Squier '51

[kerc]

What, no one has reviewed this? I'll do this kinda in Harmony Central style...

Features
Strat-styled basswood body, about 1/4" thinner than a regular Stratocaster body. Basswood is good tonewood, and pretty light, but really easy to dent, so if you worry about that a lot, be forewarned. It has the blonde finish (some people hate it--I *love* it), and in my case it is very transparent compared to the usual finished, you can see a lot of grain through it. It has a black pickguard, in what appears to be some sort of vinyl.

One-piece maple neck with skunk stripe and two string retainers, 9.5" radius with supposedly vintage frets, but they seem a teeny bit bigger than the frets on my 2000 MIM Telecaster. The neck is kinda pale but has a very nice satin finish, very smooth and fast. The neck is easily the best thing on this baby. Very thick, round profile.

It has a very hot humbucker on the bridge (almost right *on* the bridge!) and a Strat-like "neck" pickup, halfway between the 'bucker and the neck, mounted in an angle. Rotary switch for pickup selection and a volume knob that you pull to split the humbucker coil. Top-loader chromed bridge with six square saddles.

Sound
In general terms, one word describes it: bright.

It surprised me that the humbucker was so bright--it goes right into Telecaster zone (and that's good for me!). Lots of output, good string definition. Pulling the coil split gives you an almost Strat tone, but with a little more high-end definition (not necessarily more treble), a certain "glassiness".

The "neck" pickup is much mellower, and gets really sweet when fretting near it (10th fret onwards)...great for some sweet soloing. The tone is definitely Strat.

Combined with the coil split off, the sound gets beefier, rounder. You could say the humbucker alone is pure rock (almost garage rock!), and both pups on is blues rock. Using the coil split, I get my favorite tone out of this guitar when playing clean: A beefy, mellow tone from the 'bucker, and a glassy top end provided by the split 'bucker! Funny how both tones don't "meld" per se, so you hear the distinct tones coming from the pickups...It's hard to describe!

Action, Fit & Finish
Squier has come a long way. Great quality overall! What could they improve? Tuners, fret sprout, and the nut.

The tuners work perfectly for me even when doing wide bends, but I see they use nylon bushings, so I dunno how they'll perform in the long run.

Fret sprout was easily fixed by a small needle file and great care.

The nut looks kinda odd, with a very deep cut for the 6th string. Nevertheless I was able to intonate and set up the action perfectly on it. It plays smooth, very easy and "soft".

Overall rating
If you can buy it, do so. It's the best/worst kept secret in Fenderdom! These guitars will be classics, like Danelectro's U2. Wait and see...

[tremoloman***]

Great review! I'll be doing one on the SX SST57 (Powder Blue) complete with some up close pics for you guys shortly. It came in today so I'll need to play it a few days to give it an honest review.

[Spudman***]

Trem
I hope you have better luck with your SX than I did. Mine had a hump around fret 14. I wasn't going to deal with it so I sent it back. No problems with the return. Nice guitar though for 100 or so bones.

[Robert****]

Good review, Kerc! I dig my '51 as you all know. One thing that has started to bother me is the volume knob actually reduces the volume quite a bit by turning it down slightly. That's not the way the volume knob should work! It makes it harder to get a cleaner sound with about the same volume by just rolling it down a bit. That's how I do it with my Tele with great results. That way, I don't need my pedals much.

[kerc]

Robert, maybe you could try with a different pot?