The Veblen Experiment

[mcgraham]

Hi all,

Straight to the point, from wikipedia, the definition of Veblen goods:
[quote]Veblen goods are commodities for which peoples' preference for buying them increases as a direct function of their price.[/quote]
There's more to it than just that so please type in Veblen goods on wiki for a more in depth explanation.

In short, my question (or mission statement) is to find out how different do uber cheap basses such as SX/Wesley/Squier [i][b]sound[/b][/i] in comparison to their uber expensive counterparts such as Sadowsky/Celinder/Fender CS. Near impossible to do with more unique basses such as Roscoe or Fbass hence why i'm sticking to J's, P's and perhaps Stingray copies. (NB: I know that 'how different' is very subjective, hence why sound clips would be the best reference so i/you/we can make up my/your/our own mind(s).)

My inspiration from this comes from listening to basstasters site, I personally think that the Fender clips are the best sounding clips on there, not because they're Fender (that sort of bias would defeat the purpose of this experiement), but because I think they sounded the best, even over the Sadowsky(s) (though they weren't far behind). I tried numerous Sadowskys in the summer, great sound, but not a massively better than a well constructed Jazz (IMO). Also, recent sound clips on TB of a Godin vs a Sadowsky (US one I believe) played flat in a mix; for half of each clip I couldn't tell the difference, then the nuances started to shine through, and I actually preferred the Godin (blindfold test).

If you have input, clips, experience with such things please chime in, I'm hoping to do some tests in the months to come with some standard basses, just el cheapos from ebay or friend's gear and eventually moving up the spectrum. If you have any of the more expensive names mentioned, if you could perhaps record some direct [i]flat[/i] clips that'd be smashing. I hope to eventually get round to doing them myself to keep this a fair test.

Mark