Are People on Youtube Deaf?

[Mr Grumpy]

So, I watched this video (it's only 3 mins 43 seconds) and looked at the comments. I found the comments incredible.

To my ears, the difference in sound is huge. I'm not saying the Fender is worth a $million, $100,000, $10,000, $1000, $100 more. I'm simply saying that the Fender sounds vastly superior in a number of ways. Both guitars sound nice. But, they don't sound the same.

Most comments are that there's no difference in sound, or similar types of words/ideas. I can perfectly understand people making a value proposition argument here - that's very reasonable. But the sounds are clearly different. I'll even accept that sounds are subjective and some folks could prefer the sound of one while others prefer the sound of the other (I can't understand how anybody could actually prefer the sound of the more affordable guitar, but it's not for me to understand - folks are different), but the guitars do not sound the same...

Are people deaf???

 

[Session 5]

I am not trying to be funny here. I agree they do both sound different. Naturally because they have different pickups from different Manufactures .

 

[Astral Traveler]

So, I watched this video (it's only 3 mins 43 seconds) and looked at the comments. I found the comments incredible.

To my ears, the difference in sound is huge. I'm not saying the Fender is worth a $million, $100,000, $10,000, $1000, $100 more. I'm simply saying that the Fender sounds vastly superior in a number of ways. Both guitars sound nice. But, they don't sound the same.

Most comments are that there's no difference in sound, or similar types of words/ideas. I can perfectly understand people making a value proposition argument here - that's very reasonable. But the sounds are clearly different. I'll even accept that sounds are subjective and some folks could prefer the sound of one while others prefer the sound of the other (I can't understand how anybody could actually prefer the sound of the more affordable guitar, but it's not for me to understand - folks are different), but the guitars do not sound the same...

Are people deaf???

I listened twice, through headphones on my phone. The first time I had the phone upside down onbthe table not to be biased. I decided which one I preferred and played it a second time while looking. I do prefer the Fender but both sound good in their own way. I'm not sure that the Fender would be the one shining through in a mix though.

What is worth noting is that neither guitar has its original pickups as far as I understand, so this is more a comparison of pickups, Lollar vs Seymour Duncan. IMO there is no way of forming any valid opinion at all about the actual guitars and how they compare to each other, especially not in their original configuration.

 

[Session 5]

To my ears i prefer sound of Lollars over Seymours

 

[Astral Traveler]

To my ears i prefer sound of Lollars over Seymours

So did I inbthis video but I have no general opinion on the matter

 

[Mr Grumpy]

I am not trying to be funny here. I agree they do both sound different. Naturally because they have different pickups from different Manufactures .

To my ears i prefer sound of Lollars over Seymours

There we go, difference. They certainly do not sound the same - that is all I was suggesting. Next, and I know it's subjective, guitar 1 sounded noticeable nicer in those recordings than guitar 2, to my ears. Some people may prefer the other, but they would confirm my point - the sounds are different.

 

[Mr Grumpy]

I listened twice, through headphones on my phone. The first time I had the phone upside down onbthe table not to be biased. I decided which one I preferred and played it a second time while looking. I do prefer the Fender but both sound good in their own way. I'm not sure that the Fender would be the one shining through in a mix though.

What is worth noting is that neither guitar has its original pickups as far as I understand, so this is more a comparison of pickups, Lollar vs Seymour Duncan. IMO there is no way of forming any valid opinion at all about the actual guitars and how they compare to each other, especially not in their original configuration.

That's a fair way of listening.

Yes, the pickups (and who knows what else) have been changed, so we can only really comment reasonably on the end sound - the first sound is nicer than the second to my ears; they are different. Some folks might prefer the second...

The comments freaked me out a bit as it seemed like a mob had formed bleating that the Squire is better, the Squier is better. As you say - we can only really comment on the sound itself. I did mention Fender, as it was the first one - perhaps just calling them the first and the second would have been better to highlight my point. It's kinda like a group attack on the fender because it cost more money - very strange...

 

[Astral Traveler]

That's a fair way of listening.

Yes, the pickups (and who knows what else) have been changed, so we can only really comment reasonably on the end sound - the first sound is nicer than the second to my ears; they are different. Some folks might prefer the second...

