marnold
March 20th, 2007, 06:36 PM
OK, I had to make a trip to visit someone in the hospital. In said town is a relatively new Guitar Center. I stopped in to see if they had a Tele with Texas Special pups in it (they didn't). One guy suggested that I try an SRV strat. It has the Texas Special Strat pickups. While it wouldn't be the same, the neck and bridge would get me in the neighborhood anyway. And hey, who am I to turn down a chance to fondle an SRV strat?
Long story short, it was OK. Just OK. Don't get me wrong, it was nice. I just didn't think it was ~14 Benjamins worth of nice. It certainly was a better guitar in every way than my '51, but I don't think it was 14x better. It needed a setup: the action was quite high and the nut was sticking a bit on the B string. It has a better neck than my Charvel and my '51, but I like my Fender's neck better. My Fender originally cost half as much and I got it for less than 1/5 of the SRV price. I guess I just don't understand how Fender can justify giving it a list price of almost two grand. Unless I had more money than I had sense, I can't see why I'd spend that much on one guitar.
Having said that, the Texas Special pups were interesting. From some of the reviews I read, I expected them to be very hot. They aren't really. I just checked Fender's page and the impedance of those pickups range from 7.1K to 6.2K. Slightly hotter than vintage, but only barely. That also means that they aren't a whole lot like the Tele versions at all which are 10.5K and 9.5K. Having said that, I liked their sound. To me they sounded like a Strat should.
While I was at it, I also played a Les Paul Junior. Some of the Tele pickups I've been looking at describe themselves as sounding like P90s. Since I've never played a P90-equipped guitar before, I thought I'd give it a whirl. I'm not sure if that's the tone I'm looking for out of my Tele, but I liked it anyway. From looking at Juniors, I would have thought that they were body-heavy. They aren't. This one was very well-balanced. The one bridge P90 made it kind of a one-trick pony, but it was an awfully nice trick. I'm just afraid that someone would think I was trying to cop whats-his-face from Green Day. *shudder*
In short: Strats good, P90s good, $1400 price tags bad.
Long story short, it was OK. Just OK. Don't get me wrong, it was nice. I just didn't think it was ~14 Benjamins worth of nice. It certainly was a better guitar in every way than my '51, but I don't think it was 14x better. It needed a setup: the action was quite high and the nut was sticking a bit on the B string. It has a better neck than my Charvel and my '51, but I like my Fender's neck better. My Fender originally cost half as much and I got it for less than 1/5 of the SRV price. I guess I just don't understand how Fender can justify giving it a list price of almost two grand. Unless I had more money than I had sense, I can't see why I'd spend that much on one guitar.
Having said that, the Texas Special pups were interesting. From some of the reviews I read, I expected them to be very hot. They aren't really. I just checked Fender's page and the impedance of those pickups range from 7.1K to 6.2K. Slightly hotter than vintage, but only barely. That also means that they aren't a whole lot like the Tele versions at all which are 10.5K and 9.5K. Having said that, I liked their sound. To me they sounded like a Strat should.
While I was at it, I also played a Les Paul Junior. Some of the Tele pickups I've been looking at describe themselves as sounding like P90s. Since I've never played a P90-equipped guitar before, I thought I'd give it a whirl. I'm not sure if that's the tone I'm looking for out of my Tele, but I liked it anyway. From looking at Juniors, I would have thought that they were body-heavy. They aren't. This one was very well-balanced. The one bridge P90 made it kind of a one-trick pony, but it was an awfully nice trick. I'm just afraid that someone would think I was trying to cop whats-his-face from Green Day. *shudder*
In short: Strats good, P90s good, $1400 price tags bad.