Captain and Rob Chapman do a ESP eclipse challenge

In the video below Rob is blindfolded and plays four different Eclipse model guitars. He knows the model of guitars he is playing but doesn't know the value of them.So the challenge is to put the order of guitars from the cheapest to the most expensive purely on feel.





My question is do you think that visibly being able to see the guitar can cloud your true judgement on the feel of the guitar.

Imagine being blindfolded yourself in a guitar shop and having ten completely random guitars placed in your hand to play ranging from £300 to £1500.Then you picked one on the senses of feeling and sound.You remove your blindfold and it was a £300 Fender Squier. You then get to see what other guitars you played and see some really nice LOOKING guitars that you would like to try them out again.Knowing how much you love the look of them does sight cloud the judgment of feeling and sound and make you think it plays better than your first time round.

They say when You remove one sense your other senses work better

This post has been edited by liveOASISforever: Jun 21 2014, 02:52 PM

300-600 isn't much of a price range.

Fair point.I didn't want to make the price difference massively different that it would be really easy to tell that you have a expensive guitar in your hands.

I will change it to £1500

that was a really good vid. I watched the gibson Vs epiphone one after it.... chappers done better on those

Short answer is "It Depends"

*Depends on if all guitars are well setup.
*Proper gauge strings chosen
*Use (high/med/low gain or clean)

etc.

But generally speaking, you can take a REALLY cheap guitar and make it play like once that costs twice as much IMHO. I have noticed that you often need to upgrade the pickups on cheap models of guitar. Raising the price typically near the next stock price point.

Example, I had a BC RICH GUNSLINGER that I put a real seymour duncan, shimmed the nut, set up and intonated, and it played way beyond it's price Managed to sell it for more than the new ones were going for

I think around the 1000 mark you tend to get better grade woods (would your ears hear the difference, I don't know) but more importantly an upgrade in hardware, that's the big one, a better bridge would be fairly noticeable especially if it's a tremelo. Then also the workmanship would probably be better, the feel of the neck etc (though I know people have remarked how good some Chinese guitars are playing recently)

I enjoyed it to mate. Yeah Rob has played hundreds of Gibsons I think that was easier for him. I think they are going to keep this series going it will be interesting to see what guitars are used next



Good points made Todd

Do you think that you can do that with most cheap guitars Todd or do you think that there are only certain brands that make acceptable quality guitars for the price with bad pickups



Yeah a also think the hardware would be more noticeable

Have you heard off Simon Neil from Biffy Clyros signature guitar.It is made in China and is supposed to be a amazing guitar.A have heard that the pickups are really good in it also.A good £150 to £250 cheaper than MIM Stratocasters and sound better

So many of the brands are made in the same exact factory, by the same exact people in Indonesia that it's not even funny. Such guitars are very, very similar in terms of overall potential imho. It really comes down to what features/bits one is looking for.