'Boutique gear' general grumpy rant.

[Philly Q]

From a $$ and ding-paranoia perpective I'd rather have a Squier Tele with Piledrivers than a Fender Custom Shop Tele with Piledrivers!

No ding-paranoia if you get a Relic. 

It would have to be the Custom Shop for me (funds permitting) because I really dislike the neck profiles on the vast majority of regular Fenders (and Squiers).

[Twinfan]

Exactly.  Straight away that would probably help me identify which guitar was which.

[Dave Sloven]

I knew someone with a Tele with a really round neck profile like a baseball bat, but the ones I've picked up in shops didn't feel as bad as that.  Or maybe that round neck is what people like?  I just remember thinking I didn't like the neck on his Tele like that on my Explorer.

[Dmoney]

horses for courses. Some people like massive necks and some don't. I don't like the feel of the Custom Shop strats I've played. I don't really like super skinny generally small necks but I don't like the biggest ones either. Hence why I like Norlin era Gibsons maybe? The cost of a guitar obviously doesn't mean you get a 'better' neck profile.

[MDV]

I can definitely tell the difference between a 128kbps or 160kbps MP3 and a 192kbps MP3.  Once you get above that it becomes more a matter of how good the equipment you are listening to with is.  In a car stereo for example with road noise etc 192kbps is absolutely fine.!

How did you come to that conclusion though?

Did you know which was which beforehand?

I don't question that you can do it, I'm just curious how you came to the conclusion. I can tell those differences fairly easily, and the difference between 320kbs LAME mp3 and FLAC, but I know that I can because I've done ABX testing with the same songs in different file formats using this http://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_abx

That told me that I can tell the difference, but while it wasnt that hard most of the time, it was harder than I thought and while the stats showed that I could, on the whole, tell the difference, I got quite a few wrong.

FWIW I cant tell the difference between the best Vorbis encoding and FLAC, but I thought that I could before I double-blind tested it :). Differences that I believed were there just vanished when the only thing I had to go on was purely sonic information, with no idea what I was really listening to. Granted I was impressed with vorbis beforehand and the differences I thought I could hear were small, but small or not I genuinely heard them...but only when I knew which was which before listening ;).

If you know which is which beforehand, you will be biased. You can't avoid it; you will actually hear differences that aren't there. You will still hear differences even if you are aware of perception bias.

With guitars, there is a feel-factor of course. But then, if your hearing can be so easily fooled by your eyes and preconceptions, how reliable is feel? You see a multi-thousand pound pricetag, and of course you expect better 'feel', but do you actually perceive there being a difference because you expected it? Bearing in mind that your interpretation of your sensory experience will be distorted by your expectation (you really will feel a difference if you expect to), theres no way to tell but double-blind.

The same sort of thing happens with wines as well.

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2011/10/you-are-not-so-smart-why-we-cant-tell-good-wine-from-bad/247240/

[Twinfan]

With guitars, there is a feel-factor of course. But then, if your hearing can be so easily fooled by your eyes and preconceptions, how reliable is feel? You see a multi-thousand pound pricetag, and of course you expect better 'feel', but do you actually perceive there being a difference because you expected it? Bearing in mind that your interpretation of your sensory experience will be distorted by your expectation (you really will feel a difference if you expect to), theres no way to tell but double-blind.

Who really cares if you get 'deceived' by your eyes and hands and the preconceived bias?  If you've bought a nice guiyar/amp and it gives you that warm glow when you play then it's all good, right?

[MDV]

With guitars, there is a feel-factor of course. But then, if your hearing can be so easily fooled by your eyes and preconceptions, how reliable is feel? You see a multi-thousand pound pricetag, and of course you expect better 'feel', but do you actually perceive there being a difference because you expected it? Bearing in mind that your interpretation of your sensory experience will be distorted by your expectation (you really will feel a difference if you expect to), theres no way to tell but double-blind.

Who really cares if you get 'deceived' by your eyes and hands and the preconceived bias?  If you've bought a nice guiyar/amp and it gives you that warm glow when you play then it's all good, right?

Sure, if you like. it all comes down to if you like it at the end of the day. But, I prefer to have some foundation or confidence in the reality of a benefit from a piece of kit, so wherever I can I try to strip it down to just hearing, and if I can hear the difference and like the difference then all the better. I like to know that I like a thing for reasons that really exist. Tricking yourself is fine for a while, unless for whatever reason the rose tinted glasses come off and you wonder what the hell you were thinking :lol: (been there, done that!).

I don't require anyone else to agree. I do think its important to be aware of this sort of thing, because it can very easily change your decisions. Up to any given person as to whether they want to use the information though.

