Gary Penton, who wrote above that the finish doesn’t matter, is flat-out incorrect. It makes sense that Fender would defend poly finishes, because that’s pretty much all they offer anymore.

Some people just aren’t as refined in their hearing or have spent to much time working near loud machinery or shooting guns. All you have to do is open your ear. Just as a person that has always been deaf can never describe the sound of an ocean or a blind person can never describe a sunset some people just don’t have access to the proper senses.

Here is what Mark Kendrick who has worked at Fender for years has to say about it: “Nitro is not a superior finish. An electric guitar doesn’t ‘breathe’ at 120 db.

My first year at Fender I personally painted approximately 46,000 guitars. I like polyester. I like Nitro colors too. But maybe I’ll let the players that use poly (ester or urethane) speak for themselves…

Billy Gibbons, Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, Joe Perry, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Roccco Prestia, Jimmie Vaughn, Nils Lofgren, Vince Gill, Chet Atkins, Tom Hamilton, Lenny Kravitz, Merle Haggard, Don Rich, Darryl Jones, Mike Stern, Larry Carlton, Peter Frampton, Sting, Marty Stuart, just to name a few. More are available upon request. Mark Kendrick, Fender Musical Instruments.

The difference is there alright – I too have tried it with an 80s Jap Strat. I’d played the same Strat for 20 years, and knew its tone as well as I know my own voice, and believe me it changed. It is quite subtle, and only really noticeable when running straight to a clean amp with no effects. But that’s what I do most of the time, so that’s good for me.

I think the reason it is a bit of a controversial subject is that it shouldn’t really make that much difference – just like a bumble bee shouldn’t really be able to fly – but it does.

Maybe some people are better at listening than hearing.

When I was young it was 1964. I build guitars for a living now that I am a retired Naval Aviator and able to do what I want. I attended the American School of Lutherie with Charles Fox when it was in Healdsburg and I graduated from Luthiers International in Atlanta. I studied Classical Guitar making with Ken Hill of Hill Classical Guitars near Santa Cruz. Of interest is that I spent my military career as a submarine hunter in the P-3C Orion. All manner of sophisticated listening devices were my tools and I was very good at it.

The proper experiment would have been to use the same model guitars finished with the different “hard” finishes with the same pickup and settings. The frequency response will not be easily discernable but can still be measured to show that the ‘sound’ (for lack of a more specific term) will be nearly identical assuming that the string gauge, string spacing and pole/string distances are the same.

If you removed the polyurethane and didn’t refinish with any other ‘hard’ finish the difference would be audible – it would be muddy. Sound files for the internet aren’t very good indicators for anything. The sound files are necessarily low quality so if you still argue your case, I submit that you accidentally exaggerated one or several electronic settings on the guitar and/or the mixing board and/or the recording device… which will also affect the tone to a very significant degree.

In “Cunning Stunts”; arguably the most well-produced Metallica live performance, Kirk Hammett played a clear acrylic guitar with different colors of sloshing water in the voids. Pretty telling.

Of course, my opinion will likely fall on deaf ears (pun intended) because “we sometimes hear what we want to hear no matter what is actually heard.”

The world is not flat and that is that.

When I was young I thought like you and exchanged PUs in my Strat. Unfortunately this did not bring me closer to the desired sound. Pick-ups are like microphones: if you use the same mic as Mick Jagger you might have the same frequency response, but still you don’t sound like him. In the contrary, Jagger will sound like Jagger with all mics.

It is the wood, mainly the neck, that is most important *to my experience * (and yes, I exchanged so many parts myself to come to this conclusion and do not write about what I heard somewhere)

>>The sonic differences between lacquer and polyesters are really only discernible when describing a vibrating soundboard

My guitar is not a vibrating soundboard and it changed its sound after removing the poly. Didn’t you listen to the sound clip ??