SX SST Mahogany W/P-90's

[Bloozcat]

Well, as I had mentioned in another thread on P-90 pickups, I ordered an SX SST Mahogany with P-90's last week. Well it arrived yesterday safe and sound via UPS, a day early, even (if you can believe that of UPS!).

Apparently, this guitar has become quite popular in a very short period of time, and I can see why. Within two hours of ordering mine, Rondo was out of them...and I had just gotten the e-mail that morning announcing that the guitar was back in stock.

Here's a preliminary review of the guitar. I only had about forty minutes to play with it last night, so my impressions are still somewhat superficial.

As with most internet ordered guitars, you're never quite sure of what you're getting until you open the box. Well, it didn't take very long after opening mine, to realize that I'd gotten a very nice guitar indeed. I've heard of varying levels of quality with the SX line, from a variety of purchasers. Everything from perfectly fit, finished, and set up, to awful in every catagory (although the latter are more the exception than the norm, it seems).

Right out of the box I noticed two things: The mahogany body was a nice, two piece, beautifully grain matched piece of wood. The neck is a pretty straight grained piece of maple with some nice grain structure that is accentuated by the evenly applied vintage amber finish. The fretboard has just a slight flame/figuring to it that looks quite good. The over-all finish on both the body and neck is nearly flawless. After inspecting it for several minutes, I could only find two very slight dimples in the clear finish on the edge of the neck where the tuner buttons are located. The flaws are so minor that they hardly bear mentioning, and I probably wouldn't have, if not for the fact that they were the only flaws I could find anywhere in the finish.

The hardware was another area in which I was more impressed that I expected to be. The tortise shell pickguard is properly cut and fit. It is aligned perfectly with the neck pocket and the bridge, with no gaps where there shouldn't be any. The pots are smooth, the three-way pickup selector switch positive and firm in each setting. The tremolo bridge is of the cheap Asian type with a thin cast metal block and cast saddles as expected, but it was mounted correctly right down to the proper saddle heights to match the radius of the fretboard. Clean and well executed, despite the cheap nature of the part. The P-90 pickups are centered properly beneath the strings and the fit within the pickguard is tight, with no gaps anywhere around them. The tremolo cover on the back side of the body is properly aligned with the tremolo block string holes, and is squared to the body and parallel lines of the neck edges. This is an area where less expensive guitars are often sloppy in their construction. Not so here.

The neck itself is straight with just a slight amount of relief. The fret ends are smooth with no sharp edges anywhere. The action is set up very well, and there is no appreciable fret buzz. The neck itself being maple/maple, has a finish sprayed on both the back and fretboard. In doing so, the frets end up with a slight amount of finish on them that can cause slight string buzz and/or "stickiness" when bending the strings. This is normal even on far more expensive Fender guitars. A minor scraping and fret polishing will alleviate the concern. The nut is made of plastic as expected, and is pretty well cut. There is some slight binding on the G and B strings, but a little 1000gr sandpaper and some nut lube will fix that. Besides, I plan to replace the nut with a Tusq soon anyway, so it's a moot point.

The tuning keys are Fender/Shaller, or Gotoh type knockoffs. They function well, and are smooth enough to facillitate effortless tuning. They're nowhere near as smooth as the Fender/Shaller's, Gotoh's, Sperzels, et al, but they are perfectly functional none-the-less. The string trees are fairly well mounted with the string path to the tuning keys fairly consistent. On my own guitar builds I'm a little anal about this, and I like the string paths to be perfectly uniform. In all honesty though, the string path/tree mountings on this guitar is very much like what you find on most Fenders (better, even than some of the MIM and Indonesian samples I've seen).

The guitar is a pleasure to play. The fretboard radius is 13" +, which allows a fairly low action. There is little I would do to change the string action as set at the factory. The intonation is spot on. The neck width at the nut is 1-5/8" which is just a tad narrow for me, personally. I prefer 1-11/16", but that's really splitting hairs. The neck is perfectly comfortable as is, and not different from other necks of the same width. The neck contour is a modern C type, and is quite comfortable. It's not a thin, flat neck, nor is it like a two-by-four either. The body has a nice resonant sound when played un-amplified which is always a good indicator of what the amplified tone will be.

