Better Guitar

player opinions

Name: John Mueller
Model Year: 2008
Price Paid: $1349
Performance
The feel of this Strat is like no other I've ever played in 38 years. Simply put, it's amazing! It usually takes years to get a guitar set up and broken in. Kind of like a pair of jeans you had for years that just fit perfect. That's the way this Strat felt when I played it the first time. The neck is very fast. Someone at Fender put in a lot of time working on this neck. And the ash body has a unique tone that alder wood can't get. More sustain and a deeper — richer sound.
Performance Rating: 10
Sound Quality
SCN pups are not my favorite, and that's just a personal preference. I put in a set of custom shop 69's and I'm very pleased with the way they respond with the ash body. My son snagged the SCN's and put them in his Mexican Strat and it sounds like a 1000 dollar American Strat. The SCN's are killer pups, but I have been playing with that 60hz hum for so long I miss it when it's not there.
Sound Quality Rating: 9
Construction
No flaws whatsoever! Everything is fitted as close to perfect as you can get. The locking tuners work fine, the action is low and no buzzing frets. You can dive bomb the tremolo (we called it a whiskey stick when I started playing) and it stays in tune which is pretty amazing to me anyway. All in all I'm very impressed with the quality of this guitar. Fender has made a dramatic improvement in quality control and it shows.
Construction Rating: 10