LOW SIDE OF HIGH END

There’s so much choice for players looking for do-it-all electrics at an affordable price. But a workhorse guitar should be at your side for a long time, right at the centre of your musical life. Looked at from that perspective, it’s not the craziest idea to consider paying a little more to buy a no-frills model from a high-end maker. While the law of diminishing returns applies to boutique brands – where you have to pay a fair whack to achieve incremental improvements over mainstream production models – it tends to be the case that high-end makers take extra care over tonewood selection and all the little details, from rolled-in