot of mods. Probably a lot more questions from would be buyers out there on what's the difference between a Floyd Rose Special versus a 1000, than "how do I keep the bar tight on a Korean Floyd."

A lot of people just want a guitar to buy and play, and fits a budget and experience level.

In most cases building guitars and amps is not cheaper than buying a cheap or
mid tier gear. It’s u til you get into the boutique prices where it’s cheaper, but obtaining similar results becomes harder. I’ve been scouring the classifieds for used parts and see a crap ton of otherwise high quality parts screwed up during builds.

Fully agree