i plan on buying my first strat in a couple of months and was wondering if the made in america American Deluxe has a significant tone improvement over the made in mexico Deluxe Players. is to different enough to justify the huge price jump? if it's a huge tonal difference then the higher price might be worth it but i do not want to be paying more for little cosmetic issues that make the guitar look nicer.

thanks

Short answer: Yes.

Longer answer: It depends.

I'm biased as over 2 yrs. into my HSS AmDeluxe and it is clear that this is probably a forever guitar. There is nothing it cannot do reasonably to very well. (Assuming you are not going to tune down to C and rage.)

Looks have nothing to do with it. Locking tuners, roller nut, S-1 switching, "deluxe" bridge, compound radius fretboard -- these are all substantive differences. Now you might not prefer these differences (or at least not care enough to pay for them) but they are real.

The only way to know for sure is to A-B them back to back and decide from there.