One thing that put me off about Kramers reluctantly was I didn't know much about them tbh...... they were sort of a mystery to me.....
I never played one before really other than the cheap Chinese Pacers 200-300$ that are amazing for the money or the Limited Edition Pacer Indo Pacers with Duncans and the standard Pacers with Duncans which were in fact amazing.....
I dug them but not knowing much and being a bit of a cork sniffer I was like "well how does this compare to a vintage profile wise"........"hhhmmm Gibson owns them, that's weird......"....... "what's up with the smaller neck plate, is this normal or like Gibson/Kramer being cheap."...... "no compound radius......lame....."..... I kind of did this on purpose though because I didn't want the Kramers to share the same stage with my Charvels being a snob pretty much..... but they sort of were calling to join the stage from the get go after playing them in the back of my mind always......
And well reading up on them more while the neck profiles save for the Snake Sabo Sig aren't exactly like vintage ones they do a pretty decent job of getting that feel more or less on average of a typical Kramer neck from the 80s as there seems to have been inconsistencies in that regards through those years. The Snake Sabos though I hear are straight up like the vintage ones profile wise when it comes to the Kramer Slim Taper profile but otherwise one gets a decent replica of a typical Kramer profile on a current production Pacer or 84 for example.
And then seeing the Gibson dude and his passion over these and the good job he did with the current production Epis and attention to detail there and his hand on these Kramers it kind of really convinced me that there is something here aside from actually playing great. And how close they are to a vintage Kramer neck profile shouldn't matter or if they are because yeah these current production necks are just great IMO. Looking at vintage ones too they seem to have the same size neck plate and that size is normal for Kramers which I didn't really know before.
I also didn't know what the deal was when I played a cheap Chinese Pacer with proprietary pups and FR Special vs a nicer Indo limited edition one that looked pretty much the same with Duncans and FR1000 and better build....... I was like what's the deal.... want to get one but as good as the Chinese ones are the Indo builds felt better and didn't know what the deal was as they looked the same pretty much other than hardware, pups and overall build.
Now understanding the range more and seeing that your not only getting pups and better hardware on the more expensive Chinese and Indo ones they make but your getting a better build and features too I'm pretty much sold and can't wait for this new one. It honestly was just hard to pull the trigger because Kramer just seemed like a mystery to me. Growing up I'd always see them at pawn shops and thought they were cheap compared to a Fender or something like a Jackson or Shecter for example but now I realize these things got their vibe and mojo and I should have picked one up sooner.
Another thing was that yeah while a lot of the originals were MIJ, they were still imports and hell while there were MIA I imagine a bulk were imports and in either regard todays manufacturing and QC is lightyears ahead of anything from the 80s or 90s MIJ/MIA IMO. So an import Chinese/Indo Kramer now kind of falls in line with the tradition of these mainly being imports. It's hard to explain what that vibe is but it's very much Kramer whatever it is and Gibson is doing a pretty damn good job here offering some very appreciated tones, mojo, feel and distinct sounds I really haven't experienced from other guitars.
I'm not kicking my Charvels to the curb either but I also like these Kramers and yeah can't wait for my first one to come in and enjoy as much as I enjoy my Charvels but in a different way ^_^
