Xaviere Double Bound Tele

[eichaan]

I thought I would share with you my thoughts on my latest acquisition--an XV-640 double bound Tele from Xaviere. In recent months I thought my guitar collection was getting stale, and I also found it difficult to play my Agile AL-3000 since having back surgery (it is a good guitar, but HEAVY). When I saw the announcement of these new guitars right after Christmas, my G.A.S. kicked into overdrive! Within days I had sold the Agile and one other guitar (my Martin Stinger) and used the proceeds to pay for the Xaviere.

The guitar arrived the other day, and I have been pretty impressed so far! Depending on one's outlook on life, you can either think of this as a "what do you expect for $169" guitar or as a "I can't believe this only costs $169". I am about 80% in the latter camp. This is a solid, well made guitar. The body is resonant and lightweight (about 6.7 lbs), the neck (though a bit thin for my tastes) is straight and easy to play. And as an added bonus, it is rather flamey!

The Xaviere arrived with pretty light gauge strings, so I changed it over to .10's and was pretty impressed by the intonation. With fresh, stretched strings, EVERY string intonated perfectly using the 12th fret harmonic v. 12th fret note test. The action is super low with no buzzing at all. In fact, with the wide, flat, thin neck, you can build up quite a bit of speed on this thing. The thinness of the neck and the very narrow frets do make fretting "cowboy chords" a bit awkward at first, but after a few minutes my hands get used to it.

There are definitely some imperfections--several finish blemishes (black spots under the clearcoat) but they are only visible up close, and some are in very hidden places (next to the neck pocket on the upper cutaway, for instance) are present, and when I changed the strings all the ferrules fell out. But the pickups sound nice, the guitar is pretty and easy to play, and to me the pluses outweigh the minuses.

My guitar came with the usual Xaviere headstock and a satin finished neck. I think the headstock is attractive, though it is a bit long for my tastes. I have never had a satin neck before, and while it is unusual to me, it is not unpleasant. To sum up, I recommend these guitars!

And now for some pictures....

Headstock:



Flame on neck:




Comparison of Xaviere neck (left) to 1989 American Std. Strat neck (right):



Body pic, with my Guitar Player magazine collection:




With my Silver Creek acoustic:



With its electric siblings:




The portrait of the artist as a young telecaster:

[Tig***]

Wow, that's a sweet Tele.
How do you like the tone of the pickups?

[Spudman***]

Thanks for the great review. That's a really nice looking guitar...and what Tig says, how are the pickups?

[cebreez]

Very sweet eichaan! I like the Xavier guitars. They are what they are. A really good guitar for the money. I have an Xavier Les Paul that I love. I've modded mine some. Bright aluminum tophats, homemade brushed aluminum pick guard and truss cover.
This picture is before the mods.

[eichaan]

Thanks for the great review. That's a really nice looking guitar...and what Tig says, how are the pickups?

Pickups wise, I feel pretty happy so far. I am still trying to dial in the neck pickup height but the bridge and middle combos sound very good. Also, my budget would pretty much only stretch to GFS pickups for replacements anyway, so I will not be super choosy. Basically it sounds like a Tele in the bridge, which is what I sought. Thanks for asking!