Why reviews for cheap guitars are garbage

[voneville]

"History lesson for the day. Epiphone's were actually around way before Gibson making high quality, low priced archtops. Since they are made overseas, they can make more for less. Which brings me to my final point"

 

taken from MF I deleted the rest of it because it's senseless babble about why gibsons are more expensive.

 

Facts: Epiphone was established in 1915, Gibson was incorporated in 1902

 

Reviews here, MF, and guitar magazines are mostly garbage (probably including my own). Some are very well written and thought out, but the truth is as the price goes up generally so do the quality of reviews.

 

-=edit=-

Not just because people don't check facts. Just in general they're bad. Very little useful information. I think they should be segregated by peer groups.

[cloudnine]

Noone wants to believe what they have sucks, even less so if it's expensive.

[seifukusha]

i never take reviews seriously, and very rarely read them.

[walfordr]

Originally posted by cloudnine Noone wants to believe what they have sucks, even less so if it's expensive.

 

 

Not many people buy what they believe sucks. Whatever the price.

[Suspicious Mail]

User reviews of cheap gear aren't garbage, I don't think, it's just that you have to apply a filter to them. It's like a game -- you have to read the review, look at the language the reviewer uses, and try to figure out who the guy/ girl on the other end of the internet is.

What you end up with is, person of type X thinks brand Y, model Z product is either "totally rad" or "a great little somethingorother for the buck." You then compare that against your own experience and determine whether you'll enjoy said product in proportion with the cash you'll have to kick out for it.

I find these reviews to be very useful, though never at face value.

[hondro]

actually, your wrong


REAL History Lesson


Epiphone established, whenever, I forget

made in Brooklyn, New York or something like that

they were Gibson's BIGGEST competitor, and both made equally nice archtops for the SAME price

by the early 50's, Gibson had jumped on the bandwagon and started making solid body electrics (LP in '52)

Epiphone was stuck in their old ways, still making archtops

by 1957, Gibson bought Epiphone, who would have filed for bankruptcy

in 1968, Gibson moved production of Epiphone guitars to Asia (Japan)

[voneville]

Originally posted by seifukusha i never take reviews seriously, and very rarely read them.

 

 

I'm starting to lean that way. Seems like a waste of time. Unfortanately I almost never have time to go to a guitar store and try out a variety of guitars before I buy. I ussually have to narrow it down to 1 or 2 models I'm interested in and go from there.

[voneville]

Originally posted by hondro actually, your wrong REAL History Lesson Epiphone established, whenever, I forget made in Brooklyn, New York or something like that they were Gibson's BIGGEST competitor, and both made equally nice archtops for the SAME price by the early 50's, Gibson had jumped on the bandwagon and started making solid body electrics (LP in '52) Epiphone was stuck in their old ways, still making archtops by 1957, Gibson bought Epiphone, who would have filed for bankruptcy in 1968, Gibson moved production of Epiphone guitars to Asia (Japan)

 

 

From the gibson website:

 

 

1915 Anastasios dies, leaving Epi in charge. Although the Epiphone brand name is still a few years in the future, the modern Epiphone company begins in 1915 when Epi takes over the family business. Brother Orphie is second in command. Frixo and Minnie will also eventually become active in the company

[vmanmurph]

Originally posted by hondro
actually, your wrong


REAL History Lesson


Epiphone established, whenever, I forget

made in Brooklyn, New York or something like that

they were Gibson's BIGGEST competitor, and both made equally nice archtops for the SAME price

by the early 50's, Gibson had jumped on the bandwagon and started making solid body electrics (LP in '52)

Epiphone was stuck in their old ways, still making archtops

by 1957, Gibson bought Epiphone, who would have filed for bankruptcy

in 1968, Gibson moved production of Epiphone guitars to Asia


Just to add to that. After the Epiphone aquisition, If you were a guitar dealer in the late 50's you could have Gibson OR Epiphone franchise; not both like it is now. Frank