Yes, I too preferred tge first one. I think that was the Fender?

 

[Mr Grumpy]

Yes, I too preferred tge first one. I think that was the Fender?

I shouldn't really say this out loud because I'm deviating off the point, but... I noticed that these two have quite different saddles (bridges generally), and in a previous wrong-handed tele I owned, I changed saddles; really preferring the Gotoh brass old-style saddles over the 70s saddles. There's many areas that change the sound, of course, but, in my limited experience, the saddles are an important areas. We could probably find 10+ other reasons why it's only fair to be a sound A v sound B comparison, and which do you prefer (or, do you think they sound the same? ).

Came with:



Changing...



Became (and sounded nicer to my ear - a gentler sound, less glassy, less sharp, warmer and more musical while expanding it's sound spectrum):

 

[Astral Traveler]

A guitar is the sum of its parts and too complex to quantify. Pickup A, sounding great in guitar 1 could sound like crap in guitar B. The very reason I don't buy into the tonewood, handwired whatever debate.

Do those things make a difference? Probably. Can we quantify that difference? No. A guitar should be judged as an entity, or not at all. Is what I thinks anyways

 

[Session 5]

A guitar is the sum of its parts and too complex to quantify. Pickup A, sounding great in guitar 1 could sound like crap in guitar B. The very reason I don't buy into the tonewood, handwired whatever debate.

Do those things make a difference? Probably. Can we quantify that difference? No. A guitar should be judged as an entity, or not at all. Is what I thinks anyways

 

[Amp Mad Scientist]

So, I watched this video (it's only 3 mins 43 seconds) and looked at the comments. I found the comments incredible.

To my ears, the difference in sound is huge. I'm not saying the Fender is worth a $million, $100,000, $10,000, $1000, $100 more. I'm simply saying that the Fender sounds vastly superior in a number of ways. Both guitars sound nice. But, they don't sound the same.

Most comments are that there's no difference in sound, or similar types of words/ideas. I can perfectly understand people making a value proposition argument here - that's very reasonable. But the sounds are clearly different. I'll even accept that sounds are subjective and some folks could prefer the sound of one while others prefer the sound of the other (I can't understand how anybody could actually prefer the sound of the more affordable guitar, but it's not for me to understand - folks are different), but the guitars do not sound the same...

Are people deaf???

I run into this all the time.
There is a lot of tone deaf people who can't hear differences.
There are people with musically trained ears that can hear even small differences.

The tone deaf will always insist there is no difference. You can't change that.

 

[Session 5]

I run into this all the time.
There is a lot of tone deaf people who can't hear differences.
There are people with musically trained ears that can hear even small differences.

The tone deaf will always insist there is no difference. You can't change that.

I'm sorry what did you say...

 

[gball]

They both sound like "Tele" but they do not sound the same. Whether the test is about the guitars or pickups is not that relevant, they don't sound alike. The Fender is much more open sounding to my ears.

Problem I see a lot with these videos, where guitars of different price points (and intended consumer) are compared, is there seems to be a lot of cognitive dissonance, where people want to believe that the $250 guitar is the equal of the $1500 guitar. My own experience proves, at least to me and no one else, that isn't true and like most things in life you get what you pay for, but as long as people want to believe and rationalize it you will get those kinds of comments.

 

[RVA]

What is worth noting is that neither guitar has its original pickups as far as I understand, so this is more a comparison of pickups, Lollar vs Seymour Duncan. IMO there is no way of forming any valid opinion at all about the actual guitars and how they compare to each other, especially not in their original configuration.

Agreed. Completely different, after market pickups. "It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." However, there is not much fury in those licks!!

 

[eclecticsynergy]

Some of us make tone distinctions based on specific aspects of sound and attack.
For others, a general sound is enough. "Yep, sounds like a Telecaster."

 

[Amp Mad Scientist]

Some of us make tone distinctions based on specific aspects of sound and attack.
For others, a general sound is enough. "Yep, sounds like a Telecaster."

Then there are people who will just form a conclusion based on what they read...
like somebody on the internet "said this..."
then they will be convinced it's true.
Then they refuse to ever change from that one thing they read. No matter what.
And I can't do anything to fix that.

