Imports - kind of a follow up

marty_the_westie

marty_the_westie

New member
After reading wickenspoets post about chinese guitars, it got me thinking. Are korean guitars the new high end imports? With most coming from china or indonesia, it seems like koreans are harder to find. Does anyone else agree with that? It seems as if the koreans are the new benchmark for anything imported from asia.
 
Re: Imports - kind of a follow up

No, Japan is where it's at, actually where it has been since the early 90's.

The Korean made PRS/Schecter/LTD stuff is all really good, especially for the money. The only thing I can really find flaw with on most of them is the overly thick finishes and they use those stupid pots. Other than that they are real close to being on par with almost anything.
 
Re: Imports - kind of a follow up

No, Korean imports are far from a benchmark for anything good. Sure there are exceptions like PRS (which does a good job of closely monitoring quality control in their contracted factories) which ship out some very good products, but they are a very small minority. On the whole, the vast majority of instruments coming from Korea are every bit as crappy as an Esteban from Indonesia.

I'm not familiar with the other discussion you mention, but there's a lot of pretty impressive stuff coming from China these days, and of course Japan has always been able to produce top notch guitars. You can't generalize by country though, because I've also seen a lot of absolute crap come from China, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, and America. It depends much more on the factory, which range all over the spectrum in a lot of countries.
 
Re: Imports - kind of a follow up

They seem to build the same kind of factories and same kind of guitars in Korea, China and Indonesia.

MIJ had it's heyday of quality from 1980 on.
 
Re: Imports - kind of a follow up

uOpt said:
They seem to build the same kind of factories and same kind of guitars in Korea, China and Indonesia.

MIJ had it's heyday of quality from 1980 on.
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Ditto, as I said in the other post, I have a Epi bass made in Korea. It plays and sounds great, I feel the workmenship was good.
 
Re: Imports - kind of a follow up

yeah, I remember back in the 80s when kramer and charvel started making guitars in Japan.. Everyone was like " oh gawd, this is aweful!!" the ended up being very sought after and great.. a few years back, Korean guitars were considered ( and many literally were), aweful. Fast forward a few years and there are some VERY good guitars coming from over there.. Still not on par with the Japanese, but very good. And now China is coming on great too. My import Dean is a fantastic guitar! Id tour the world with it in a heartbeat, (if I had any talent..) My Michael Kelly is ALOT better than my Gibson Studio was.. the Kelly is flawless, sustains much better, has tone pros bridge/saddle, and even little details like the wiring in the cavity is ziptied up neatly. And cost a FRACTION of the price.. literally 1/3

matter of fact... this post has me really missing my Patriot Custom.. gonna get that beastie out of storage tommorrow and spend some time with her
 
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Re: Imports - kind of a follow up

The korean made guitars aren't as good as guitars made in japan but I do think they are better than guitars made in china and indonesia.
 
Re: Imports - kind of a follow up

guitarkid said:
The korean made guitars aren't as good as guitars made in japan but I do think they are better than guitars made in china and indonesia.
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In general, but there's a lot of overlap. On the other hand, if you go back a few years, there's an uncanny distinction in the Ibanez RG series between Korean and Japanese instruments. You just don't want a Korean one if Japan is an option.
 
Re: Imports - kind of a follow up

guitarkid said:
The korean made guitars aren't as good as guitars made in japan but I do think they are better than guitars made in china and indonesia.
Click to expand...

I'll usually take a Korean guitar over a Chinese made one
I had two Hamer imports, one Korean, the other Chinese.
The Korean model felt much nicer, almost on par with a Gibson, nice tuners, no neck problems. The Chinese one just felt cheaper, and really doesn't sound as good.
Same with my Epiphones-
Could have been the luck of the draw, but I think you are on to something.
 
Re: Imports - kind of a follow up

It stands to reason since Japan has been doing it the longest that the experience will translate into a "better" product and likewise with Korean vs China.
 
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