[axegrinder]

Originally posted by voneville 1915 Epi takes over the family business. Brother Orphie is second in command. Frixo and Minnie will also eventually become active in the company

...The family goofballs, Groucho, Chico, and Harpo are banished from the family business. Soon thereafter they turn up on the stages of Vaudeville.

honk honk

[cloudnine]

Originally posted by axegrinder ...The family goofballs, Groucho, Chico, and Harpo are banished from the family business. Soon thereafter they turn up on the stages of Vaudeville. honk honk

:D

It really is like out of some crappy 20s novel.

[guitarNed]

I read revues all the time, and I use them in making purchase decisions. They are essential, IMO.

here's what I DON'T do: I don't pay ANY ATTENTION AT ALL to the reviewer's opinion about whether a guitar OR A FEATURE of the guitar is good or bad. Their opinion will not ever be as good as my own opinion.

I read the review to learn the feature set and objective description of a guitar or piece of gear. Even then, the reviewers often leave out features and sometimes include features that don't exist. Mostly they leave out features, when there is error.

If the item interests me, I'll do more research, looking for a company web site, and so forth.

Reviews just help me decide if I'm interested in the first place.

I do agree, FWIW, that reviews for cheap guitars are even more useless than most reviews. Some of them are truly laughable.

"I tuned up the StageSweeper X85 (superroc version, with 3X humbuckers) and asked my sound engineer to reduce the compression a bit, and add some distortion. Then I went to town, unleashing the full fury of these beautiful sweet sounding pickups. Wow. For an $89 guitar, the sound is amazing. And I marvelled at the gorgeous flame maple photo top. And so on."

[docjeff]

People are more dependent on reviews of gear than ever before because they are not auditioning guitars and amps in person before they shell out their hard earned cash. They see something on sale at MF or 123 and then google the instrument to see what others have to say.

I personally find reviews very useful--especially user reviews on HC. But I ignore the good ones and head straight for the guy that gave it low marks. I want to look at the outliers--the red flags. Even if everyone else says to ignore reviewer X because he doesn't know what he's talking about--I want to see the blood, guts, and gore.

I also appreciate it when someone on this forum goes against the grain and points out things about some of this forum's sacred cows (Agile, Rickenbacker, Gretsch) that are not so flattering. The response is predictable; other forumites who own the instrument in question often start name calling and accusing the whistle blower of everything under the sun.

But large numbers of forumites CAN be wrong about things, and sometimes it takes an independent thinker with moxie to challenge them.

If you don't beleive me, just remember that dozens of forumites got taken by an obvious scam a few months ago with the Epi Zakk Wylde deal.

[L6Sguy]

zing!

[walfordr]

Originally posted by axegrinder ...The family goofballs, Groucho, Chico, and Harpo are banished from the family business. Soon thereafter they turn up on the stages of Vaudeville. honk honk

:D

Don't forget Tele, the youngest of the bunch!

Last I heard he'd got hooked up with some chap called Bell.

[oggy]

Originally posted by voneville "History lesson for the day. Epiphone's were actually around way before Gibson making high quality, low priced archtops. Since they are made overseas, they can make more for less. Which brings me to my final point" taken from MF I deleted the rest of it because it's senseless babble about why gibsons are more expensive. Facts: Epiphone was established in 1915, Gibson was incorporated in 1902 Reviews here, MF, and guitar magazines are mostly garbage (probably including my own). Some are very well written and thought out, but the truth is as the price goes up generally so do the quality of reviews. -=edit=- Not just because people don't check facts. Just in general they're bad. Very little useful information. I think they should be segregated by peer groups.

 

It could just be because im drunk right now but, this post makes almost no sense to me.

 

Originally posted by voneville ".....Epiphone's were actually around way before Gibson making high quality, low priced archtops. Since they are made overseas, they can make more for less. Which brings me to my final point..."

