Quote Originally Posted by guitarhack View Post
I also had the Squier 51, and also several DeArmonds, which got a lot of love on the message boards several years ago. I've sold all of mine but a Starfire Special. I traded some of the others for a G&L ASAT Classic S, which is an awesome guitar.
I never got a Squier 51. Went and tried all the ones at the local large mom'n'pop, Lipham's (where Tom Petty used to work back in the day), and every last one of them had fret ends that'd slice a finger off. Easy fix, I know, but that poisoned the well for me.

I did, and do, like the DeArmonds. I started with a cheapo bolt-neck Indonesian-made Jet Star Special, which in fact wasn't very special. But on graduating to the MIK setnecks with the Fender US factory-made GoldTone pups, I found every last one to be a high quality instrument in terms of looks, tone and playability. In a perfect world I would've kept them all, just on principle, but since the ones I had all had those same humbuckers (I just never got round to getting one with the P-90 voiced 2K single-coils), they all sounded pretty similar. And once I got a couple Gibson Les Pauls, the M-series based on Guild's Aristocrat sorta became doubly redundant. All told I owned 4 DeArmond setnecks with GoldTones. Two M-series, an M-72 and an M-75. These were so similar that I sold the M-75 pretty quickly, as I preferred the stoptail on the M-72 to it's harp tailpiece, plus the M-72 had a beautiful burst and light flame, while the M-75 was plain ol' ebony. I kept the M-72 for quite awhile and only sold it after getting some Gibby Les Pauls. I also owned two of the much funkier Jet Stars. One I bought specifically to flip, because the money went to VH1's Save The Music charity. I ended up trading it for the M-75! I still have the other Jet Star, Ruby, my first DeArmond setneck. THAT one I'm keeping!

Dunno if it ever qualified as "hot" but I love love love my li'l Fender Super Champ XD.

Also fond of my Vox AD30VTXL. The regular AD30VT an AD50VT got a lot of love here, but the AD30VTXL sorta flew under the radar. Even if you didn't like the more high-gain models than on the regular AD30, the larger 12" speaker is certainly an upgrade from the AD30's ten.