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"Underwhelming" as in, not as nice as conventional wisdom says.
I personally haven't owned a ton of underwhelming ones, but played:
-Modern Parker CS. The shop wanted like $4k. It was on par with the PRS Toreros I played side by side. I know a bunch of guys love the classic ones, but man, that was just not a good enough guitar for the price.
-Modern production Japanese ESPs. Can't tell the difference between them and the top end LTDs personally. I've had vintage MIJ ESPs that were good, but the modern ones are underwhelming.
-GJ2 guitars. Love Jackson. Played a bunch of them at Drum City Guitarland. Hard pass. Most of them should have been sold as B-stock.
-A custom "vintage style" tele from a guy in Colorado, hanging in a reputable shop no less. Can't remember his name, but one of the most epicly bad guitars I have ever played. He wanted like, $3k for it too. At the time I asked the shop (Spotlight Music in FoCo) if they knew anyone who did refrets. They refferred me to luthier dude, who happened to be in the shop at the moment. I ask to play one of the dudes guitars, he hands me this HH seafoam tele. It had the thickest finish I have ever seen, and still somehow had visible body seams where he had amateurishly filled routes. He claimed the radius was "vintage", but I'm pretty sure it was 5". This dude proceeds to talk the biggest game ever, while I am playing a guitar that is a dead ringer for a super old 80s $100 Pawnshop special. The neck had an assymetrical carve, but not by design choice, since I'm pretty sure it was made out of several broomsticks. You couldn't bend a string even a few HZ sharp without it choking out, some of the notes choked out unbent too. He claimed he made the pickups himself, but I recognized the neck one from an 80s Washburn and the bridge one sounded like a transistor radio from Soviet Russia and looked like it was made out of stuff he had found laying around the house.
The metal the frets were made out of wasn't regular metal. I recognized its dull luster from one of those 90s childrens toys where you could melt tin into a figure of a wizard.
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The icing on the cake was I asked him how much a fretjob was and he said and he said "$130". Then I was like, "Seriously? It's a bound compound radius board" and he thought for a few seconds and was like, "Nah, that's just my price for a Fender....that would be more like.......$800". Then he asked me when I was dropping the guitar off, like he hadn't just quoted me a hilariously low price as well as a pricing structure that made no sense. To which I politely responded "I'll think about it". I asked him if he had a card, and he wrote his phone number on a napkin.
I personally haven't owned a ton of underwhelming ones, but played:
-Modern Parker CS. The shop wanted like $4k. It was on par with the PRS Toreros I played side by side. I know a bunch of guys love the classic ones, but man, that was just not a good enough guitar for the price.
-Modern production Japanese ESPs. Can't tell the difference between them and the top end LTDs personally. I've had vintage MIJ ESPs that were good, but the modern ones are underwhelming.
-GJ2 guitars. Love Jackson. Played a bunch of them at Drum City Guitarland. Hard pass. Most of them should have been sold as B-stock.
-A custom "vintage style" tele from a guy in Colorado, hanging in a reputable shop no less. Can't remember his name, but one of the most epicly bad guitars I have ever played. He wanted like, $3k for it too. At the time I asked the shop (Spotlight Music in FoCo) if they knew anyone who did refrets. They refferred me to luthier dude, who happened to be in the shop at the moment. I ask to play one of the dudes guitars, he hands me this HH seafoam tele. It had the thickest finish I have ever seen, and still somehow had visible body seams where he had amateurishly filled routes. He claimed the radius was "vintage", but I'm pretty sure it was 5". This dude proceeds to talk the biggest game ever, while I am playing a guitar that is a dead ringer for a super old 80s $100 Pawnshop special. The neck had an assymetrical carve, but not by design choice, since I'm pretty sure it was made out of several broomsticks. You couldn't bend a string even a few HZ sharp without it choking out, some of the notes choked out unbent too. He claimed he made the pickups himself, but I recognized the neck one from an 80s Washburn and the bridge one sounded like a transistor radio from Soviet Russia and looked like it was made out of stuff he had found laying around the house.
The metal the frets were made out of wasn't regular metal. I recognized its dull luster from one of those 90s childrens toys where you could melt tin into a figure of a wizard.
The icing on the cake was I asked him how much a fretjob was and he said and he said "$130". Then I was like, "Seriously? It's a bound compound radius board" and he thought for a few seconds and was like, "Nah, that's just my price for a Fender....that would be more like.......$800". Then he asked me when I was dropping the guitar off, like he hadn't just quoted me a hilariously low price as well as a pricing structure that made no sense. To which I politely responded "I'll think about it". I asked him if he had a card, and he wrote his phone number on a napkin.
