When Is or What Makes The Term 'Upgraded' Justified.

randomhandclaps

I'm curious to know how much anyone has ever considered how often the term 'upgraded' is used and what makes it appropriate. 

If you look on any classifieds you find dozens of guitars saying "Pickups upgraded to....." for example.  Now pickups like dozens of other elements are open to taste.  What is 'better' is a matter of personal taste in 99.999999% cases.  Most commonly people will say "Pickups upgraded from stock.", but what is this really saying?  Is it an upgrade because the new parts are dearer?  Is it because there's a general consensus that X is better than Y?  Is it because product A is from a more famous/renowned manufacturer than product B?

What do you consider is justified as truly being called an upgrade?  Or is it really a term with almost no significant meaning within musical instruments that we have just learned to use to explain of justify having changed something?

frankus

anything from a capacitor swap on an electric

flat wounds on a bass.

MattG

I can see what you're saying and yes with pickups and bridges it is very much down to personal taste I "upgraded" the bridge on my tele to a 3 saddle wilkinson one, hated it and instantly went back to the standard 6 saddle variation.
pickups are very personal i changed from standard fender pickups to iron gears, i say changed not upgraded as i now have a stacked humbucker in the bridge and some people would not consider that an upgrade as it is not better per say it is different.
however certain parts i feel could be called upgrades if they are actually comparably better for example a set of cheap tuners that slip easily being replaced with a set of more reliable Gotohs i feel would constitute the term upgrade as it is not just different but actually comparably better.

Cirrus

It's down to the perceived value. If I believe what I did is an improvement, I'll consider it an upgrade and feel morally justified in doing so. Even though on an objective level it's all just different rather than better or worse.

A few examples;

If I change the hardware on my Explorer from Silver to Gold I won't call it an upgrade. It's just different and I'll call it a change.

If I change from stock pickups which are IMO mushy and easily feedback to pickups that are more defined and don't feed back, then I'll consider it an upgrade - the guitar becomes more useful.

If I change the wiring so that you can coil tap the pickup, I'll consider it an upgrade because now the guitar can do more things.

Where it gets a bit more blurred to me is if you, say, replace an output transformer in an amp. When I changed the stock AC30CC transformer for a Mercury Magnetics model I thought of it as an upgrade and the amp held together a bit better at high volume. I called it an upgrade when I sold the amp due to the price difference, my view that the amp was better now, and my understanding that Mercury Magnetics have a reputation among those who care about that kind of stuff. On the other hand, I changed the OT in my AC30hw for a Magnetic Components and I'm not sure I'd call that an upgrade if I sold the amp. I don't really hear a big difference and I think the stock transformer was actually really good anyway. Plus it's a less well known company, so it wouldn't be likely to result in a higher selling price anyway.

MattG

Cirrus said:

It's down to the perceived value. If I believe what I did is an improvement, I'll consider it an upgrade and feel morally justified in doing so. Even though on an objective level it's all just different rather than better or worse.

A few examples;

If I change the hardware on my Explorer from Silver to Gold I won't call it an upgrade. It's just different and I'll call it a change.

If I change from stock pickups which are IMO mushy and easily feedback to pickups that are more defined and don't feed back, then I'll consider it an upgrade - the guitar becomes more useful.

Depending what they are changed to i would not necessarily agree i quite like the stock pickups for some things and some people insist on installing SD Invaders or EMGS in guitars like that and would not consider either an upgrade regardless of the value of the parts.

Also i feel a case can occasionaly be made for "upgrading" to cheaper compnents that just work better like swapping out official Fender/Gibson/PRS hardware for Wilkinson/Gotoh/Schaller which commands a lower price but that some would argue is better.

Lixarto

When Cybermen do it.

randomhandclaps

Lixarto said:

When Cybermen do it.

Yeah but they don't really give you any other appealing options.

bertie

*parp*

whoops sorry thought this was the wind farm thread

Adam_MD

I think upgraded gets used a lot when they should put modded. Swopping Burstbuckers out of a Les Paul for bare knuckles is a mod, just because they prefer the bare knuckles or it suits their personal style better it isn't an upgrade. Or rather an upgrade in their opinion. Whereas swooping the nasty ceramics from a mid 90s epi Les Paul for Duncan's, oil city, bare knuckle etc is definitely an upgrade in quality and in monetary terms.

guitargeek62

I (vaguely) differentiate between "upgrades", and "modifications" as follows;

• Upgrade - the new part must be of noticeably better physical quality than the original. i.e. change from a pot-metal trem block, to a steel one.
  
