44 minutes of my life that I'll never get back. And what have I learned? I've learned that this guy is not aware that every person over the age of 8 already knows that marketing people tell you **** that isn't exactly true in an effort to make you want to buy their products.
 
Does he really think none of us ever bought a Slinky? Walks down stairs alone or in pairs my ass.

I know some people who are link slinkys.  Completely useless, but when you push them down some stairs it brings a smile to your face. 

Other Strad theories say it was something to do with the varnish used (personally I doubt that), or because the logs the wood came from had been lying in the Venice lagoon for ages and soaked up all kinds of salts. And a hefty amount of raw sewage as well I would have thought, but that never gets the credit for some reason.
 
As for electric guitars, sure the wood makes a difference, but what matters most to me is the unplugged sound and that can be the result of wood or other materials. I also suspect that one or two piece bodies vs. bodies made from more pieces isn't always a good indicator of anything. My only Strat is a very resonant Mexican Standard that probably has somewhere between 5 and 9 pieces of alder in the spread it was cut from. I bought it because though its plugged-in sound was not at all what I wanted at all, unplugged it was loud, sustained well and felt really comfortable. And I went shopping originally expecting to end up with a US instrument, but that MIM just felt "right".
 
A new nut, set of Lace Sensors, tremsetter and some Callaham hardware later and it works well for me at least.
 
And other materials than wood can work well, such as carbon fibre and even plexiglass. Though plexiglass guitars are seriously heavy.
 
The pickups might generate the electricity and of course changing pickups can make a huge and instant difference, but the harmonics and sustain the strings hand to them in the first place is largely down to how the body responds to and sustains the string vibration. 

Here's the deal with those who have mastered,or attempted to master an instrument.  We want to play the best instruments so that we make the best tones.  We can make a cheap instrument sound *as good as possible*, and that means make it sound really good (even though it's cheap.)  That's true of acoustic instruments
 
With electric guitars, not sure what the extra padding in the price is for.  If you put stevie ray vaughn's pickups into a squire and were able to play as well, it would sound the same I think. No?
 
 

Michael,
 
Your concentration on tone, or at least your interpretation of MY yearning for good tone  is a little too influenced by marketing.  It's immediately apparent to any musician that producing a good tone is essential.  The idea that's it's the most important thing is unfathomable to anybody who's studied an instrument for any length of time.  I remember the first time my teacher let me try something on his Velazquez that I had been trying to play on my cheap yamaha classical.  A whole new world opened up.
 
It's one of many things that affects the overall presentation of one's performance.  It's easier.  There are a lot fewer frustrations.
 
Artists realize that in order to make a living one has to align oneself with various manufacturers.  The one's not sponsored (yet) are not concerned with those frustrations you speak of.  The marketing can be a real stumbling block to artistic development.  There are better things to worry about.  
 
 
 
 

Let it go grrl.

I think donald rumsfeld said it best about guitars:
 
There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.

I know that I can certainly tell the difference between a Custom Shop Strat and a Squier. Even after I gut it and replace all of the electronics. For any one the can not, I have a Squier that I will trade you.

Michael, you are spot on again in all of your comments.

spacey
What if I have a great sounding 335 and a kid with little short arms and little hands that can't even fret a note on it? Are you still going to focus on tone as if it's the only thing that matters? It's not limited to tone by those that know there are many things that make a great guitar.
 

And what makes a guitar great for one person can make it the opposite for someone else. As you say, a key thing being fit and ergonomics. I have the same "problem" as Johnny Winter - I prefer single-coil sound and response for blues playing, but find Fender scale lengths almost a stretch too far at times. His answer to that was Firebirds, mine is to work round it and maybe just do things a bit differently. There are guitars I simply wouldn't even attempt to play some things on and I found out 40 years ago that formal classical guitar technique is well outside my comfort zone.

As for pricing, the biggest gains in quality for money spent generally come in near the lowest end of the price range. The difference between a basic Squire jazz bass and the Made in Mexico equivalent is noticable. The difference between a MIM and US standard is less noticable and the MIM, depending on model, may well be closer in many ways to the "vintage" Fender production methods and materials quality than the price difference might suggest.

Yes, I do think you pay a bit extra for the "Made in USA" tag. Maybe ironically, if you want a Tele or bass made pretty much in the "old way" with vintage oitput pickups etc. most of the US range isn't that. As for Gibson, while their guitars generally involve more labour than Fender, all that shaping, and the lacquer taking quite a lot of time and polishing to get right, much of their range is knowingly priced to exclude most customers - I've seen an interview with Henry J where he pretty much said so.

I think that once you get to the sort of prices Fender, PRS or Gibson attach to their most expensive products you're really looking at something aimed at least as much at wealthy collectors rather than musicians. Fender's relic replicas of some famous person's Strat being one example.

What's often forgotten is that the famous guitarist probably pulled instruments off the rack in the shop until they found one they liked, and the same goes with effects and amps. There was nothing "special" about any of it when it was made, the mystique came along later because the owner was or became famous. And just because e.g. Jeff Back's Strats suit him doesn't mean a replica of one of them will be the best Strat for you because you're not him.