Cheapest Fender or most expensive Squier?

[Joe Nation]

Imagine you're after a new Jazz bass and you have about £500 to spend. Do you opt for the £489 Squier CV Active 70s - active pickups, nice block inlays, lovely turquoise or mocha colour options; or do you shell out a little more on the £549 Fender Standard - simple classic Jazz spec and colours (blue/black/burst/white), but it has "Fender" on the headstock? Are you likely to feel and hear much of a difference between them (assuming both are set-up well and if you want to get real picky you can fit the same strings)? I guess the active electronics of the Squier will give you more options for sound output, but is it "better"? Or does the enhanced quality of the Fender actually show through?

 

Personally, I'd go for the Squier CV 60s in daphne blue, but that's beside the point.

[Schnozzalee]

Sire.

[Lozz196]

I think it depends on both sound and the feel of the bass. Some just don`t like actives so that may be a factor. I`ve played (and owned) Squiers that when set up properly play like a dream. The sensible option of course is to simply play both on a visit to a music shop and buy the one that gave the most enjoyment when playing. Years ago I bought a Squier VM 77 Jazz bass, one on a long list of basses I really shouldn`t have sold as it was one of the best Jazzes I`ve ever played.

[HeadlessBassist]

It's a difficult one...

 

The new standards with the ceramic pickups made by the Cort factory (is that correct?) have received very good reviews. I would say the new Fender standard would just edge it. The cachet of the Fender brand definitely helps, too. Maybe a well set up Squier 40th Anniversary Jazz would just pip the scales in Squier's favour. I sourced one of these for a pupil in recent months and it was an excellent instrument. There's definitely not a lot between them.

 

I'd say it's down to the individual player to play both and decide which they like the sound of best.

 

 

[lemmywinks]

Which logo do you want on your Cort?
 

[Cato]

The Fender Standrds sit in a odd niche if you look at them as part of the overall guitar market rather than as part of the Squire/Fender range.

 

Put bluntly there are better specced guitars from the likes of Sire, Ibanez and others in that £500 bracket and the Standards themselves are, with the most generous interpretation, at best a step sideways from the Squire CVs, rather than a step up.

[Jean-Luc Pickguard]

I'd get a secondhand Fender player series

[jd56hawk]

Bacchus...made me forget all about Fender, Squier, Sire, etc.

[crazycloud]

19 hours ago, lemmywinks said:

Which logo do you want on your Cort?
 

Cort.

[prowla]

I would buy a used Fender - £549 will get you a decent one.

[Stub Mandrel]

If I was in that position I'd buy the Squier CV going for £250 s/h on here...

 

It is literally a swap of a logo for other features.

 

If you don't want active and are happy with a basic selection of colours, the playability is likely to be indistinguishable. 

 

 

[lemmywinks]

1 hour ago, crazycloud said:

Cort.

 

If I had ~£550 to spend on a new active jazz that would be my choice too, if passive was suitable maybe an FGN Boundary. Can also pick up a used GB Modern 4 for that sort of money.

[Mrbigstuff]

Depends if you prefer your bass to be by robots in Indonesia or China? You get more for your money with Squier but will suffer more on resale compared to Fender.

[Rosie C]

Having a Squier Jazz with Fender fretless neck, aftermarket tuners, and about to get aftermarket pickups... in retrospect I'd have bought a Fender from the start. Nothing to do with quality, just the branding. 

 

 

[lemmywinks]

9 minutes ago, Mrbigstuff said:

Depends if you prefer your bass to be by robots in Indonesia or China? You get more for your money with Squier but will suffer more on resale compared to Fender.

 

 

They're both Indonesian

 

[lemmywinks]

So the Squier would be Idonesian Cort but what does the ISF denote on the Fender? Samick?

[Mrbigstuff]

43 minutes ago, lemmywinks said:

 

 

They're both Indonesian

 

Oh fair enough. Is it just the cheaper Squier range made in China then? I would still buy the Squier, but surely it renders the Fender nothing more than a decal!

[crazycloud]

7 minutes ago, Mrbigstuff said:

I would still buy the Squier, but surely it renders the Fender nothing more than a decal!

How is that really any different from them being made in Mexico (or Japan) for decades? From my understanding* the Indo factories are much more modern in equipment than at least the Mex one. By the same logic, why is my superb PRS SE guitar just a decal too?

 

* Phil McKnight is doing a tour of the huge Cort factory in the next couple of weeks, so we'll see that one first hand.

[lemmywinks]

11 minutes ago, Mrbigstuff said:

Oh fair enough. Is it just the cheaper Squier range made in China then? I would still buy the Squier, but surely it renders the Fender nothing more than a decal!

 

I assume so, AFAIK the CV were made in China early on but moved to the Indonesian Cort factory that produced the now defunct VM range. Wouldn't really matter to me if I wanted one tbh. both locations can produce some great instruments.

 

 

[lemmywinks]

3 minutes ago, crazycloud said:

How is that really any different from them being made in Mexico (or Japan) for decades? From my understanding* the Indo factories are much more modern in equipment than at least the Mex one. By the same logic, why is my superb PRS SE guitar just a decal too?

 

* Phil McKnight is doing a tour of the huge Cort factory in the next couple of weeks, so we'll see that one first hand.

 

 

To me the MiM basses were always a bit more of a "proper" Fender. Corona and Ensenada factories are less than 200 miles away from each other, they'll be using woods and other materials from the same source, probably a big crossover in terms of staff (Corona uses a substantial Mexican workforce), using the same or extremely similarly specced hardware etc. In the past parts from MiM Fenders have ended up on USA models and vice versa.

 

 

[chris_b]

Where the bass is made is irrelevant.

 

The QC is solely dependent on the contract between the factory and the client, and is down to how much the client company wants to spend making each bass, and how well the client polices the build quality.

[Bassassin]

Buy a body with the timber, finish & routing you want.

 

Buy a neck with the woods, inlays & proportions you want.

 

Buy the hardware & electronics you want.

 

Nail the lot together.

 

Go out for a slap-up curry with the change.

[HeadlessBassist]

4 minutes ago, Bassassin said:

Go out for a slap-up curry with the change

Which gives us the tag line of: “Slap-up Curry or Fender Tax..?” 🤔

[Mrbigstuff]

1 hour ago, crazycloud said:

How is that really any different from them being made in Mexico (or Japan) for decades? From my understanding* the Indo factories are much more modern in equipment than at least the Mex one. By the same logic, why is my superb PRS SE guitar just a decal too?

 

* Phil McKnight is doing a tour of the huge Cort factory in the next couple of weeks, so we'll see that one first hand.

Doesn’t make a difference to the end product but does to a lot of customers. Some customers have built up trust with the Mexican product and therefore may feel more comfortable than buying an instrument from Asia. 

 

1 hour ago, chris_b said:

Where the bass is made is irrelevant.

Not to costs and price

[chris_b]

4 minutes ago, Mrbigstuff said:

. . . . Not to costs and price

 

You could have highlighted the rest of my post.