Yeah, it's like looking at race cars
Listening to a recording = Audience looking at race cars... they all fast. They can't tell you how differently a Mustang handles vs a Camaro.
Playing the guitar itself = Driving the race car. Only YOU the driver can tell how the car handles and responds when you turn that wheel or floor that pedal. Your performance is indeed affected by how the car drives to you.
There's no mythbusting here, just pointing out the difference between a recorded guitar tone or how it's perceived by the audience vs the tone in the room when you're playing and hearing it live yourself.
Every guitar I own plays and sounds uniquely different when I play them, and that's what I love about them. You always hear a the natural acoustic tone of the guitar when you're sitting there playing it through your amp, and I like that. It's the reason why I never practice or write using headphones + software plugins: I never feel inspired by that rather dry processed sound, it feels one dimensional. Nothing inspires like plugging into a nice amp, crank it, and let it rip next to you.
Different guitars simply inspire me to play differently on each. This is certainly true for me, as I have a few guitars that are nearly identical in specs, but I always play hard rock on one of them, and always feel like playing Beatles on the other. Why is that? No clue, it just happens for me.
But that's not necessarily true for everyone out there. I know players who feel the same way as I do, but I also know players who feel equally inspired and don't care much for the subtle differences in the guitars regardless of what guitar they're playing, as long as they're in a general ball park of style/design, and they only own guitars of that one type too.
