I continue to be highly impressed with Crafter guitars. They seem to to just keep getting better instead of worse as many of the bigger brands do. This is a link to there retail price list. http://www.crafterusa.com/products/retaillist.asp You will see that every guitar they make, (which is nearly 200 ) is under $2000. And only about 15 of these guitars are over a $1000. It is the guitar I recommend to my beginning guitar students because even the $200 guitars sound good and are built well. I think any one looking for a guitar (especially if you are a considering a Taylor...Chris ) needs to check out some Crafter guitars. Any of the Crafter Deluxe models will easily stand next to any 8 or 9 series Taylor. And then you have a few thousand bucks left over to get something else, or buy another one...

I see they have several solid body basses including a few JAzz bass clones. I'd be interested to know how they compare with the Squier Jazz basses, which are imported by fender. Prices on the Crafter basses are about the same or slightly lower. The closest dealer to me is about three hours away, though.

Yeah their dealer bass is growing but dealers that carry there line are likeley to only carry inexpensive acoustic guitars. It seems that Squire, Peavey, and Ibanez have the market for inexpensive electric basses. It is a shame because if Crafter's basses and electric guitars are similar to the quality of their acoustic instruments, they may be the brand to buy here as well. One of the music shops back home in Colorado ran into these guitars at the NAMM show and completly droppedd all of the Dean line that he had been carrying. He had a few basses on the wall but I never got one down to play.

There are so many off-brand Strat, Les Paul, Precision ad Jazz copies out now for around $100 that I can;'t keep up with them. A lot are Chinese- or Indonesian-made. Probably a lot come from one factory. My first bass was a Kay, American made and sold through the Spiegel catalog. Bass & amp cost my mom $135. SO I have no problem with people want8ing to pay less than $200 for a guitar/amp package. Quality seems to be mush higher across the board now, but the difference between $150 and $350 is sometimes stunning.

Agreed. But the difference between $150 and $350 can also be unrecognizable because of brand name. This is a little off subject but it is a good analogy. I used to sell Japanese street motorcycles, i.e. Kawasaki, Yamaha, Honda. They had a lot of nice street bikes for around 8K. Each brand had some premium bikes that were around 17K or 18K. The people looking would say, "If I'm gonna spend that much money, I may as well buy a Harley." The thing is, an equivalently priced Harley is a far inferior bike. The same goes for Crafter vs. Martin or Taylor. I'm sure many say, if I am going to spend $1,000 on a Crafter, I may as well buy a Martin or Taylor. When in realty, the Crafter will be a much better guitar for the price point. The masses need to fall away from the brand name thing...

That's great example of pricing differences. It holds true pretty much in basses as well. For example,I think the Lakland Skyline basses, which have street price starting around $700, are better made than a comparably priced Fender. When I worked in music stores, I used to tell people having a hard time picking between guitars to close their eye. Then I'd hand them the guitar and have them play it with eyes closed or to avoid looking at the brand name. many times, they picked the cheaper guitar based on sound and feel.

I think thats the best way, go by sound and feel. Who cares about look and status.