Hey David
The TA is the only high end guitar I've bought (these a bigger picture in this topic http://adadepot.com/index.php?topic=243.msg1423#msg1423), took me ages to pay for it but it's been a good investment as I've played it constantly for over 20 years now, love it, we're kind of part of one another (If you know what I mean).
There's some pretty good instruments coming out of Asia/Mexico etc these days, particularly for the price, very different to when I started playing in the early 70s although I know what you mean about the fretwork, often quite poor and obviously the hardware is cheap, has to be for those price points. When I bough my Epiphone SG it had a bent fret and the bridge wasn't wide enough to do the intonation without having some bridge pieces the wrong way around (i.e sloping toward the neck). Also nut slots too deep etc. I started to fix the nut and it disintegrated under the file, so new nut, new frets, new wider bridge, new machine heads, neck shave (V), respray neck... Great guitar now oh and some Gibson 57 re-issue PUs bridge & neck...
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I was surprised that i had to set the neck air classic very far away from the strings to avoid popping sounds.), that is surprising, maybe some new PUs are in order, maybe put in a wolfy
Glad the rubys worked out well, I don't change tubes that often either although I understand why MJMP does in his 3TM, a bit like new strings albeit not quite as often as strings, I used to change strings every 2nd gig (third gig I'd bust a D and, on a floating whammy guitar....pick up the spare mid song...).
Cheers Richard