[jtkung]

Lots of amazing guitars coming out of South Korea. Here are a few:

• Wolf Guitars. $300-400 Pretty amazing.  https://www.allinoneguitars.com/wolf
  
• Agile Guitars $400-500 http://www.rondomusic.com/
  
• Schecter, low-end ESP, etc.  $300-500
  
• Michael Kelly - Amazing stuff for $300 and up https://michaelkellyguitars.com/
  

I especially like the stuff from Kelly where he teams up with known pickup makers.  So you really get the best of both worlds -- high quality workmanship and woods from a known and established S Korean manufacturer, and great hardware -- esp the pickups. He also offers some cool electronics mods. All for well under $1K, some at only $300+.

[jtkung]

I've read that the one of the factories in S Korea making great stuff is WMI (World Musical Instrument).  They make guitars for many USA companies:

• PRS (SE line)
  
• Schecter
  
• .strandberg* (Salen and OS lines) --> correction, these may be made at PT Cort in Indonesia
  
• Agile
  
• Michael Kelly
  
• Chapman
  
• B.C. Rich
  
• Dean
  
• Gretsch
  
• LTD
  
• Line6
  

I am convinced that the workmanship is far superior to what you see in the USA for the same price level.  And if you put the price level at $5K and up, there's probably no way you can tell the difference in workmanship between Asian-made guitars and USA. In fact, out of the USA-made guitars, I found it appalling for the Gibsons at > $5K.  Perceptions are everything.  If you handed somebody that USA-made Gibson Les Paul, and said it was $10K, many would ooh and ahh and say it was the holy grail.  But say it's made in Asia and people immediately say it's overpriced crap and not worth it.  Few could tell in a double-blind test. My Ibanez AS153 (made in China) rivals any USA-made ES-335 I have seen or played. 

Are you buying the guitar for making music or for provenance and bragging rights?

[yeky83]

• .strandberg* (Salen and OS lines) --> correction, these may be made at PT Cort in Indonesia
  

Hello! Strandberg fan here. The Strandberg OS lineup was previous to the 2017-current lineup, and the OS were made in WMI. Since 2017, they've switched manufacturer to PT Cort in Indonesia, also a place where they make great guitars.

I am convinced that the workmanship is far superior to what you see in the USA for the same price level.  And if you put the price level at $5K and up, there's probably no way you can tell the difference in workmanship between Asian-made guitars and USA. In fact, out of the USA-made guitars, I found it appalling for the Gibsons at > $5K.  Perceptions are everything.  If you handed somebody that USA-made Gibson Les Paul, and said it was $10K, many would ooh and ahh and say it was the holy grail.  But say it's made in Asia and people immediately say it's overpriced crap and not worth it.  Few could tell in a double-blind test. My Ibanez AS153 (made in China) rivals any USA-made ES-335 I have seen or played. 

Are you buying the guitar for making music or for provenance and bragging rights?

Agreed! Guitar manufacturing doesn't depend on where something is made, it depends on quality control. The more they spend on QC and have a good relationship with the manufacturer, the better a product can be.

Ed Yoon is the do-it-all manufacturing/QC/sales/artist-relations/etc. guy at Strandberg, and he has extensive experience and relationship working with overseas manufacturers for much bigger brands (Fender) while knowing much about how to run a boutique guitar brand (Suhr). He is awesome to deal with, and the quality of Strandberg instruments have only gotten better once he joined and moved manufacturing to Indonesia (not because it's Indonesia but because he got involved).