Budget Guitars vs High-End Models:
Key Differences and How to Choose
What’s the deal with budget-priced guitars?
It’s not all about the name on the guitar, it’s how it feels and sounds when you play it. Why you don’t always need a big brand name on your guitar. Freya Guitars deliver superb value for your money.
Growing up, I was always a Fender & Gibson fan. All of my favourite guitar players played Fenders or Gibsons, like Eric Clapton, Hank Marvin, Ritchie Blackmore, Jimi Hendrix, David Gilmour, Martin Barre, Gary Moore, Joe Bonamassa & Tony Iommi (to name just a few – the list could go on & on……).
However, when I started out on my musical journey (late 1960’s, early 1970’s) all I could afford to buy were old worn out cheaper guitars, and anybody that played in those days without a superstar budget will tell you that cheap guitars in those days were unplayable, not like today’s budget guitars whose quality & playability can rival much more expensive instruments.
It made sense then that when I first had the chance to get an electric guitar, I went for cheaper European-made guitar, but my dream was to upgrade to a proper Fender Stratocaster (in those days, made only in the USA). I had to wait several years to realise this dream, and the difference was amazing, it intonated properly and had “the” sound – sadly missing from my “cheapo” guitar. and when I started to play bass I bought a Hofner, decent-quality & affordable (upgraded to a Fender Jazz when I turned pro). In those early pre-lawsuit days, Japanese guitars were regarded as second-rate, and Chinese, Korean, Indonesian & Mexican-made instruments simply didn’t exist.
Jump forward to today and you’ll see cheaper guitars that are very player-friendly, sound great and use decent-quality components, a far cry from the cheaper guitars available to an impecunious player fifty years ago.
So why are modern budget guitars so great? The biggest advances within the past twenty years have come with CNC machining. It’s cheaper than ever to use a CNC tool to cut a guitar body & neck in a factory, and these machines will cut guitar bodies and necks with pinpoint precision. This means consistently better quality guitars for less money as the process is automated, so you don’t need to pay a bunch of people to hand carve your guitar parts.
A lot of budget guitars are outsourced to factories in the Far East, which means less overheads and a lower overall production cost. To speed up production, tasks are split between different workers, so one person will paint the guitar, one will install the neck & frets, one will add the hardware, and so on.
All this means that there’s never been a better time to buy budget. I’ve played some astoundingly good guitars over the last few years, some of which barely cost €200 (& some for as little as €99!), yet had the playability and tones of a guitar costing two or three times as much.
However, most budget guitars are at their best after a very good setup, fresh strings & careful adjustments – most of the time the guitar is assembled and packed in a box, then sold to the customer. Here at Freya Guitars every Freya-branded guitar gets a professional setup before it goes out to our customers – fresh strings, fret polish, nut set to the correct height, truss rod & intonation adjustments, and then plugged into an amplifier to make sure it’s perfect – then and only then is it sent to our customer.
We do not sell to music shops – we only sell direct to our customers. This means a savings of up to 40% over High St. prices.
If you can’t afford to spend huge amounts of money on the Fenders and Gibsons of the world, this is where Freya Guitars steps in – you will find a great playing and sounding guitar at a price you can afford.
Remember – we offer a lifetime free setup service on all Freya-branded guitars. All you pay for is strings, shipping and any parts needed after the one-year warranty expires. This applies only to the original owner and does not cover accidental damage or abuse.
When you buy a Freya Guitar not only will you get a quality guitar made with real tonewoods and proper electrical components, you will have an instrument that has gone through our workshop and has had a professional setup – this means you can “Play Your Freya Right Awaya” – with most guitars you will have to pay extra for this service, AND as long as you own your Freya Guitar you can bring it into us for a free setup as many times as you like (some conditions apply).
With Freya Guitars you can Play More & Pay Less!
It’s not about the name on the headstock, it’s how the guitar makes you feel when you play it.
