Nostalgia.
Nostalgia encompasses everything. Ads, consumer choices, life choices...everything.
Its almost a disease.
Fender said it best that they are making the best guitars right now. You can say they are pushing that to drive purchases but you cant argue the fact they are more consistent than back in the day. You can see Nostalgia at work with Fender pushing those vintage inspired, reliced, originals series etc.
Same for Gibson.
Gotta clear that heady brew called Nostalgia but I cant help it. The big 2 got me by the balls or shall we say Nostalgia.
sorry but there are a lot of misses here.
of course Fender will claim that. if they do not, walang bibili. lol
but many know its a hunting game and a numbers game, even at the highest category of Fender or Gibson, finding a good guitar is still a game of probability.
the truth is:
every batch of guitars, whether vintage, modern, low volume hand built, has lemons and gems ganun din sa mga vintage amps and pedals
One big store here in Oz laughed at me and said, the same thing: that Fender makes the best guitars now.
So i brought my late 80s Fender vintage re-issue. it smoked their 8,000 dollar Fender Custom Shops. ang payat tumunog. yung mga matataba tumunog, ngo ngo naman. that's considering it was plugged through a modern fender amp. hindi pa lumang amp. e di tameme yung mga salesmen.
That problem kasi here is personal long term exposure. parang taong hindi pa nakakapunta ng USA, eh nakabasa lang sa internet, mas marunong pa sa naninirahan sa USA. lol
ang question here talaga is, gaano ba kalawak ang exposure ng isang tao (personal experience) sa vintage para masabi niya ano ang panget o hindi?
this is something we have to ask ourselves. teka ilan na ba nahawakan kong magaganda na vintage?
ako it took time before my ear appreciated vintage guitars and high end guitars na sinasabi ni alex na may hiyaw.
another example.
meron din akong early 70s Fender i knew it was special But there was a part of me that wanted to be sure. it was a good thing i lived near some vintage and used guitar stores. and one day, may LIMA na models of the same year and make na pumasok sa store. i rushed to the store
and asked to play all 5. ang layo. tunog modern yung limang early 70s fender na yun. patay tumunog.
then a few months later, i got to talk to the manager of the vintage store infront of that store, he said he has a personal early 70s fender of the same year and model. nag request siya if i can bring mine so we can compare.
so dinala ko. dead sounding yung kanya. then we compared it to other early 70s model fenders in the store. patay.
now that store manager HATES stratocasters. lahat ng employees doon and even the owner says so. lol so one day dinala ko yung pre-cbs strat ko doon for the store manager to play.
he said, "i hate a strats. i've played a lot of them during my career, never really got to like them. but i'll make an exception to yours. i like your strat"
so the point of my kwento is, at my end, instead of arguing, i chose to go out and gain exposure and experience. theoretical arguments will be theoretical arguments. never ending yan.
youtube will never capture the true sound of good instruments. (unfortunately, wala yata tayong mga vintage guitar stores sa pilipinas na pwede kang pumasok at mag test ng vintage guitars. at kung meron man, baka hindi naman mag pahawak. )
and ang vintage sound parang tao yan. you need to spend a lot of personal time to get to know the characteristics of good sounding vintage guitars.