I'm no professional musician, but I can't imagine paying any real money for a guitar without playing it first. I have had three Squires (by the way, for the money, a solid guitar; I have a Squire now and it might actually be my favorite playing guitar) and all played different. I've played a number of Strats and they all played different. The only one that is relatively constant is the higher end Les Paul's (with the necks with the "border"; I don't know what that's called). Those are fairly uniform. Even the Epiphone I have plays a lot like the Les Paul I had. The quality isn't QUITE the same, but for the money, I'm not sure that's a legit quibble. I paid barely a quarter of the price for even a moderately priced Les Paul for my Epiphone. It was still $350 from a pawn shop, though, so likely out of your price range.
I don't know what it's like where you are, but I know for me, pawn shops can be MONEY when it comes to guitars. I'm not sure you're going to find a holy grail guitar, but you can find a good quality instrument for a fair price. I bought that Squire I still have from a pawn shop for $50 cash. I'm going to swap out the pickups (the ones in there are junk) but still. They work, and I paid $50. 
I was in this camp where I didn't want to buy something without playing it first but the PRS I bought a couple years ago I got from sweetwater and I loved it. It came perfectly setup and packaged and I couldn't be happier.
I love the JP guitars but could never get into them personally. I couldn't get used to the way the knobs and switch is setup, I realize it's for ergonomic purposed but with my playing style I was always hitting the one of the controls.
That said I haven't played any of the newer JP guitars, I do want to give them another go sometime.
Topic: Learning to play guitar... (Read 12098 times)
