I think anyone with passing experience playing can tell the difference between a $200 and $700 guitar even with a professional set up. A $200 strat will never

I think anyone with passing experience playing can tell the difference between a $200 and $700 guitar even with a professional set up. A $200 strat will never be in tune, the tuning pegs will all have weird amounts of varying resistance, the bridge might rattle, you probably need a fret leveling right out of the box unless you're ok with either a crazy high action or nasty fret buzz, and so on. Oh and it sounds pretty terrible relative to something with decent pups in a decent amp. Personally the sweet spot of cheap guitars is more like $500 with inflation these days. The expensive stuff from China and cheap stuff from Korea is great. Those are giggable, serviceable guitars. In the $1k range for cheap American, expensive Korean, or Mexican or Japanese guitars you're paying for quality control. One model will play and sound like the others.