Leaderboard

It's strange they don't put those little upgrades in their cheaper guitars. A graphtek nut only costs about £13, and they could put their own harley benton brand locking tuners (that are only £30). I'm sure loads of people would be willing to spend an extra £45 to get some upgrades on some of the cheaper guitars (TE62 for example). If they made a version the TE-62, TE-62 plus, say, with some upgrades, I'm sure loads of people would be willing to pay £200 for it. They could stick a load of good upgrades in it for the extra £70, and I'd imagine it would sell very well considering it would be miles ahead of competition in that price range, like squier affinity. You're right about not needing to upgrade it. I probably won't (at least for quite a while). I've been content with my yamaha pacfica so far, so I'll probably be fine with the stock stuff on the HB. I suppose it would be nice to put a graphtek nut on it. I'm not a big pickup person, so I'll probably be fine with them unless I AB tested it with some other pickups.

I think this applies to a lot of the 'cheaper' brands. Competition is fierce so the aim is to sell more instruments, albeit at a lower margin, by including half decent hardware and electrics that there isn't any immediate need to uprgrade. Probably costs them 10% more to build. Such a difference compared to the 80s and 90s when a beginner guitar was almost unplayable at times. But interesting also to note that now Vintage have been doing this for a number of years and have a reputation for good quality guitars, that they are no longer actually very cheap just good value and another raft of brands are now the cheaper end. Vintage even have their own cheaper alternative (Coaster series), I wonder if HB will end up gaining market ground and pushing up prices of regular models, just to bring in a more pocket friendly range?