I plugged the guitar into my Crate Vintage Club 20 after letting it warm up for a good fifteen minutes. Switching between pickup settings was smooth with no noticable popping sounds. The pots are smooth, but there is a slight noise (static-like) in the pots. It was more noticable with the one tone knob than with the one volume. Without even pulling the pickguard, I already know that the pots are the inexpensive small import type that are notorius for being noisy in use. Again, it was expected. SX had to cut somecorners to keep the price down. I bought this guitar with the intention of replacing the inferior parts anyway, but it is still useable as is for one not so inclined.

Now for the sound: The guitar comes stock with two P-90 pickups which are both made with ceramic magnets. I selected the neck pickup, set the guitars tone and volume at 10, and used the amps EQ to adjust the settings. I set the master volume at 1 o'clock, and the gain at 8 o'clock for a clean tone. I then set the treble, mid, and bass controls at 12 o'clock. In this setting, I found the neck pickup to be a bit bass heavy, boomy, and a little muddy. This amp tends to be a little brighter than most I own, so I knew it's either the pickup, or the pot/cap combination, or both that are contributing to this tone. Turning the amps EQ down to 10 o'clock on the mids, 9 o/clock on the bass, and turning the treble up to 2-3 o'clock cleaned the tone up some. The middle setting has a more pleasing tone with a more typical warm, midrangy vibe to it. The bridge pickup in this setting is a bit twangy but not spikey at all.

With the gain turned up to about 12 o'clock, the guitar displays that more snarly P-90 tone that we electric blues and rockers enjoy. On this setting, the bridge pickup seems to have the best tone. By rolling off the tone a bit a nice cutting, edgy, tone can be achieved...but without any ice pick tone. It has a bit of that sterile/fizzy ceramic magnet tone, but not in any extreme. The middle setting is a little flatuent, but not that bad at all, the neck setting still retains its boomy/muddy tone, just more distorted.

In conclusion, I am pleasantly surprised - no, more like shocked - that a guitar that sells for only $109.95 could offer so much. It's going to take a lot more hours of playing this guitar, through a wider variety of amps before I can formulate a more complete opinion of the stock tone. At the price point that this guitar sells for, I knew that the electronics would be a weak link. I wasn't sure what the rest of the build quality would be like, though. Well, to say that I'm surprised and pleased with just about every other aspect of this guitar would be an gross understatement. Not only is this guitar a modders dream, it's perfectly playable for any who just want to plug and play as well.

I just don't know how SX does it....

[Brian Krashpad]

Sounds great! Congrats!

Now pics.

[Rocket]

I just don't know how SX does it....

I do... they use cheap junk parts.

I'm sooo not impressed with the SX I received.
I've held off reviewing because I wanted to give it every chance before I crapped on it. Biggest problem with SX... it came with a way-weak P90(sans bite!) I guess they're ok if one doesn't know better or hasn't played great rockin' P90's.

Biggest problem with Rondo... attitude. When I contacted owner with my complaints, his only smart-assed response was to give me instructions on how to remove myself from Rondo's mailing list... very LAME!

Rondo won't see another penny from me!

[Bloozcat]

I do... they use cheap junk parts.

I'm sooo not impressed with the SX I received.
I've held off reviewing because I wanted to give it every chance before I crapped on it. Biggest problem with SX... it came with a way-weak P90(sans bite!) I guess they're ok if one doesn't know better or hasn't played great rockin' P90's.

Biggest problem with Rondo... attitude. When I contacted owner with my complaints, his only smart-assed response was to give me instructions on how to remove myself from Rondo's mailing list... very LAME!

Rondo won't see another penny from me!

Well, it's too bad that you had such bad experiences with Rondo. I've now bought three guitars from them and I've had nothing but great experiences. Kurt has always answered my many e-mails, and has even sent me a couple of free bone nuts for my two Agiles. Judging by the sales volume that Rondo does, I'd say that most experience good service as well. But...you can only go by your own experience...