Is the poster trying to say that the less expensive the gear, the worse the review is?

 

Originally posted by voneville Facts: Epiphone was established in 1915, Gibson was incorporated in 1902

 

WTF IS YOU'RE POINT?

[No Soul]

Originally posted by cloudnine Noone wants to believe what they have sucks, even less so if it's expensive.

 

 

I could not agree more

 

we dont respect respect reviews done by people who dont own the item in question, yet who wants to admit they own a POS?

[No Soul]

Originally posted by vmanmurph Originally posted by hondro Just to add to that. After the Epiphone aquisition, If you were a guitar dealer in the late 50's you could have Gibson OR Epiphone franchise; not both like it is now. Frank with good reason. Gibson had territory agreements with their dealers, and by using the Epiphone name as essentialy a different name to the same product they could establish another dealer in an existing territory.

[supercow3]

Most reviews are based or personal preference..so its subjective...so its up to the reader to see if they think they have the same taste as the reviewer

[Sonnilon]

Originally posted by seifukusha i never take reviews seriously, and very rarely read them.

 

 

I always read all the reviews I can of something before buying anything to find out if there's any sort of reoccurring problem. I was thinking of buying a Hughes & Kettner TriAmp MKII until I read a {censored}load of them had some sort of overheating problem, or something like that. I say it's always worth it to find out if something tends to have faulty components, etc.

[Virgman]

Here's an example of a useless review:

"Wow! I was hesitant to buy this guitar but for $59 I said what the heck. Right out of the box it looked great. Then I switched out the pups, put a Kramer 70's neck on it, new Sperzel tuners, replaced the bridge and installed a roller nut.

Then I hooked it up to my POD6 and man, it cranked.

I'm thinking about replacing the pickgard but why bother, it's only a $59 guitar? Very cool guitar. Buy it!"

[Uma Floresta]

Originally posted by voneville "History lesson for the day. Epiphone's were actually around way before Gibson making high quality, low priced archtops. Since they are made overseas, they can make more for less. Which brings me to my final point" taken from MF I deleted the rest of it because it's senseless babble about why gibsons are more expensive. Facts: Epiphone was established in 1915, Gibson was incorporated in 1902 Reviews here, MF, and guitar magazines are mostly garbage (probably including my own). Some are very well written and thought out, but the truth is as the price goes up generally so do the quality of reviews. -=edit=- Not just because people don't check facts. Just in general they're bad. Very little useful information. I think they should be segregated by peer groups.

 

 

The problem with a lot of gear reviews is that they're not really reviews at all, but just advertisements disguised as reviews. This is certainly the case with MF. Even the guitar mags are like that to a certain extent -- they are afraid to piss off their advertisers by giving a bad review to one of their products.

[LeftyTom]

I read the reviews, and take note of faults noted. If the same fault is noted in 3 or more reviews (assuming that are that many reviews for a model), I keep that in mind.

For example, Stagg is purportedly a quality brand in Europe (according to a review), yet several reviews note poor quality in models found on this side of the pond.

Being a lefty, and having little, if any, selection in shops in the area, I must go out on a limb and take a less-informed guess when buying.

Why, you ask? I do not know how the local shops feel about special ordering a lefty model. I won't pay any restocking fee, and I won't accept a guitar which I feel is POS. I do not want to stick the shop with a lefty model which may only take up space & collect dust.

[dimmypage]

If it sounds good, plays good and stays in tune it must be good?

[LaXu]

I think the biggest problem with many reviews aside from magazine ones (which can be skewed to favor paying advertisers etc.) is that many of the reviewers do not have extensive knowledge of guitars or amps or whatever. I mean if the only amp you've tried is a solid-state Crate then that Line6 Spider is propably going to sound pretty awesome.

Then there's the problem of honeymoon reviews (have fallen to that trap myself a few times) and the reluctance to state faults. I can find problems in all of my guitars, mostly cosmetic though.