Ash Strats on sale at Rondo

[Spudman]

$89! Not bad eh.

They have rosewood and maple neck models.
http://www.rondomusic.com/sstashrn.html
http://www.rondomusic.com/sstash.html

[tot_Ou_tard]

$89! Not bad eh.

They have rosewood and maple neck models.
http://www.rondomusic.com/sstashrn.html
http://www.rondomusic.com/sstash.html
Sure you talk a good prog-future-love-trancendence game...but then you post *THIS* evil GAS.

Who's got a shovel?!? I wanna bury my gear-lust but quick.

[The Boss]

Are they any good?

[Spudman]

Are they any good?

You decide. http://reviews.harmony-central.com/reviews/Guitar/product/SX/SST+ASH/10/1
They have a great return policy if you aren't satisfied.

[Bloozcat]

The SX Strat clones are a bit of a crap shoot. Sometimes you get a great one, sometimes you get a decent one, and sometimes a bad one. I think they trend towards the majority being decent with a fair number of great ones thrown in. Bad ones do show up, but with Rondo's return policy, you won't get stuck with a lemon, at least.

I lucked out with the SX SST Mahogany P-90 I recently picked up. The wood is good, the fit is mostly good, the finish excellent, and the frets are level and without any sharp edges. I'd call it very good by SX standards. Still, there are little things that you'll notice about even the good ones. The trem cover on mine for instance, has a couple of "extra" screw holes in the body at three different places where they got the alignment wrong. Two of the three are nearly stripped out. Not a big deal, because they don't show and the toothpick trick easily fixes the oversize holes. Another area is the neck pocket in the body. The neck fits tightly in the pocket as far as side to side movement goes, but there is a fair gap between the end of the neck and the bottom of the pocket. Again, the pickguard covers this up, and there's no scale length/intonation problems associated with this.

Although these imperfections are there, they don't interfere with the looks or the playability of the guitar...so I can live with them for the $110.00 I paid for the guitar...:)

[stingx]

No offense to anyone but I used to go to Rondo music when they still had the brick and mortar store in Union, NJ. Of all the times I used to go in over the years I never bought an Agile, SX, or Douglas. Not even during blow outs or from scratch-n-dent bin. I just never found one that felt right. To me they all felt, and to some extent, looked cheap. I would buy one of these ash Strat copies to use as a build project. It's certainly cheaper getting a whole guitar for $89 than one body from Warmoth.

[twimmy]

I just bought a guitar from them similar to this. I'm going to replace the bridge if I need to when it gets to my home, should be tomorrow. Anyway, what's a good cheap bridge to put on one of these? I know that it is probably in the mods section, but I'm on break at work and am in a hurry. Sorry for the semi-wrong spot post but please let me know. I'm looking at guitarfetish.com....can anyone say anything good or bad about them and their bridges? Or pickups?

Thanks,
Eric.

[Andy]

I'm looking at guitarfetish.com....can anyone say anything good or bad about them and their bridges? Or pickups?

I've heard nothing but good about the pickups.

[Ch0jin]

My experience with GFS has been good also. As you can read about elsewhere here I fitted a Wilkinson bridge with steel block and it's a good bit of gear. I've got a Fat PAF Zebra and it's fantastic, I also have a couple of neovin NAL9's that don't work for what I needed, but used in a different setup they'd probably be cool too.

One word of advice though. Don't just upgrade for the heck of it. Take the time to identify what your guitar is missing first and then upgrade parts to get the specific improvement you are chasing.

I guess what I'm dancing around trying to say is. Just be conscious that a massive part of your overall tone comes from your fingers. It's a hard lesson to learn and it messes with ones ego to admit, but most people could not walk on stage after Hendrix, pick up his gear and then sound like him when they play. You need to be honest with yourself or you'll just be pouring money into things that "improve tone" and end up frustrated and disappointed.

[Duff]

I have three SX guitars. Two candy apple red SST's a 57 and 62. Both are really decent sounding guitars I put stainless steel GFS saddles on and Wilkinson tuners. The Wilkinson trems would probably be great additions.

They don't sound like my Fender Hwy 1 fat strat, however.

But for the price they are neat guitars and I'm thinking of putting a set of GFS calibrated rails into one of them, or a hot rail in the bridge, a 10k in the middle and a hot rail in the neck. Just for the fun of it. I like to play the neck pickup and the extra gain could be good.

They both have fairly hot single coils that are very chimey and bright. The trem is kind of stiff with only three springs. Not like my Hwy 1 Fender which is nice and smooth for a six screw vintage trem.

I have a neat all mahogany, body and set neck, SX Gibson LP Special copy w P90s that is cool. It could benefit from a set of Seymour Duncan stacked P90 humbuckers in regular p90 cases, or even probably the regular SD P90s. I'd love to try those SD stacked P90's though.

Anyone try them?

Duff