In terms of buying, it’s choice of what you want from a guitar rather than the quality these days. My stage guitar is £200 and both plays and sounds as good as any of my £2k + guitars when plugged in. In fact, it is rather nice acoustic...

Manufacturing techniques mean that pressure seasoning to the optimum dryness, laser cutting and high quality glues take a lot of the guesswork out. Hand made luthier guitars will always vary but a production run of a high volume unit will yield identical guitars. You can say that now, but not a few years ago.

Getting them set up, string choice etc are where differences come in.

Martin make excellent guitars, from the X series of laminates and polymer / sawdust all the way to A+++ timbers.   Their neck profiles suit many styles and yes, many guitars copy their original designs. Headstock envy exists and you will be taken seriously if your headstock says Martin. You won’t regret your choice either.

But I could say that about many makes. I personally have a “thing” about Eastman and love my ‘dread but a non guitarist would hopefully like the noise it makes.

There are many good makes out there that the big marketing names such as Martin and Gibson can’t quite keep up with. There are some that cost more than the big American names and some less. Lowdown, Fylde, Foggy Bottom... You could go on forever. Taylor make consistently good guitars (the manufacturing techniques of China but made in USA and priced accordingly.) They are putting more thought into design than most volume producers. Me? I haven’t found a Taylor that says “buy me” yet and ditto Gibson. But again, that’s choice not quality. All fine guitars.

It is a real buyers’ market with the choice that we never had when I started playing as a teenager. Perhaps that’s why so many of us suffer from GAS....