why are china brands bad? same reason as everything china,

to be fair, i do agree with you given the right context but we are talking 2k guitars from woh fatt here.

i would say they work, but its not that simple or cheap. an entry good farida is around 1k, anything more and you are going to hit 2k. so the difference between the entry farida and an entry taylor is quite small, a takamine even smaller. this is excluding the super value for money brand out there Norman guitars.

the other issue with china makes is they dont sound that great, 10k++ farida with BRW back and sides? top tier everything? it sounds quite timid compared to even cheaper european variants (lakewood). they have some great gems out there but you would have to run the racks and pick one out, rigours testing, with luck you might just get one thats amazing.

then theres the problem of "the sound", part of the reason why martins can command such high prices is because its not easy to replicate the martin experience.

that being said, i think classicals are an odd one out, esp when you put names like Rodriguez. if I'm not mistaken most of them are not even made by the family but OEM, if you want the family to make one for you its a whopping 30k or more. they are part of the "classical" family hence their prices are super high.

but for electrics? hell 2.8k can get you a gibson dy

the usual argument for china made stuff is that they are 'value for money'.
would one pay the price of a french violin for a china one? as it seems the 'reputable' players out there say its good quality?