I knew that the electronics and some other hardware on the SX were not that great, BUT, there is no place that I can get a body and neck that is put together as well as on this guitar I just got, and finished as nicely as well. $110.00 for this is well worth it to me. I'll replace the pickups along with the rest of the electronics, and end up with a guitar that's worth far more than my total cost.

Since I have been building my own guitars for years, I know what good quality components are. My work speaks for itself. I also know how much it costs to build a guitar using the best. To find a fun guitar like this SX to mod and play with, is certainly worth the price of admission...and then some. There are lots of modders here who feel the same way.

[Rocket]

That's the diff... I play my guitars. I get no joy in picking them apart and putting them back together.
I guess I can see the appeal in that respect then... as alway, ya get what ya pay for!

On the positive side... it'll make a nice donation, prize, or gift.

[M29]

Hey Blooz, pics man pics. I can't wait to see them. What a great platform to have fun with and it sounds like there is not much to do. I love it when an inexpensive guitar comes out so good. I took a chance on a Jay Turser semi hollow body last year and I was nervous as heck until it came. To my surprise it was just about flawless. I am very happy with it.
I love modding these things and I will get a kick out of this stuff for rest of my life. A guy can't build a platform like some of these guitars for the same money and they come with a finish and everything. Shoot just the wood any more is getting expensive, not counting all the tools to build them. I have been picking up fretting tools lately and making what I can to save money and when I see a guitar already built with great action, straight necks and some even have decent machine heads on em, I get excited to save a bunch of work and have some fun.

Congrats Blooz...Can't wait to see it. It must be very nice if you give it a review like that!

M29

[Bloozcat]

OK, here's some pics...

[Bloozcat]

That darn first pic wants to rotate on it's side no matter what I do...

[Tibernius]

I took a chance on a Jay Turser semi hollow body last year and I was nervous as heck until it came. To my surprise it was just about flawless. I am very happy with it.

That the Black and Gold Semi-Acoustic LP?

[M29]

Oh man Blooz that looks sweet Nice finish and I like the fretboard flame and body grain pattern. I can't believe the price: That tort guard with that wood looks good too. Very nice indeed.

Congrats again Blooz, lots a fun:


Edited to reply to Tibernius. The semihollow I mentioned is the one in my avatar.

M29

[Brian Krashpad]

Those pics look great, thanks.

[warren0728]

looks real nice blooz.... :

ww

[Spudman***]

Pretty guitar.

[Bloozcat]

While I was in the process of ordering this guitar, I decided to pick up one of the SX dual humbucker pickguards that Rondo has on the site. I figured that this guitar would make a good dual use, P-90/humbucker, base. Well, as things often turn out, the pickguard doesn't match the one that's on the guitar right now - not in color/texture, or in hole pattern. Seems the pickguard on the guitar is some rogue pattern. I compared the dual humbucker one I bought with both a Fender 1962 re-issue pickguard and a modern Fender pattern pickguard (they differ by one screw hole location). The replacement SX matches the modern Fender pattern. Makes me believe that SX just uses whatever they can find at the time...

I still may use the dual humbucker pickguard, though. Knowing that I would be switching back and forth between pickguards often, I planned to replace the existing pickguard wood screws with brass screw-in anchors and machine screws. I could still do that, only with enough anchors in the body for both pickguard hole locations (some of them overlap). Those not in use would be covered by the pickguard anyway.

[Algonquin]

Looks sharp BC :

Gotta love the patio too... very nice outdoor living space.
Cheers

[Katastrophe]

I do love it when a Fretter has a new guitar day.

Nice guitar, Blooz, and congrats!

BTW, I'm digging "The Big Lebowski" reference under your screen name.

"This aggression will not stand...man."

[luvmyshiner]

Very nice BC! Congrats.

[Bloozcat]

I do love it when a Fretter has a new guitar day.

Nice guitar, Blooz, and congrats!

BTW, I'm digging "The Big Lebowski" reference under your screen name.

"This aggression will not stand...man."

This shirt's for you Kat...

[street music]

BLoozCat, That looks real nice. I 'll have to post pictures of my new SX in the next couple of days.