Zaphod B
Raccoons-Be-Gone, Inc.
My cheap Korean Strat clone was delivered by UPS last Thursday.
To recap, it is a "Xaviere" brand model XV-850 sold by Guitar Fetish. I bought a blem for $220. Add $25 bucks for shipping and it was $245 to my door.
Here is a link to Guitar Fetish's page for the guitar:
http://store.guitarfetish.com/xvflmaledrwi.html
The description given on their web site appears to be accurate in all regards (as far as I can tell - I have no way of verifying wood species.
)
The guitar was well packaged - double-boxed and padded. The blemish on this thing was not obvious at first, but I eventually noticed that it's the pickguard....the pickguard looks like it's been banged around a bit, and the rest of the guitar looks completely untouched. Go figure on that one....
I am not a judge of graded maple tops, and this is claimed to be a AAAAA top. Whatever grade it actually is, it is a beatiful flame and well bookmatched. There is a slight burst on the periphery of the top, which is a nice yellowish-amber color. The body is poplar and the top is single-bound. The finish on the body is pretty nice - it's not mirror-perfect but it has a nice gloss finish that doesn't seem to be too thick, and it's buffed out well. Overall the guitar looks much better than the pictures on the web site.
The neck is maple with a rosewood fingerboard. The maple is finished with what I think of as a naked finish - it's satin, and very thin with little build-up, and very fast. I like it. The frets are finished pretty well, although the upper 5 frets on the high E side need just a bit of dressing down. The tuning machines are Wilkinson EZ-Lok tuners that have 2 sets of holes at 90 degrees, and this is supposed to make them non-mechanical locking tuners. When I string the thing up with a new set I'll figure out how this is supposed to work. The nut is graphite and it is cut well.
The guitar was well set up out of the box. Neck relief was good, string height was good, playability is excellent. The neck and fretboard profiles seem identical to my '91 Strat so it feels familiar. The strings were probably from a set that had been sitting around for a while and a were bit funky but they did clean up OK. The neck pocket is nice and tight.
The vibrato is a Wilkinson unit that is steel throughout, with a stagger-drilled sustain block. The vibrato arm presses in rather than screwing in, and that works really well. It feels as if there is a nylon sleeve inside that the arm fits into, and the arm stays where you put it. If you are one of those vibrato people that likes the arm to swing down loose so that you have to grab it each time you use it, this might not suit you. Also, this vibrato is set up as pitch-down only, as the part that rotates off the body comes to rest on the body when you release the arm, making it half blocked. I really like this, as I never pitch up with a vibrato anyway, and the way this is set up I can detune both the high and low E strings a full step without having to touch any of the other strings. Nice. There are three substantial springs providing tension and the vibrato effort is quite a bit higher than on my Strat, but nothing I can't live with. I may pull one spring off and see how that works.
Playability is excellent. Fast neck, good action. No rattles, no fret buzz. Feels solid. 'Nuff said.
The sound...is great. These GFS alnico pickups sound so different from the Lace Sensors in my Strat. Not necessarily better, but different. The GFS pickups have more bite and attack - play some blues chord progressions on the neck pickup and you are immediately in SRV-land. Big, open, woody sound. The middle pickup (reverse wound but the same output as the neck) is predictably snappier sounding. The bridge pickup, which is quite a bit hotter than the other two, is very, very bright, particularly when I have the Vox in the top boost channel, but it works well in the normal channel where there is not so much boost on the top end. In positions 2 and 4 the sound is very creamy and smooth. Very nice.
By comparison, my Strat with the Lace Sensors has a bit tamer sound, and does the clean stuff better with a purer tone.
I know this is a long review for such a cheap guitar. I'm tellin' ya, though, I am very impressed by the bang-for-buck ratio here, and the hardware alone is almost worth the price of the guitar.
Lt. Bob, you should check one of these out if you need a backup or a "three beach gigs in one day" guitar.
Pictures to follow!
To recap, it is a "Xaviere" brand model XV-850 sold by Guitar Fetish. I bought a blem for $220. Add $25 bucks for shipping and it was $245 to my door.
Here is a link to Guitar Fetish's page for the guitar:
http://store.guitarfetish.com/xvflmaledrwi.html
The description given on their web site appears to be accurate in all regards (as far as I can tell - I have no way of verifying wood species.
)The guitar was well packaged - double-boxed and padded. The blemish on this thing was not obvious at first, but I eventually noticed that it's the pickguard....the pickguard looks like it's been banged around a bit, and the rest of the guitar looks completely untouched. Go figure on that one....
I am not a judge of graded maple tops, and this is claimed to be a AAAAA top. Whatever grade it actually is, it is a beatiful flame and well bookmatched. There is a slight burst on the periphery of the top, which is a nice yellowish-amber color. The body is poplar and the top is single-bound. The finish on the body is pretty nice - it's not mirror-perfect but it has a nice gloss finish that doesn't seem to be too thick, and it's buffed out well. Overall the guitar looks much better than the pictures on the web site.
The neck is maple with a rosewood fingerboard. The maple is finished with what I think of as a naked finish - it's satin, and very thin with little build-up, and very fast. I like it. The frets are finished pretty well, although the upper 5 frets on the high E side need just a bit of dressing down. The tuning machines are Wilkinson EZ-Lok tuners that have 2 sets of holes at 90 degrees, and this is supposed to make them non-mechanical locking tuners. When I string the thing up with a new set I'll figure out how this is supposed to work. The nut is graphite and it is cut well.
The guitar was well set up out of the box. Neck relief was good, string height was good, playability is excellent. The neck and fretboard profiles seem identical to my '91 Strat so it feels familiar. The strings were probably from a set that had been sitting around for a while and a were bit funky but they did clean up OK. The neck pocket is nice and tight.
The vibrato is a Wilkinson unit that is steel throughout, with a stagger-drilled sustain block. The vibrato arm presses in rather than screwing in, and that works really well. It feels as if there is a nylon sleeve inside that the arm fits into, and the arm stays where you put it. If you are one of those vibrato people that likes the arm to swing down loose so that you have to grab it each time you use it, this might not suit you. Also, this vibrato is set up as pitch-down only, as the part that rotates off the body comes to rest on the body when you release the arm, making it half blocked. I really like this, as I never pitch up with a vibrato anyway, and the way this is set up I can detune both the high and low E strings a full step without having to touch any of the other strings. Nice. There are three substantial springs providing tension and the vibrato effort is quite a bit higher than on my Strat, but nothing I can't live with. I may pull one spring off and see how that works.
Playability is excellent. Fast neck, good action. No rattles, no fret buzz. Feels solid. 'Nuff said.
The sound...is great. These GFS alnico pickups sound so different from the Lace Sensors in my Strat. Not necessarily better, but different. The GFS pickups have more bite and attack - play some blues chord progressions on the neck pickup and you are immediately in SRV-land. Big, open, woody sound. The middle pickup (reverse wound but the same output as the neck) is predictably snappier sounding. The bridge pickup, which is quite a bit hotter than the other two, is very, very bright, particularly when I have the Vox in the top boost channel, but it works well in the normal channel where there is not so much boost on the top end. In positions 2 and 4 the sound is very creamy and smooth. Very nice.
By comparison, my Strat with the Lace Sensors has a bit tamer sound, and does the clean stuff better with a purer tone.
I know this is a long review for such a cheap guitar. I'm tellin' ya, though, I am very impressed by the bang-for-buck ratio here, and the hardware alone is almost worth the price of the guitar.
Lt. Bob, you should check one of these out if you need a backup or a "three beach gigs in one day" guitar.
Pictures to follow!
