do you prefer older or younger?

i think generally anything sub £500 has improved immeasurably in the last ten years, due to cheaper production costs in places like Indonesia, Korea and China and computer-aided design/manufacture resulting in far fewer mistakes/seconds. OK, keyboards have also become more sophisticated and perhaps less intuitive, and certainly they're not made of wood and valves and weigh several hundredweight, but equally the range and depth of sound produced is awesome. so i would have to disagree, in general - but certainly some instruments (thinking wood-based ones mainly) can gain with age, hence your premium for a 1890 Steinway piano, 1690 Stradivarius violin or 59 Les Paul...

I went to Guitar Center to look for older instruments once.  I asked for a Lyre and they sent out the Manager.

The new Squier...

UbiquitousBubba


I went to Guitar Center to look for older instruments once.  I asked for a Lyre and they sent out the Manager.

Laff!

my '77 ibanez artist sounds and feels AWESOME.


my 2006 custom USACG strat build, sounds and feels AWESOOME


so i guess i prefer one of each, please.

It's interesting that there is probably a wider selection of guitars today than anytime in the past. I drop in GC once a week because it is near my house. I have played maybe 3-4 guitars per week on average times maybe 10 years so that's about 1820 guitars I've played at GC since 2002, probably another 1820 prior to that across the years. So total maybe 3640 guitars so here are some general trends.

- Telecasters vary so much from guitar to guitar I cannot say that any one line or version is good or bad. It's still a hit or miss experience on finding one that stands out by resonance, sustain, sometime unique quality like weight, neck to match my hands etc. Sometimes it's a road worn, sometimes a vintage older model. One thing that is interesting is that the majority of custom shop guitars I have played, maybe 30 all told, I have not bonded with even one of those. Generally those expensive necks are stiff playing and the guitars because of the woods are too heavy. There is more soul sometimes in just a standard 52RI or Nocaster RI.

Strats- Pretty much the same thing except a vast majority sound the same more often than teles. Some are thinner sounding, a few have that unique clarity and sustain and reveal subtle string bends more than others. There are more overall duds in this crowd than the telecasters.
 
Les Pauls or most Gibsons - I've done my time with one of these boat anchors hanging on my shoulder for 4 hours a night over years. Love the sound, hate the weight. There are also so many versions now in hollowed out versus full body, I lost interest and track years ago. But I repeat fantastic guitars by and large.
 
All the rest - totally hit or miss on finding something amazing.
Vintage about 50% of the time are either killer or would be a good canoe paddle. I have played quite a few of the RIs both strat and tele that would rival many vintage.

Then there are the holy grails, a lot of them are on the Hollywood GC wall. Early teles and strats that define the experience of playing a fine guitar.

Summary: It all depends on you, the neck size, the adjustment, the resonance & sustain and 10 other factors. I have bonded with certain models to the point of considering purchase, come back the next day and completely reversed myself. So my research comes to the conclusion that regardless of age, it's all voodoo. When you find the right guitar, surrender.

In keyboards field the only thing that has changed in a good way is the weight and storage option like USB/HD instead of floppy drive ect. Although still 88 keyboards with good action are way too heavy.  The sound except the acoustic instruments (especially pianos which have improved significantly) went downhill due to abandoning true analogue technology mass production.