Shockingly improved.............. ?

i was in marshall music tuesday and they had just received a shipment of latest SX swamp ash series guitars ...and they seem to be improving their quality as time passes..... and are becoming SHOCKINGLY GOOD

my last experience of an SX was 3 years ago ...... a tele with a great body (solid 2 piece alder) but a horrible orange tinted ,badly fretted neck , with pickups that were really bad and an output jack that survived a week before replacing, and tuners that were dodgy to say the least .......

now 3 years on i find SX telecasters have reverted back to making proper ( ? possible lawsuit) fender shape headstocks that are not those funny SX hook or pointy types they had previously .....

the neck maple has a nice grain and the tuners are smooth and are grover copies but no slipping and a fairly nice ratio...... the body claims to be american swamp ash .... true of not it's clear wood so the grain and finish looks as good as any i see on more expensive instruments.... build quality is good as the body has a neat well matched split and the semi hollow carve out is good... and the frets are much improved from earlier models ....

the neck pickup is not bad as tele pickups go.....

however the bridge pickup is nothing short of horrid .....

also the nut is cheap plastic and cut badly ...

and the two comments above is all the negative i can find in this guitar ......

******and i put my money where my mouth is....cos i simply bought the guitar on the spot....NOT cos i needed it but cos for the "silly money" they were selling for brand new.... it was an impulse buy .....

so yes a great modding platform and the quality is soooooooo much better than earlier models

oh and i have no affiliation with SX or the importer....but just appreciate that the so called cheap chinese guitars out there are becoming better and better .........

so a pleasantly surprised demo that resulted in an impulse buy

Sneaky sneaky Keira,
not what I was expecting. :roflmao:

I have to say the lower price-range instruments really have got a lot better. When I bought my first electric, Squire Fat Strat in 2004, there weren't many good alternatives in that price range. These days starting guitarists are really spoiled for choice, especially if the 2nd market is anything to go buy (pun intended).

My ONLY Electrics (and I have one and a half of them) is SX's. I know they're cheap, but I needed an electric to play in the band I was in and couldn't (and still can't) afford a Fender.

Maybe I have low ambitions, but I love my SX and would rather shop around for another acoustic than electric. Id much rather upgrade pups and hotrod...hehe

You can snap up some really good gear for the money if you're in the right place at the right time. I picked up a Squire Classic Vibe '50s Strat in Lake Placid Blue for a relative, from a local guy desperate to sell. 1 year old, still had half the tags and plastic film on the scratch plate, plus Warwick hard case and a Kirlin cable. Not a mark on the guitar.

R2500.00. If I could have justified it, I would have kept it, but asked said relative to give me first refusal at the same money if they don't want it down the line.

Pretty guitar, light with nice lines. Although I can see an OCD person getting upset about the one "f" .

I think someone should be in the market for a pupgrade... ?

Very nice thinline. The lines of the pickguard seem a bit off, but that's easy to fix, and even MIM Fenders benefit from new pickups. Enjoy the new toy!