I currently own 4 electric guitars and one acoustic, and I'm not the kind of person to save large sums of money at a time. I've tried but it always fails.

When I first picked up a guitar, it was a shoddy Strat knock-off. Nothing about it was actually any good, so I quickly got disappointed and went to buy my own guitar, since this one was only borrowed. I went to a guitar store, and checked out their selection of guitars. Lots of cool models to choose from, and I had no clue what I wanted, so I did like so many other young, new guitarists: Picked the one that looked coolest. It was a Cherry Red Chateau Power Strat. I got a good demo for free, and thought "This is the one I want". So I told them that I wanted that guitar and amp, and the assistant went out to the storage to find one that was still in its box. As nice as they were, they did a complete set-up on it for free, before handing it over the counter. I bought the guitar and a small amp and got some picks, a cable, a bag and a strap for free. Believe it or not, I still have and use those picks... How they haven't vanished into thin air yet, I don't know.

Anyway, recently, after having upgraded my gear a bit from the cheap gear I bought back then, I tried plugging the Chateau into my amp, and it sounded amazing through my better Fender Mustang II amp. I then tried plugging one of my other guitars into the tiny beginner amp, and cranked it, and it somehow sounded great. Not awe-inspiring, but not bad either. The most awesome thing is actually that I tend to automatically adjust my playing to the guitar I'm playing on.

When I play my ES-345, for example, I tend to have a more bluesy approach than most other guitars I play. When I play my SG, it's full-on Double Stops and Inversion riffing, with lots of Pentatonic scales and Major Scales being thrown around. On my Les Paul, however, it's pretty much "anything goes". Strummed Chords, Died or Triad riffs, Arpeggios and soloing, it's all there, and it even differs from the neck to the bridge pickup on that one else, since the neck pickup sounds less aggressive and more mellow than the Bridge Pickup (maybe there's a bad connection somewhere... The pickups were bought as a set to replace the stock pickups). And when I use my Power Strat, I tend to have a lot of soloing and border-line shredding going on, except my fingers can't keep up with what I want to play. I also tend to use its vibrato bar a lot, since that's the only guitar I have that features one. And they all sound great, even when compared to a Gibson, Fender, Gretsch or Ibanez.

And neither of my guitars have cost me more than 400$! Except my Martin Acoustic... It would've cost me a lot more, if I didn't get it at a hefty discount.