Pro audio, hifi, "audiophile", guitars, whatever. Favorites among affordable gear and most hated expensive junk. Go.

I'm a life long Mid-grade quality gear buyer. I've never paid crazy premium prices for grade A shit, and try to stay away from garbage. It's a sweet spot. I love gear that has huge utility fir the dollar, but if you trim too low, you get no return. I don't own a guitar that cost me more than 500 bucks. Amps either. I think the most expensive thing I've ever bought is my MOTU 16a or just the money I have in my DAW tower.

I wouldn't say Overpriced Crap but in the last few years I've let myself just buy the more expensive thing because I got tired of hacks and mods and shit. It felt nice 'splurging' on a used American Standard Strat a few years back with everything already in order, and the instrument just immediately felt more robust than my MIMs and Squiers with swapped out pickups, hardware, and whatnot.

I've still never paid over a grand for anything at once though (drum kit stuff might exceed that but it was bought piecemeal over time).

For budget quality, the ultimate winner for me would have to be the Spitfish de-esser plugin, it's 18 years old and cost nothing. Still use it all the time in mastering. I have loads of other great plugins, but none of them were free and none of them are old enough to vote.

I don't wanna say PRS guitars are overpriced crap but I had one briefly back in the mid 90s and I very quickly grew to hate it. I'm sure they're fine guitars but I've been totally biased against them ever since. I traded that thing in for my strat, which I still have and love.

Just as far as MIM, I have to say....I recently got a player series Jaguar, and 2 Charvels (owned by Fender), all made at the factory in Mexico, and all 3 are great, really nice workmanship on all of them. Stock bridge on the Jaguar was comical garbage, so I had to replace that, but otherwise all 3 were terrific out of the box.

And in the budget crap category, last year I got a Gretsch Streamliner 2, was about 500 bucks. It's very pretty and sounds nice, but their QC sucks, the first one I got died completely after a half hour, I returned it and got another, which ALSO has issues, it's cut out a few times. Sharp fret ends, junk electronics (volume/tone knobs are all basically on/off switches), shitty bridge, doesn't stay in tune. Looks nice on the stand, doesn't get played much.

Epiphone electrics I tried from around 2007-8 I recall having really unpleasant feeling feet wire. I’m not sure if it was stainless or what, but I really disliked it.

A friend of mine recently got a non-Studio Les Paul, and while it has nothing wrong with it, it also has nothing that surpasses the recent Epiphones.

penningtron wrote: Mon Sep 27, 2021 7:22 am ...but in the last few years I've let myself just buy the more expensive thing because I got tired of hacks and mods and shit.

It's really nice to be able to do this, but mileage varies. When I was younger and considered all of my income disposable I bought some expensive guitars. A few gibsons and a non-electromatic Gretsch. They're all nice, but the Gibsons are definitely overpriced for what you get back from them. Conversely, I got an Epiphone LP doublecut with p90s used for $148 from an Sam Ash of all places, and a MIJ strat with a single Seymour Duncan JB and only a vol knob from a friend for $100 and those two are easily my preferred guitars.

The hacks and mods are kind of my lifeblood though. Not so much with guitars, though I do upgrade this or that occasionally, but some things are only accessible via DIY. I regularly scour listings for "broken" or "As-Is" gear and occasionally get lucky. Stuff that just doesn't turn on is usually an easy power supply related fix, "Cutting out", bad connection somewhere. You'd be amazed how many condenser mics are broken until you try phantom power, I got a Sanken SDC and at least 3 Oktava's this way.

thecr4ne wrote: Mon Sep 27, 2021 10:45 am It's really nice to be able to do this, but mileage varies. When I was younger and considered all of my income disposable I bought some expensive guitars. A few gibsons and a non-electromatic Gretsch. They're all nice, but the Gibsons are definitely overpriced for what you get back from them.

Yeah.. the distance between entry level and 'real' Gibsons has made me a for-the-most-part hater for all of my life. I wouldn't fault anyone for modding the fuck out of an Epiphone or copy.

But I figure I probably made up for the cost difference between import and American Fenders with aftermarket parts and time investment. It can be fun learning the ins and outs of guitars, but at this point and with an ok job I'd rather just open up the case and play it.

I vary on this:

Generally on new guitars, the pricey ones aren't worth it. You have to go vintage to feel the difference. Hence my growing stable of MIM/Asia guitars with swapped parts.

Plenty of affordable awesome dynamic microphones. On condensers and ribbons I've found ponying up the cash is well worth it (think of MXL vs. Josephson).

For outboard stuff I generally hate the prosumer stuff that started coming out in the late 90's into the 2000's. There are plenty of affordable things that do good work: Symetrix 501, DBX 160 series, TC Electronic/Yamaha digital effects, Effectron delay etc. I really love fancy pants preamps, and compressors though.

Drums and cymbals are inescapably locked quality to price unless you find a weird deal somewhere.

Overpriced crap all the way with an oceanic caveat that you really need to have the knowledge and / or experience to choose wisely. Just blindly buying based on the price tag is dumb (though this mentality does seem to be keeping Gibson in business).

A lot of my gear now is high(er) end stuff, but that's after years of experimenting / playing around with cheaper models and figuring out what sound I want and how to get it. I feel this process has made me appreciate the nice things a lot more and has made me confident about splashing my cash.

I've been playing guitar for nearly 40 years, and I've owned £1000 plus guitars, and £100 minus guitars and I swear that if they are set up nicely, I can't tell the difference. £1000 Les Paul sounds posh, but a £1000 Jaguar doesn't, so it isn't that.

I dunno. Probably my ears!