I posted this question here at LTG to get the feel of Guild owners about the differences.
It is rather one sided, that GAD guitars don't compair to Guilds.
I once owned a GAD JF48 that was a great sounding guitar but never had a Guild to compair it to.
The only thing that I would have changed on the GAD was the finish.
I have been brain washed into thinking that nitro lacquar is the best finish for guitars and the GAD was poly.
There are some makers that use poly, [I think that Taylor does]
with great results so I don't know if my way of thinking about nitro is right or not.
The first time that I played a few GAD guitars, I didn't know that they were Chineese made and without that bias, thyey sounded great!
I asked the shop owner why these guitars were priced so low.
He then told me that they were imports.
I don't know if I would have been as impressed with the GAD's if I had known that they were imports before I started to play them.
Many of us, including myself, hold more prejudices inside us than we would like to admit.
I do think that there are some very fine guitars made outside of the USA, but they seem to all take a back seat to American built instruments.