[Dave Sloven]

I can definitely tell the difference between a 128kbps or 160kbps MP3 and a 192kbps MP3.  Once you get above that it becomes more a matter of how good the equipment you are listening to with is.  In a car stereo for example with road noise etc 192kbps is absolutely fine.!

How did you come to that conclusion though?

Did you know which was which beforehand?

I don't question that you can do it, I'm just curious how you came to the conclusion.

I can always hear a whooshing mushy sound in 160kbps and lower. I don't know the technical term for it.  192kbps and above I can't hear that.  I can pick differences, sure, but it generally depends on the quality of the speakers and the noise in the environment.  But 128kbps and 160kbps always sound awful to my ears.

[Twinfan]

I prefer to have some foundation or confidence in the reality of a benefit from a piece of kit, so wherever I can I try to strip it down to just hearing, and if I can hear the difference and like the difference then all the better. I like to know that I like a thing for reasons that really exist.

Making music is much more about emotions than science though?

[Philly Q]

horses for courses. Some people like massive necks and some don't. I don't like the feel of the Custom Shop strats I've played. I don't really like super skinny generally small necks but I don't like the biggest ones either. Hence why I like Norlin era Gibsons maybe? The cost of a guitar obviously doesn't mean you get a 'better' neck profile.

I agree, not "better", it's down to personal taste.  But with Custom Shop models you do at least get a choice - not in the sense of "pick your body wood, pick your colour, pick your neck profile", but they do make guitars with a wide variety of different neck shapes.

Whereas with virtually all Fender American Standards your choice is "Modern C" profile or nothing.  Squier and Fender Mexico are similar.  Pretty much the only cheaper Fender models with chunky necks are the Baja Tele, Robert Cray Strat and Kenny Wayne Shepherd Strat (there are probably others I haven't tried).

[JDC]

adding more bends and playing blues licks doesn't make it more emotional, it just means it has bends in it

[Twinfan]

You've missed my point JDC.  I'm saying that playing a song for any genre is all about the emotions and feel of the song in question and how you as the player gets that across.  Part of that is how inspired you are to pour your heart out via your gear.

That sort of emotional stuff is not really measurable in a scientific way.

[Dmoney]

horses for courses. Some people like massive necks and some don't. I don't like the feel of the Custom Shop strats I've played. I don't really like super skinny generally small necks but I don't like the biggest ones either. Hence why I like Norlin era Gibsons maybe? The cost of a guitar obviously doesn't mean you get a 'better' neck profile.

I agree, not "better", it's down to personal taste.  But with Custom Shop models you do at least get a choice - not in the sense of "pick your body wood, pick your colour, pick your neck profile", but they do make guitars with a wide variety of different neck shapes.

Whereas with virtually all Fender American Standards your choice is "Modern C" profile or nothing.  Squier and Fender Mexico are similar.  Pretty much the only cheaper Fender models with chunky necks are the Baja Tele, Robert Cray Strat and Kenny Wayne Shepherd Strat (there are probably others I haven't tried).

I didn't realise that about fender. The CS I played just didn't sit right with me. I'm not up on guitars so much. I just know what I like when I play it. I think the most expensive guitars I've played where probably in the region of 12K, but they sucked to play although they were vintage instruments. I didn't know their worth til after I'd played them either. After owning a few amps and guitars due to impulse buys and so on, I'm pretty settled on what I know works for me now, which is something I'm kind of glad about.

It's also cool knowing I can spend a bit and build an amp myself that would otherwise cost in the region of £4K and be incredibly close soundwise to the original (valve differences probably causing most difference soncically) and so far I've prefered that circuit to any other amp I've played, so if I want another... I can make my own! People who haven't heard my amps side by side will winge and come up with wild ideas about how they can't possibly be similar sounding or as good quality as each other, but they are wrong.

I have no problem with paying money for something that makes you feel good for whatever reason, I got my SLO for more reasons than just tone ,reliability and playability but I'm under no illusion I can get the same sound etc out of something that costs much less (though still not cheap). A few pages back there was an argument to say that even up to and over £10K for guitar there are still perceivable differences in feel, sustain and tone although you might have to be blessed or cursed to make them out. That is surely a physical thing, rather than an emotional thing?

[JDC]

For me the emotion of a song is more down to the overall scale of the song and the overall tone of that family of instrument, ie an electric guitar can never sound as sad as a piano

[Twinfan]

Dmoney - I think it's a physical thing, but MDV is saying my eyes, ears and hands are playing tricks on me  ;)

JDC - I dunno, anything played in D minor on any instrument is sad.  it is, after all, the saddest of all keys...