I’ve been on Team Cheap Guitar for a long time.
I own a veritable mom-and-pop shop’s worth of $200-$500 guitars — enough that I’m not entirely sure of the exact count (it’s somewhere north of a dozen). In fact, to this day, I’ve never paid more than $600 for a single guitar, amp, or pedal.
And I can tell you with certainty that everything I own plays and sounds just fine.
Furthermore, in close to 30 years of playing, I’ve never had even a single person give me a hard time for playing an Epiphone instead of a Gibson or a Squier instead of a Fender.
(Side note: I do have a Fender — an acoustic guitar, their budget parlor model, which comes in at under $200 and is great to take camping. But I digress…)
The truth is, there are so many great affordable guitars now that there seems to be no reason to spend thousands of dollars on a top-of-the-line instrument.
But then last year, I bought an Epiphone SG that really amazed me. And I began thinking, how different would a Gibson SG be? The Epiphone is amazing — would a Gibson be better than amazing?
I also started to realize that there were realistic scenarios whereby I could, for the first time in my life, afford an American-made guitar if I so chose.
But what about those great-playing-yet-easy-on-the-budget imports that I love and cherish? Wouldn’t I be wasting my money to buy one guitar worth four or five others that in all honestly played just fine? Or was I starting the transition to Team Expensive Guitar?
This got me thinking about the reasoning behind the choice to buy (or not buy) an expensive guitar. I’ve almost always stuck within a self-imposed $500-per-instrument limit, but that was more a factor of my disposable income than anything.
So are there any valid reasons to purchase a US-made guitar when a cheaper import version exists?
To that end, I’ve come up with a list of pros and cons when it comes to buying a high-end guitar, along with some commentary on each one. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this subject, too, so feel free to leave a comment!
Reasons not to buy an expensive guitar
It will make you a better player.
True, a better guitar will help you play better…to a point.
A $75 Glarry is probably going to hamper your ability to play with extremely high action, terrible intonation and fretwork, and so on.
A $200 Squier will likely play decently but will need work to get it up to par (unless playing on gritty frets and cheap tuners is your thing, in which case, good for you!).
A $500 Epiphone or PRS SE will almost certainly play well out of the box.
But once you go above that $500 mark, the law of diminishing returns starts to kick in. You end up paying for accouterments and flourishes that look cool but provide little benefit in the actual playing of the instrument.
There is just no real-world scenario where a $2,000 Gibson is four times better than a $500 Epiphone. Realistically, it might be 5–10 percent better when it comes to playability, and slightly more when it comes to components.
But past a certain point, you’re paying for a decal. If becoming a better player is your main goal, it’s probably good to stick with that $500 axe and just practice more.
Everyone will know if you play an inexpensive guitar and will laugh at you behind your back.
Unless you are talking with a fellow guitar nerd, absolutely no one knows or cares about guitar brands.
Ninety-nine percent of people on Planet Earth couldn’t tell a Les Paul from a Danelectro, much less a Squier from a Fender. And the only people who would judge or laugh at you for such a faux pas are guitar snobs, and who the hell cares what they think?
Virtually no one cares what the name on your guitar’s headstock is. You could rock a Harley Benton and the audience would be oblivious. (Heck, everybody thought Slash played a Gibson for years.)
So if looking cool in front of other people is your bag, there are better ways to accomplish it than forking over a couple grand for a gold-top Les Paul.
Expensive guitars are the only quality guitars on the market.
This was probably true in 1985. It’s demonstrably false in 2023.
Factories in China and Indonesia have gotten very good at making guitars. And with the advent of CNC machines, the same exact neck or body can be made anywhere in the world. You can find $200 guitars that will blow your mind (I’m looking at you, Harley Benton).
The main difference in quality at different price points is how much hands-on time and QC work the company is willing to pay for. But all that does is reduce the odds of flaws or mistakes getting through. You can still find amazing guitars for cheap and expensive guitars with obvious quality defects.
We’re getting to the point that even budget guitars often have extremely good quality, which means spending a ton is no longer necessary to get a good-playing instrument.
Reasons to buy an expensive electric guitar
You are a professional musician.
Okay, I admit it — if making music were my day job, I would purchase the absolute best gear I could possibly afford. I’d probably even make payments. It’s my livelihood, after all, and I would want the best tools for the job.
But even then, I would still probably use less expensive guitars on tour and leave the primo ones for home and studio use.
You look at your guitar collection with resale value in mind.
If you are an actual guitar collector, it makes sense to stick with the big brands (e.g., Gibson, Fender) because they tend to hold their value over time. From an investment standpoint, expensive guitars are absolutely the way to go.
You’ll never make your money back on a Squier Bullet, but a 1990s Ibanez JEM? That’s not a bad spot to park your cash.
You just want one.
At the end of the day, this is the trump card. Buying a guitar is always an emotional decision, not a rational one.
No one needs a guitar. We can all live without them. Rather, we buy guitars because we like them and they bring us joy. And because of that, no justification is required (except maybe to your spouse).
This is where I’m at in my journey. I love all my cheap and mid-range guitars, but I would also like to own a more expensive guitar at some point — just because I want to.
But here’s the thing — that’s okay. I’m learning that for many decisions, “I want to” (and its corollary, “I don’t want to”) can be its own justification.
Focus on what you want, and to heck with other people
The bottom line is, if you have the money and can afford a high-end guitar, then great — buy it and enjoy it!
And if you’d rather spend less, get a more affordable instrument that you can still enjoy, and pocket the difference, then great — do that!
But don’t think 1) that your choice is somehow better (or worse) than the next person’s or 2) that you need to justify your choice of guitar to anyone (or they to you).
Instead, the better approach is to enjoy the guitar you have, buy what you want, and don’t worry about what anyone else does or says. I promise you will at least be a happier player as a result. 🙂
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