Cheap Stratocaster vs. Expensive Stratocaster: Can You Hear The Difference?

today i got three stratocasters from three different price ranges and we're gonna see if you can tell the difference stick around how's it going y'all my name is cooper greenberg here at alamo music center in san antonio texas you can find us online at alamomusic.com and today like i said we're going to be taking a look at the stratocaster kind of three different price ranges that are somewhat you know manageable i think that we could easily have done something crazy with some custom shop stuff to you know maybe mimic videos that we've done in the past like a very uh controversial black beauty video that we did in which we compared an epiphone to a much more expensive gibson custom shop and we got a lot of criticism because obviously there's a lot of difference and it's just an exorbitant price for something custom like that but our top end for today is going to be this american pro 2 which we've done some videos on they came out in 2020 fantastic line of guitars from fender but it being kind of the most expensive it is still you know for a professional musician a little more affordable a little more manageable when it comes to looking for a guitar so we're trying to get practical here and kind of look at very very entry level somewhat intermediate and then kind of a professional grade and see what you're getting that might be different see what might be the same and just kind of listen to uh some some playing see if you can tell the difference so i'm going to start off at the lower end of the spectrum for an entry-level guitar we've got this squire affinity and now this is made in indonesia it is um through and through a stratocaster however this has got three single coil pickups got the leo fender tremolo system and you know it is very solid guitar we don't like to talk price points too much in the videos because prices change all the time but i will say that if you were to pick this up today the day that we were shooting this video they're going to be around 230 something kind of especially around the holiday season a lot of people came in looking for their first guitar we sold a lot of affinities a lot of bullets um from squire just because they are super affordable um but gonna be a certain type of quality sound um that you expect from fender or squire especially when you're getting a stratocaster um this has got an indian laurel fretboard this one is in race red but it is available in a lot of different colors you got sunburst black i think there's some blues maybe some whites um but there are uh you know it's it's hard to go wrong with something like this but if you want to spend a little bit more that's where we're kind of getting into the intermediate territory so i'm going to put this down and show you what i chose this is a made in mexico player stratocaster now this is the plus top model which adds a little bit of price if you were to go for like i said prices change but if you're to go for a regular player something just straight off the wall without the plus top with this flame maple you'd be looking at about 6.99 we did a video um not too long ago where chris talked about should you get the new iphone or should you get a guitar because at 6.99 for say an iphone 12 mini i believe it was um you could get a player stratocaster and it is something that i mean entire generations of players have started on i back when it was called the standard made in mexico standard stratocaster that was my first strat and i'm still playing it today it's never done me wrong um but this one is a maple fretboard so it'll sound a little different than the laurel we're really i mean there's a ton of differences in these guitars we're really just kind of going for ranges in that squire that we looked at earlier it is their squire standard pickups this one has the al nico 5s which are across the whole player series um it does have a satin neck the one before that i played was also satin i think all of these are but this one's just a little more comfortable a little a little softer around the fret edges um whereas something lower end might not have that detail work some right out of the box do they feel great and some don't there's just you know a lot of a lot of difference between those but a player is kind of trustworthy that you can you know pick it up right off the wall or out of the box and it's going to sound and feel pretty dang good again like i said very classic stratocaster set up three single coil pickups and uh the tremolo system and you know that's it's kind of what it is it's standard it's for the you know run-of-the-mill player it's something that if you wanted to you could do some modifications to because you're not going to feel super terrible about breaking into something custom shop or ultra but you know just kind of a step up in the feel and the sound and the quality from your squire affinity or squire bullet whichever you kind of go for in that entry level but let's step it up one more time before we hear some demos um and what i started the video out with was this american pro 2 stratocaster and i chose this one over the ultra because we do have some fender american ultras here in the store as well because i think this video is geared towards somebody that's either really into guitar maybe a professional player a gigging musician or somebody that's kind of setting their sights on you know their trajectory and the ultra to me feels um while it is amazing and i do own an ultra