Re: Why is the 2013 Fender Strat body the most expensive?
I say possibly save yourself 10 grand or so and try an ESP Vintage Plus, if you've got a store with proper real ESP products around (not LTD, total 180degree opposites is what they are). Guitar Center seems to be finally caving and stocking them a lot more this year, at least here in SoCal.
In case you're going "but doesn't ESP built METAL guitars, whaaat?" - nope, ESP builds lush expensive stuff for any market niche where there's money to be made. They jumped on the dark trans finishes + actives route because they were the first to figure out that's what kids were fapping to, but they've got plenty of other stuff.
Anyways - the Vintage Plus easily annihilates any other classical strat-type guitar I've ever seen. Including the recent new offerings from PRS (which I'd otherwise say were worth a look - but, head to head, they flopped, hard). Dunno about Suhr, great reputation it seems, but I've never held one personally.
Jumping on a Fender CS just makes so little sense - it's neither the same factory and employees, nor even the same company owning the brand these days. Their connection to the history of Leo's inventions are minimal.
Quality-wise, American-built Fenders are pretty good, but nothing stunning. CS pups are readily available at 70 bucks a pop to aftermarket consumers. Other electronics? TBX costs like 15 or 20 bucks, otherwise nothing new here. Wood choice? Strats don't use anything particularly lush anyways, and aren't supposed to sustain halfway into tomorrow. Hardware is Japanese Gotoh all around anyway, so nothing new there either. Why pay an extra DIGIT of price for birdseye (purpose: just looks) with literally a good fraction of an inch or more of transparent plastic poured over it, on your still-uncomfortable neck and nothing much more? Cuz it won't have uneven frets and stuff, and won't be hiding poplar inside under superthick paint?
...not much of an achievement, that. Proper Japanese manufacturers have better QC anyway. Same or better hardware (very often made by the same Gotoh). Unlike Fender CS, ESP's (standard) Vintage Plus pickups are some crazy innovative stuff, and you can cusom-order one for a couple grand extra (the Standard's price range is about equivalent to AmStd, although it annihilates anything ever made under the name Fender Deluxe or their artist signatures). All Fender's custom shop really offers is a choice of which of their standard stuff from the past you'd like and better QC on craftsmanship, something ESP standards don't ever seem to have had problems with at all.
And for dessert, they've got some of the best neck profiles ever. Ironically, their licensed import LTD brand seems to make a point of *never* using even a remotely-ESP-shaped neck profile, probably to reserve that OMFG ME WANT! NOW!! reaction for their top-tier domestic product - and it works. Meanwhile Fender sells some of the WORST neck profiles ever for ridiculous prices "because they're vintage-correct". All Fender CS is doing is trying to *compete* with its own vintage gear market, while the top-tier Japanese brands like ESP, Caparison, etc. are trying to outinnovate, outcraft, and annihilate the competition.
...and that's something Japan has had a very consistent history of doing to just about every other American industry already. Fender's too stuck in the past, and that's never a good sign.
