What's the best quality cheapy you've bought and why?

Schnozz

When I was a teen a friend of mine knew I liked the old 70s Ibanez Musician basses and anything like a Tobias, so when a Cort A4 got traded in to the music shop where he worked in, he gave me a call to come down and try it out.

It cost me all of the £300 I'd earned in my part-time job and it needed some work, but my playing made great leaps with that bass and it did everything with a great comfy neck.

Last year I went searching for a quality and started looking at G&L Tributes and Squier Classic Vibes, but in the end I found myself back at Cort (ethics aside) and found the G-Series to be consistent with my late A4 - Just add a Vox Amplug and you're laughing.

Check out this £140 guitar jamming with Jeff Berlin... 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEk5rZkBxFo

I've since gone back to higher end guitars, but the fretwork on the Cort stuff is just incredible when compared with others in that price range. I've had good experiences with ESP Ltd but I haven't played anything of theirs that's sub £500, so I would be interested to hear about those too. 

thegummy

Yamaha FG800 acoustic.

Compared it to guitars costing double and more and couldn't see anything making it any lower quality than the others.

Reason I went for a cheapo is cause I don't really care about acoustic guitars, just wanted one to record "an acoustic guitar" now and then and it does that job perfectly well.

Schnozz

thegummy said:

Yamaha FG800 acoustic.

Compared it to guitars costing double and more and couldn't see anything making it any lower quality than the others.

Reason I went for a cheapo is cause I don't really care about acoustic guitars, just wanted one to record "an acoustic guitar" now and then and it does that job perfectly well.

Solid Sitka Spruce at £189...It sounds great on the videos too. I love the BB Series and the cheaper ones compete the with the Japanese, but the Pacifica has a neck profile that I can't get on with (wide/thin), so I had to discount them from my search.

That FG is nice though and I may have to try one out - I don't have an acoustic.

Phil_aka_Pip

http://i1202.photobucket.com/albums/bb376/musophilr/BowwoodSG.jpg

Cheap Chinese Plank. Cosmetic Finish: Good for the price Tone Quality: Quite acceptable (especially when covered with FX;) )Playbility: OK, except for high fret access Intonation: Good. Best usage: recording a heavy jingle for Ipswich Community Radio

EDIT cost me £100 + a setup  by Colin Fulton

Neill

Epiphone LP100 - back in the 1990's can't remember how much it was but it it was cheap.  Korean made. Didn't sound like a Les Paul at all more like a really hot Telecaster, absolutely monster sound for a bargain basement guitar.  Can't think for the life of me why I sold it.  The ebony ones go for next to nothing on ebay it really is amazing what you can get for your money these days.

Sassafras

A 2nd hand Vintage AV-2. Got it for just under a £100 and it plays like it should cost 8 times that much. The only downside is I'm not mad on its full humbucker mode sound.

mort

2015 LP Junior £280.

I imagine the other lucky sods who snagged one at that price agree 

stimpsonslostson

Vintage Vs6mrpcr... Sg Jr copy that'd had "the treatment" by Raygun Relics. Brilliant thing, so good I bought it twice! 

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DRCeBcKW0AAC9-e.jpg

HarrySeven

Donkey's years old £15 JHS Vintage SG (as posted previously on here) - feels great, plays great, neck profile fits my hand like a glove. Love it.

antonyiv

G&L S-500 Tribute for 250.

rossi

Keiper 109 .Full hollow Les Paul sized f hole bedecked jazzer .60 quid from Gumtree

munckee

Bought a £105 harley benton 335 copy, was really good except the pickuos, paid £100 for seymour duncan vintage blues and £45 for gibson pearloid tuners, great guitar sounds brilliant.

bingefeller

ESP-M50 that I got for around £350 in the early 2000s.  I still have it although, for some reason, I filed nut slot away on the high E string so I need to fix that with some baking soda and glue.  

It has pretty high frets, plays well, the neck is solid and it sounds decent.  

ICBM

A Chinese Squier 'Double Fat' Strat. I paid £50 for it second hand, and although admittedly I did change the pickups it was more so I could easily fit PRS-type 5-way switching (the stock pickups don't have 4-conductor cable) than because the original ones were no good. The rest of it was perfect, and it played and sounded just as good as my PRS.

JD50

Either a Fender Japan Jazzmaster £150 or a Korean Epi Sheraton £140.
Enjoyed and modded them for a few years before selling on to finance a pre CBS Jaguar.

scrumhalf

Squier bullet Strat thing frmo Soho Soundhouse about 30 years ago for less than £100. There were some cracks in the body but not one of them moved or widened in the many years I used it. It had a bridge humbucker and on investigation it turned out that it had an extra wire that enabled me to tap it with a microswitch.

I changed the bridge saddles for ones with fine tuning and added a nut lock. It was very stable, regardless of how much shred-era whammy wangling I inflicted on it. Now I come to think of it I swapped the middle and neck single cloils for some Kent Armstrong ones.

I retired it when the neck wear became too great to be able to play the high E properly.

I'm not getting misty-eyed with nostalgia.

Koa

I must be tired.....read the heading as what’s the best chippy you’ve ever had.....now there’s a thread. 
Almost said Rick Steins in Newquay but then I remembered there’s a fantastic place in Helensburgh on the west coast of Scotland that gives you a ticket while they freshly cook your order

Funkfingers

Probably the Yamaha Attitude Plus bass guitar for £120. Upgrade with a Gotoh 201B bridge, an American pickup and, possibly, an active EQ and it'll embarrass a Mexican Fender Precision.

Whitecat

New-old-stock Knaggs Kipawa acoustic for £240 on eBay. Ex-distributor was blowing out some old inventory and I had a 20% off voucher at the time too. 

(They were around £1200 new, so it also counts as “best deal ever.”)

They were made by Godin to Joe’s design/spec. Really nice guitar - at least on par with any of the top Simon & Patrick offerings. 

PhilKing

1960 Les Paul Junior for $250 - many years ago and had the worst yellow finish ever, plus a headstock crack that was showing through.  I gave it to @WezV and I gave him an original Gibson Les Paul Junior decal that I'd had for about 20 years.  He stripped it and fixed the crack and sent it for a refin and it came back like it was just out of the factory.  

rawk100

Fret King Blue Label Eclipse for £295, great quality and it plays really well and sounds great..