Anyone ever seen/heard a Starshine LP guitar in person?

IM4Tone

IM4Tone

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Very inexpensive 'made in China' instrument. Just wondering about the quality or lack thereof.
Please...no comments such as "it was made in China, so it can't be any good" or "at that price, it can't be any good". Those are just mindsets...looking for firsthand experience.
Thanks
 
Re: Anyone ever seen/heard a Starshine LP guitar in person?

Well, price can indeed be used as a guide, and despite what you think it is not a mindset but an application of the most basic logic.
If a guitar is made to be the lowest budget instrument then corners are cut.......pretty obvious really. In a guitar especially where there are bling elements like bindings and complex inlay to fit into that cheap price, not much would likely done to the finer points like frets/neck/nut. It is almost guaranteed a lot of work will be needed to make them play in any way decently.

As to tone......well practically every guitar player knows that every instrument is an individual....in that you get good and bad within the normal subset of what that guitar is like.
 
Re: Anyone ever seen/heard a Starshine LP guitar in person?

Have you ever seen, heard, or played one? Or judging based on price alone, as I requested not be done?
 
Re: Anyone ever seen/heard a Starshine LP guitar in person?

Yes, I didn't think you'd be able to overcome your prejudice to be able to listen to a reasoned explanation......oh well, can only lead to water.
 
Re: Anyone ever seen/heard a Starshine LP guitar in person?

AlexR said:
Yes, I didn't think you'd be able to overcome your prejudice to be able to listen to a reasoned explanation......oh well, can only lead to water.
Click to expand...
:haha: What a joke! I asked for input without the prejudice of price or country of origin, and you try to twist that into me being prejudiced. Hilarious. Sorry, but I don't need your 'wisdom'.
 
Re: Anyone ever seen/heard a Starshine LP guitar in person?

I've seen those and they do look beautiful
I would be interested in feedback

Could you bite the inexpensive bullet, and give us a review?

Some of the aliexpress items are a crap shoot
Some rave over how great they are
No one admires the pickups

The fretwork is also fifty/fifty

Of course these are generalized statements on the Aliexpress market
Not that particular guitar or store

I would expect some work to make it nice

But one could be surprised. And that's what we all hope for this time of year
 
Re: Anyone ever seen/heard a Starshine LP guitar in person?

I asked around (PM and other methods) and owners are generally happy when they get a “good one” but it sounds like QA/QC still needs some work so I’d be interested to know from Someone who has recently purchased such a guitar.
 
Re: Anyone ever seen/heard a Starshine LP guitar in person?

You can score when buying used. Buying new, the amount of work needed to make the instrument + the amount and quality of the parts make the base price, then comes profit for the company.

Cheaper you go, more each of those has to give in. Labor and raw materials are cheap in china, so there are cheap quality instruments made in there, Squier CV being the best known examples. But those are still in the midrange pricewise.

I wouldn't take the risk of buying that Starshine.
 
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Re: Anyone ever seen/heard a Starshine LP guitar in person?

I went and searched for Starshine on Aliexpress
What I found was a bunch of counterfeit products that were described as Starshine brand
But the images showed guitars with Fender and EVH logos among others
So I would expect it to have the same quality as those counterfeits
 
Re: Anyone ever seen/heard a Starshine LP guitar in person?

Starshine has an eBay store, but looks to be a fairly typical example of modern Chinese builders, some of which can be pretty good. Others not. Hard to tell whether Starshine would be a step up from the usual Alibaba rabble. I'd be interested to learn.

You know, if there were a builder over there with consistently better-than-average quality and word got out around the forums, they'd be able to make an absolute fortune. It would be smart for somebody to capitalize on their advantages and avoid the handicaps those guitars always seem to come with. If a company was willing to concentrate on good wood and high quality neck/fret and finish work, selling the guitars as shells without the poor quality pickups and hardware that everyone winds up needing to replace anyway, they might really clean up...
 
Re: Anyone ever seen/heard a Starshine LP guitar in person?

But that won't really appeal to the large majority of the guitar market. Ibanez got their start doing really good imitations of real guitars, becoming popular, and then getting deals with high profile guitar players. If you just sold a guitar "shell" and appealed to an online forum, you would lose money from the other 70% of the Chinese guitar purchasing world who are just looking for a cheap beater for learning how to play guitar on only to throw away a month later.

Also it's easier to wind cheap pickups and buy cheap electronics than to pay a guy for quality work with quality materials regarding the frets, nut, and saddles.
 
Re: Anyone ever seen/heard a Starshine LP guitar in person?

Chistopher said:
But that won't really appeal to the large majority of the guitar market. Ibanez got their start doing really good imitations of real guitars, becoming popular, and then getting deals with high profile guitar players. If you just sold a guitar "shell" and appealed to an online forum, you would lose money from the other 70% of the Chinese guitar purchasing world who are just looking for a cheap beater for learning how to play guitar on only to throw away a month later.

Also it's easier to wind cheap pickups and buy cheap electronics than to pay a guy for quality work with quality materials regarding the frets, nut, and saddles.
Click to expand...

Yah, I guess you're right. The vast majority of the Chinese sales are in the cut-rate counterfeit stuff for now, and when they start making better quality they're likely to go with their own designs like Ibanez did forty years ago.

We'll have to stick with the MIJ lawsuit-era guitars for super craftsmanship at reasonable prices. Although the PRS SE series are well made and generally well set up, and some of the other import axes are good quality because they're spec'd that way. Many Asian factories have the workmanship to produce a great instrument when the design specifies it.
 
Re: Anyone ever seen/heard a Starshine LP guitar in person?

Grote was.doing it
It now has a Madonna series
One of the forum bros got one here a year or so ago

Kinda Tele/L.P./Ameoba shape
Semi hollow
 
Re: Anyone ever seen/heard a Starshine LP guitar in person?

What cristopher said: The market for quality instruments without electronics is small, and gets even smaller when you add huge used market, that same potential buyers are keen to harvest for cheap score.

Quality hardware does have market however. Aside from big shops, there's some entrepenours here in Finland who ship cheap bodies and necks from China and sell them online for around 100 euros. You could get used alder squier body and decent squier neck for that.

What I've heard of them, the quality is apparently pretty good for a raw parts.
 
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