I just bought the squire Stratocaster by fender. Originally they were made in Indonesia but now they’re made in China. I got to admit it’s one heck of a guitar. It’s a keeper. It has that fender sound seriously it has that true fender sound and the workmanship on it I guess I was really lucky because there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. In the case that comes with it this is squire case it’s not the best type of case but it’s a little padded and the final word I have to say on it is that these guitars they’ve actually doubled in price since a pre-covid prices
They’re not cheap no more really they are not cheap no more.

20 years ago “Made in China” meant it was junk. But those days are gone, I buy a lot of stuff from Temu and AliExpress (the Chinese competitors of Amazon), and all of it has been seriously good quality. Same for guitars. My local guitar shop in New Zealand sells lots of Chinese guitars, and even the cheapest ones are fairly good quality. Honestly, I’d rather give my money to China than Jeff Bezos.

I can’t comment too much on electric guitars but my experience with acoustic guitars is much more comprehensive,
I’ve always believed the best acoustic is one which sounds good and feels good to play. You just know almost instantly when you’ve picked up a good guitar, and that doesn’t mean it has to have a premium brand name on the headstock.

To buy a hand-made acoustic is going to cost you a reasonable slice of your hard-earned pension but with computer technology together with the time-old tradition of ‘benchmarking’ and ‘best practice’, mass produced guitars nowadays can be equal and sometimes better than hand built ones.
Nobody has exploited this opportunity quite so much as the manufacturers in the far east.

I believe the best guitar for you is one with which you’re comfortable with, that is tone, feel and price. Some musicians want value for money others want boutique brands but either way, with today’s manufacturing techniques, that doesn’t seem to jeopardise the all important aspects of ‘tone and feel’.

Richard

I have that Eastman T486 on my radar for sure. You can change the pickups out for Gibson pickups, and it would be very hard to tell the difference between the two sound wise but I probably wouldn’t even do that as the stock picks are just fine. I like the way Eastman does the neck with laminated maple which would make it much more resistant to humidity changes. The price in dollars is currently around $1,840 for a new one. Might be able to get a used one even cheaper but that’s a whole lot more reasonable than paying $3,500 for the Gibson.