 

[Mr Grumpy]

^ & ^^

Let's conflate two two ideas: people hear sound differently and for different reasons. Also, everybody, to some extent, hears in a different range, and some folks have poor hearing (medically speaking, but also upon a range - they just don't have the physical hearing capacity that most/many other folks have). Now, I'll add, it's very frustrating when people refuse to use their brain, think for themselves, research information for themselves from a variety of sources because they'd rather read a tweet then follow the heard they've aligned themselves with. Of course, this is a known feature of a place like Youtube (and most social media) - it doesn't have to be that way, and folks use social media for different reasons in different ways, but it's well known/well researched that the majority of folks use social media to reinforce their bias; i.e. they'd rather go to a site/poster with views they align with and just take the tweet/post as gospell rather than research, fact-check, find new ideas, and be challenged.

Thus, we have - and I think, in retrospect, this is my original point that I would have liked to have made, and now you folks have helped me to make it:

1) Some folks don't hear difference in sounds for whatever reason - this may be good bad or indifferent, but there is difference in sounds, and they simply are not able to notice all the information; they simply hear a subset of the information. They may want to do that ("all I want is a tele sound"), or they may not ("I cannot hear a dime of difference").

2) Heard mentality/cognitive dissonance/low attention span/lack of willingness to personality research and learn is rife around social media.

I'll stop there and just keep to this narrow example: it's strange when a thread seems to have been hijacked by a heard mentality who don't want to hear a difference even when it is clearly there. This group are seen as the majority (of comments of the Youtube post, in this case), and thus influence/bully/dominate the entire discussion in a "non-truthful" manner.

It frustrates me: very few people were highlighting elements of the sound (which were either the same, different or something else).

Our discussion here is much more interesting with varied opinion because people are engaging their brain.

 

[Mr Grumpy]

They both sound like "Tele" but they do not sound the same. Whether the test is about the guitars or pickups is not that relevant, they don't sound alike. The Fender is much more open sounding to my ears.

Problem I see a lot with these videos, where guitars of different price points (and intended consumer) are compared, is there seems to be a lot of cognitive dissonance, where people want to believe that the $250 guitar is the equal of the $1500 guitar. My own experience proves, at least to me and no one else, that isn't true and like most things in life you get what you pay for, but as long as people want to believe and rationalize it you will get those kinds of comments.

Lots of good points here.

I've a Honda City (car) in Bangkok. I bought it because it suited my needs at the time - it has been a fantastic car in the 10+ years I've owned it. It does just about everything, for my needs as well as a 1-series BMW would; for me, in the specific context during which I bought it. It was also pretty cheap, less than half the price of a BMW 1-series (in Thailand, anyways). But, the Honda is not as good as the BMW 1-series in many, if any ways. If I'd really wanted, I could have bought a BMW 1-series at the time, but there simply was no reason; the Honda was the better car for me at that time. The BMW is a far better car however.

Two separate ideas exist: the Honda is the better car for me in context; the BMW is the better car. Both ideas are valid.

Binary thinking and the need for absolute rights and wrongs can be problematic; and decontextualized Youtube posting seems to promote this practice.

 

[Mr Grumpy]

Right, on a similar, but different note...

This video was interesting for me because: it has three butterscotch teles into a Vox, and I'm playing my pretend butterscotch tele into my Cornell which is a pretend Vox amp. I am liking this sound. &, I think that all three of these guitars, at different price points sound good.

Basic teles, no changes from new.

They all sound good. They all sound different. They are easy to pick (I suspect most of you would easily pick the three guitars in the blind test). I'm not saying any are better than the others although the Classic Vibe has that slightly beefier 50s sound that the Classic Vibes are known for (some like that, some don't). And, the Affinity gets muddy quickly with OD.

They all look really nice too.

On this video, the fella doing the "test" (it's just sound clips and some details really), seems pretty fair. &, the comments are varied across the board and much more interesting than the previous video. All around looks, function and sound I like the Classic Vibe - stick some Gotoh brass saddles on it, and it has everything I'd like. Three nice guitars at their price points.