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Picture of my pawn shop find. It's a Recording King RAJ-112-NA, got it for $75. Plays pretty nicely after getting a setup.
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Fender Strat HSS American Deluxe. A nice retirement present from my wife in 2013. As an engineer, it seems to me to have some reasonable bits on it that have proven wortwhile - no matter how vigourously I play Anarchy in UK (which is about to have a very big revival over here!) or if I use the whammy bar, or bend strings 3 semi tones, it stays in tune - it has an LSR roller knut. Plus locking and staggered tuners (no string trees). I spent a nice day in B'ham at a well-known store, tried 40 ? maybe, and had no preconceptions about brand - this one just seemed comfortable with my hands, on a strap and on my knee. Not a lot more to it.

Anyone buying today can buy a Chinese guitar just as good or better for £300. No need to spend more than that now - just learn to play really well and get your fancy guitars for free from the manufacturers! What is happening in HiFi is same for guitars. And blind tests prove the point every time without fail!

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N.B. Look out for Milehouse Studios (Paul Richards Guitars) and SpectreSound (Glen Fricker) on YouTube for humour and proper ASR-type myth busting!
 
Multicore said:
Tell us about it and your impression of the quality and finishing and what it cost you.

The bridge looks much better than is common on a tele. Looks like a Hipshot but I wouldn't think it is given what those cost.
Click to expand...
It seems really well finished, nice to play and pretty good sounding, not sure how much they go for new, got this off e.....bay for £193 quid, think it's spelled Harley Benton

  • Body: Nyatoh
  • Bolt-on neck: Canadian maple
  • Fingerboard: Ebony
  • Dot fingerboard inlays
  • Matching headstock
  • Neck profile: Modern C
  • Fingerboard radius: 305 mm
  • Scale: 648 mm
  • Nut width: 42 mm
  • Graph Tech TUSQ XL nut
  • 22 Medium Jumbo Blacksmith stainless steel frets
  • Natural wood binding
  • Pickups: Roswell LAF-B-CR Alnico-5 (bridge) and Roswell LAF-N-CR Alnico-5 (neck) humbuckers
  • Control: Master Volume
  • Master tone control with push/pull function for single-coil/humbuckers
  • 3-Way switch
  • WSC HPS-6 Custom hardtail bridge
  • Chrome hardware
  • Staggered WSC locking die-cast machine heads
  • Factory strings: .010 - .046
 
Djsedaw said:
It seems really well finished, nice to play and pretty good sounding, not sure how much they go for new, got this off e.....bay for £193 quid, think it's spelled Harley Benton

  • Body: Nyatoh
  • Bolt-on neck: Canadian maple
  • Fingerboard: Ebony
  • Dot fingerboard inlays
  • Matching headstock
  • Neck profile: Modern C
  • Fingerboard radius: 305 mm
  • Scale: 648 mm
  • Nut width: 42 mm
  • Graph Tech TUSQ XL nut
  • 22 Medium Jumbo Blacksmith stainless steel frets
  • Natural wood binding
  • Pickups: Roswell LAF-B-CR Alnico-5 (bridge) and Roswell LAF-N-CR Alnico-5 (neck) humbuckers
  • Control: Master Volume
  • Master tone control with push/pull function for single-coil/humbuckers
  • 3-Way switch
  • WSC HPS-6 Custom hardtail bridge
  • Chrome hardware
  • Staggered WSC locking die-cast machine heads
  • Factory strings: .010 - .046
Click to expand...
How heavy?
 
I had a change of plans on my guitar purchase. I canceled the Epiphone Futura Firebird Custom after some more thought. The pickups are modern high output which isn't my style, plus I'm not a big fan of finishes that change colors.

I've had a couple of Sire guitars (T7 and S7FM) and they are really fantastic guitars for the money. I've long wanted a P90 equipped guitar and I've had this one on my radar for a couple of years. I've also always wanted a semi hollowbody guitar, and being a Telecaster guy this clicks all the boxes for me and is much more in my wheelhouse. They usually sell for $729 but Sweetwater has them on sale for $549, that's a steal for such a high quality guitar.

The one I ordered had a serial number ending in 0001 so it was likely the first one of a particular production run. It weighs a nice light 6 lbs 10 oz.

www.sweetwater.com

Sire Larry Carlton T7TM Electric Guitar - See Through Red, Rosewood Fingerboard

Semi-hollowbody Electric Guitar with Ash Top, Mahogany Back and Sides, Maple Neck, Rosewood Fingerboard, and 2 P-90 Pickups - See Through Red
www.sweetwater.com www.sweetwater.com

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"high output" means that whatever device you plug the guitar into is slighty nearer to saturation. It's a bit like having your amp's gain setting a bit higher, i.e. getting breakup more easily (which is really just overloading a gain stage). It's a just a few more millivolts...

You can easily compare high output versus low, by plugging into any clean amp, with plenty of headroom on the input.

While different pickups have slightly different tones, this is usually down to the having different internal LCR, which acts as a filter. Quite pronounced between single coil and humbuckers.

Some guitar pickups suit certain traditional amps better than others whenever you are looking to get breakup distortion because of that pickup output level (and you usually do need distortion at some level to stop a guitar sounding dull of course).

I run a valve combo and also what is essentially an FRFR rig (clean amp, but all distortion and effects are modelled, plus amp/cab modelled in a pedal). The valve amp sounds different for guitars with different pickups until you adjust the gain. The clean rig sounds more or less the same with different guitars, until you deploy pedals or modellers - you get no crunch with a clean rig. I prefer the valve amp, TBH!
 
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I'm excited to get the new guitar, and it gave me the ambition to do a tune-up on my beloved Vintera II 60s Telecaster that I've been procrastinating about doing. I oiled the rosewood fretboard and it looks so much better and darker once again. This guitar has one of the darkest rosewood boards I've ever seen and it could almost pass for ebony. I also polished the frets, lubed the nut and saddles, put new strings on, and waxed it.

I've had many Teles over the years and this is the best of them all! :cool:

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Anyone who gets the point of ASR will also get this guy:
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And I follow this guy who makes guitars nearby to me. He does two shows - one for custom builds and one where he makes donated guitars playable which then go on to raise money for charity. And he's insane!

A lot of ASR-type debunking about pick-ups, tone-wood and brand woo-woo.

Not for easily offended ears.

Loads of episodes, not just this:

 
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