If you've played a ton of Squiers in your lifetime and played plenty of legitimate Fender Strats as well and can't tell much of a difference then keep playing Squiers if thats what you like. You have the right to buy and play whatever you want. Just like I have the right to buy and play my AMERICAN MADE FENDER STRATS. If you want to dog out Fender USA you probably should've posted this on a Squier forum. Naturally you're gonna meet with resistance on a Fender Stratocaster Forum. If you can't hear or feel the differences in Squier and Fender USA then Squier is most definately on your level. Keep your fingers on them strings and eventually you'll figure it out.

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"Damn Right I Got the Blues"

ok i do like a lot of the EPI's, and even the slash model blind folded i dare say that it would be hard to guess what your really playing. ok now, there are some MIM strats that play so nice it would be a very close run with some of the lower end MIA strats.
now to say a even less squier would compare to a MIA strat is just crazy. its plan to see that the OP does not know what to look for in quality, or hasnt played a quality strat.
the difference is night and day. if he were comparing MIM and MIA there might be an argument to stand on as the quality of the MIM has took a turn up over the last several years and is a great bang for the buck as-is, or is a nice foundation to build a better quality strat by doing a few upgrades of the players choice.
now, if you go back a couple decades, a squier from that time is a likely rival to todays
MIM strats. todays MIM strats are yesterdays squiers is a fair statement to say and i honestly believe few would disagree.

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63supro
"The good thing is in a club situation, most of the patrons are trashed and really can't tell the difference."

, if you go back a couple decades, a squier from that time is a likely rival to todays
MIM strats. todays MIM strats are yesterdays squiers is a fair statement to say and i honestly believe few would disagree.[/quote]

I do believe the squiers from the 80's would rival MIM today. My first electric guitar was a '85 or '86 MIJ Squier. I played on this guitar for around 9 yrs then I sold it. I didn't know what I had at the time I was just a kid. Several years after I had sold the guitar I had the opportunity to play the guitar again. It was really a great instrument. It's kinda funny. When I had it I sanded the "Squier" off of the headstock and the "made in japan" and just left the word stratocaster on it. Even at 10 years old I wanted a USA Strat. Also my initials were carved into the pickgaurd on it. That's how I knew the guitar when I ran up on it at a guy's house who was a friend of one of my friends. The guy who had it thought he had a MIA Strat. As I told him the history of the guitar he became very dissappointed, though he still would not sell me the guitar. He thought I was lying until I told him who I sold it too which was the same person he bought it from. I don't know if he still has it but he sure wasnt willing to sell it back then. But it was a really nice feeling instrument. It didn't quite sound like a MIA but it did sound good, it stayed it tune amazingly well and felt great. All that being said. Squier simply can't hold a candle to Fender USA.

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"Damn Right I Got the Blues"

go get that guitar. sounds like you miss it actually. i would get it if i were you.

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63supro
"The good thing is in a club situation, most of the patrons are trashed and really can't tell the difference."