Sorry if I'm taking this the wrong way, and I mean no offence at all by what I'm about to say as we seem to have always gotten on the few times we've met and you seem like a decent bloke :), but is this really implying that anything less than £4k - £5k etc is a 'cheaper' guitar and not necessarilly made of decent materials and not built well?
If that's the case then it's a bit in bad taste imo as few of us (as far as I know atleast) can afford anything near that for a single guitar and have to 'make do' with what we have. I don't know many people that would consider a £1000 - £2000 guitar cheap!
Brow - sorry matey, I didn't mean what I said to come across in any way "high and mighty" and belittle anyone on this here good forum :)
It's this old cost vs tone thing, that people have different views on. My own
personal view is that the quality of the wood, and the preparation of it for making a guitar, is everything. The people who seem to get this consistently right seem to be the likes of Suhr/Fender CS/PRS/Martin acoustics etc. They tend to cost a bit more, in part due to the higher cost of the raw materials, plus cost of the time spent sorting, drying and grading the wood. The less desireable wood gets passed to the cheaper guitars. Fender is a prime example here, using a sliding scale of Custom Shop/USA reissue/USA/Highway One/Mexican.
There are great guitars at all price points, but I've found the better tone and more inspiring instruments for me to be the more expensive ones. By that, I mean the £1000+ price range.
And just for sake of the newer folks here on the board, I own a range of guitars from Francine at £5k down to an Epiphone SG which cost me £375 (before I started upgrading it). I regularly gig the Epi in my 'DC band, and have no plans to swap it for anything else.
DemosKratia - the Les Paul will be regularly played, and will definitely get out for a gig now and again :)