it is for you know something more in between the american pro and like a custom shop it's just got a little more bells and whistles and this is kind of your your workhorse stratocaster um there are things that are super cool about it that step it up from maybe the american pro series but it does have like for example this little push push switch gives you some extra options on pickups which are v mod 2 pickups um like the rest this is a satin finish it's their supernatural satin with these ultra rolled frets so if you're looking at the build quality from the entry level intermediate to this just the details is kind of what you're going to be upgrading plus the you know the quality of the parts and the pickups this is made in america and so it's kind of got that american fender allure to it very very well made guitar and we are huge fans of the v-mod pickups the v-mod original series from the predecessor of the american professional were great these just seem a little more balanced a little better voiced and really give you all of the classic strat tones that you kind of expect from american stratocaster but i'm going to play a little something on each of these try and keep it pretty simple to chords and some leads nothing too crazy on the amp settings or pedals it's going to be clean tones all eqs just right in the middle and so you can really hear the difference and um you know afterwards i'll comment on the feel of each and how it feels to play them and the resonance and all that so take a listen and i'll see in a minute [Music] so [Music] bye [Music] so [Music] so [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] [Applause] [Music] do [Music] uh so there you have it i hope that you could hear the difference kind of between those three different stratocasters obviously you know there are going to be some very blatant differences in terms of sound from the quality of the pickups and kind of the voicing of pickups however if you're looking for a beginner guitar you've probably either seen in the comments section of our videos or on message boards or on reddit a lot of people will say you know if you're gonna buy say an affinity stratocaster save up and just get something a little nicer which a lot of people don't have that opportunity a lot of people want to get started they don't want to sink a ton of money into an instrument that they are not quite sure if they're going to fall in love with but i would say there is some validity to that comment because of the build quality and the aging aspect so if you're not ready to maybe dive into an american professional or an ultra or something like that i do think a player kind of hits a certain sweet spot so if you're able even if you can find a used player stratocaster over a brand new kind of squire or another entry-level electric guitar the player is kind of tried and true you know a lot of people have started with a mexican stratocaster and just made it their signature guitar and never really yearned for anything else and you know like i said i started with a mexican stratocaster it is still very heavily played today and i've made zero changes to it it's just a great sounding guitar great feeling guitar so if you kind of tracked these pricings i don't know if i mentioned the american pro twos come in right around fifteen hundred dollars so if you're going to start off at an affinity for about 250 let's say and then jump up to a player at about 699 700 750 if you're gonna get the plus top that is a smaller you know space to kind of jump up to rather than an american so if you can if you have the opportunity i would definitely recommend just in terms of how comfortable the necks are the voicing of the pickups and how long that they're gonna last you know they can not that you want to but they could take a beating they're not gonna you know crap out on you there's not gonna be as many problems and sometimes there are issues when people get kind of an entry-level guitar with the wiring or certain pickups not sounding great and you don't want to you know be cutting your hands up and all that it's just going to age to you maybe a little bit better however if you're going for an affinity stratocaster it's a very high quality guitar in its class so it's a great value the player is an excellent value and of course you know i'm kind of partial to the american pro in my own personal life but um i'd i kind of love to hear what you guys think so when it comes to owning one of these guitars have you owned them have you owned several of them and made that jump yourself and what kind of observations have you made so yeah let us know in the comments let us know the differences that you could hear between the pickups and the playing hopefully i did them all justice and didn't you know change too much but likely so many times on this channel we're trying to hit a goal of 100 000 subscribers and so if you want to hit subscribe and help us out with that goal we'd really appreciate it and uh yeah [Music] you

Channel: Alamo Music Center

Views: 31,426

Rating: 4.9120879 out of 5

Keywords: yt:quality=high, fender guitars, fender stratocaster, fender vs squier, squier affinity, fender player stratocaster, squier affinity stratocaster, fender player plus top stratocaster, fender american pro II stratocaster, cheap vs expensive guitar, cheap stratocaster vs expensive stratocaster, best stratocaster, best value electric guitar

Id: QDx33PNi1XI

Length: 16min 4sec (964 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 20 2021