• Modification - the new part is subjectively better. It may, or may not, have a tonal benefit.

I don't consider costs to be a factor; but an upgrade by the above definition would likely add perceived value, in my eyes; whereas a modification would be less likely to.

viz

I got a chinese doubleneck guitar with imitation dimarzio evos which I upgraded to real ones.

randomhandclaps

viz said:

I got a chinese doubleneck

Initially I thought you meant one of these -

http://static.neatorama.com/stacy/twins.jpg

guitarfishbay

Upgraded sounds more appealing than modified.

meltedbuzzbox

I guess in the strictest sense an upgrade would be replacing a component/part for something that is of better quality.

I like @Guitargeek62 's suggestion

p90fool

Cost. That's it.
To an engineer a Nashville bridge is an obvious upgrade over an ABR-1, but some guitar geeks will spend 200 quid on an aftermarket ABR-1 for spurious reasons like (ahem) "tone transfer" when the truth is they really just like the vintage look better.
To them its an upgrade, well until the posts collapse and it bends in the middle anyway

viz

randomhandclaps said:

viz said:

I got a chinese doubleneck

Initially I thought you meant one of these -

http://static.neatorama.com/stacy/twins.jpg

I love that film.

guitargeek62

p90fool said:

Cost. That's it.
To an engineer a Nashville bridge is an obvious upgrade over an ABR-1, but some guitar geeks will spend 200 quid on an aftermarket ABR-1 for spurious reasons like (ahem) "tone transfer" when the truth is they really just like the vintage look better.
To them its an upgrade, well until the posts collapse and it bends in the middle anyway

Nope.

That doesn't account at all for those of us who will happily swap like-for-like parts out. For instance, changing from Fender CS pickups, to a custom wound set from Oil City/Mojo etc. The latter might be cheaper; but is it an upgrade, or a mod? Or how about swapping that stock ABR-1 bridge for a Pigtail reproduction, or one with nylon saddles and a more accurate molding etc?

*edit* A more obvious example, and something that would add value to me, would be for a stock ABR-1 to be replaced with a locking Tonepros equivalent that doesn't fall off. It costs more, but any tonal benefit wouldn't be the deciding factor to me, it would be it's practicality.

timmysoft

Its got to add value if its an upgrade or have a key feature that the original doesnt. 

I totally agree on pick-ups, i've loved some very cheap pick-ups from companies like Rockfield and Wilkinson that to my ears sounded every bit as good as Duncans and Dimarzios. 

Cirrus

I wasn't saying that all stock pickups are shit, I was using a hypothetical example where they were. I agree that some are great.

p90fool

guitargeek62 said:

p90fool said:

Cost. That's it.
To an engineer a Nashville bridge is an obvious upgrade over an ABR-1, but some guitar geeks will spend 200 quid on an aftermarket ABR-1 for spurious reasons like (ahem) "tone transfer" when the truth is they really just like the vintage look better.
To them its an upgrade, well until the posts collapse and it bends in the middle anyway

Nope.

That doesn't account at all for those of us who will happily swap like-for-like parts out. For instance, changing from Fender CS pickups, to a custom wound set from Oil City/Mojo etc. The latter might be cheaper; but is it an upgrade, or a mod? Or how about swapping that stock ABR-1 bridge for a Pigtail reproduction, or one with nylon saddles and a more accurate molding etc?

*edit* A more obvious example, and something that would add value to me, would be for a stock ABR-1 to be replaced with a locking Tonepros equivalent that doesn't fall off. It costs more, but any tonal benefit wouldn't be the deciding factor to me, it would be it's practicality.

I was being sort of ironic really, though personally I wouldn't call a mod an upgrade in an advert unless it really did cost more.

One of my favourite pickups is the Dogs o' War P90, an overwound, ceramic magnet 9k pickup which they knock out for £17 a pair, and even though I've used them to replace £60 pickups I'd still hesitate to call it an upgrade, simply because they're so cheap.

guitargeek62

Exactly - they'd be a mod!

*edit* I have a Chibson on the way to me soon. I'm hoping it'll need more modifications, than upgrades!