AD Custom Guitar Delta Classic

Ordered (July 27, 2007) custom retro Strat - Brazilian rosewood neck, seafoam green body, Alnico pickups, pearloid pickguard, Sperzels, tusque nut (in lieu of locking nut per his recommendation). Case extra for $65, s/h $30.

Series of email, one phone call after paying $710. Lots of reasons for delay in process; ultimately, it's February 2008 - no guitar and upon requesting refund, was informed AD Custom Guitars (also, accepted payment as Triad Music - Mystic Beach NY) is liquidating their business.

They claimed the guitar had trouble curing since the laquer they used was new product for them. They also later advised that the rosewood they received from vendor was substandard so they had another delay.

They are not in position to send a quality guitar at this point; have more issues than the day is long with holding your money and not sending you a guitar. With all the reasons and problems they had, I just want my money back.

They were responsive up until they got payment. Then email took weeks to get a response, phone call was a couple weeks in getting response. Responses amount to reasons they can't come thru as promised. In the end, no guitar and they hold your money.

I have been playing about 8 years. I would expect that a business that was as established as this one seemed to be with the history it had on Ebay as ADCustom-Guitars would have wanted to expound on its reputation and do right by their customers. Not so.

Sea foam green Body.
Strat Body.
LOUSY CHEAP Korean tremolo in place of a Wilkinson which was originally promised.
Tuners were meant to be Wilkinson Locking tuners, but in place were lousy, crappy, cheap SX tuners.
22 Frets.

The pickups do sound pretty sweet but that's about the only good thing about this guitar.

The finish on the body had smodges of paint all over it. Some parts of the body were glossy and others matte. The worst ever paint job I've ever seen.

The neck had a gap between the body when it was fit on...totally unplayable.

The strings on the tremolo do not even line up to the pick ups at the Bridge pick up.

When I strung the guitar up, there was no set up as promised and the strings could not even resonate due to the bad neck and lousy tremolo.

The frets still had the lacquer on it and when trying to play it, the strings felt rough while trying to scrape off the lacquer.

The body is an Eden body and not Warmoth as promised.

The nut action is way too high at the headstock to even fret a bar chord .

They blamed all this on a guitar tech who was fired as he did his work badly. This is quite a lie as Dean told me the guitar played well before he sent it out.

AD CUSTOM GUITARS is the biggest internet scam around. You will not get the parts as promised. You might as well get a sewer Rat to build you a strat.

It will not even play.

Communication was good before payment was made and e-mails were answered almost instantly. AFter payment, e-mails were replied after a week or more.

They pretend to sound helpful and make empty promises.

I have been playing for 15 years and my main guitars are a Martin D28, Parker Fly Classic, Washburn N4 and a custom Jazz Archtop.

I asked all I could before committing to the purchase and was pretty confident until the product came when nothing on the guitar was what in the agreement.

Purchased on ebay from AD Custom Guitar. This is a Strat style guitar with a candy red finish that looks deep enough to fall in. This guitar has a maple neck with a rosewood fret board, vintage kluson type lock tuners, 2 piece alder body with overwound alnico 3 pickups (made in-house) and a wilkinson tremolo that really stays in tune. Has a mint pickguard and covers w/ typical strat setup - one volume, two tone and a five way pickup switch.

I've been playing for over 20 years and have owned a pretty wide range of guitars(Gibson 335, many Les Pauls and a lot of Fender tele's & strat's.)I have also had the opportunity to play and closely inspect PRS's, Brian Moore, Anderson and well lots of them. I play Rock, Blues, British Rock as well as Country, Swing, Jazz and even a litle Folk Rock. I use amps with tubes as well as solid state units. Mesa, Peavy, Fender, Marshall etc. Whatever sounds good to me.
I bought this guitar new online though ebay no less!! I had never heard or played one before. I didn't have a clue what to expect. I still can't believe I bought it (I really like to hear what I am paying for before I purchase so I've never been real big on buying my guitars online)but I am happy I did. This guitar responds to the player. I can't remember playing anything I liked better. The pickups are very breathy and I guess articulate is the correct word here. For single coils they are quiet.
I have a really hard time putting it down. It's really amazing the sounds and the quality of tones that you can create with this guitar. I enjoy it more each time I pick it up.

Clean, caring and careful construction on this one. NICE candy red finish and high quality components throughout. The neck is just about perfect - Med jumbo frets, a nice rolled fingerboard and a well done tusk nut. Intonation is dead on up and down the neck. To me this is a sign of pro workmanship. The set-up as received was close to the best I have seen in a long while. Came with slinky 09's as requested.

I'm pretty sure that this guitar will outlive me. construction and hardware look to be top notch. I can't imagine a more solid guitar of this type. I have and will continue to gig with this guitar. It is always a good idea to have a back up.

Amanda, the customer service rep was helpfull, patient and well informed. She returned calls and emails promptly. I even got to speak with the the guy who was building my guitar, when I need a few
questions answered about custom wiring. Overall - friendly, professional and eager to help.

I have had several strats over the years, even one or two vintage ones from the late 50's/early 60's. In the fairly short period of time I have owned this it has become my favorite and my first go-to guitar. It is one of the best strats I have owned. It is rock-solid, clean as a whistle and it plays and sounds great. The sub $600 price was a steal. i kept looking at their various models on ebay, and got this instrument - believe me, it was a huge bargain.

Custom Strat of exceptionaly high quality. Purchased for a little under $600 on ebay from ad custom guitars. Blows American Fender Strats away and the price is around what a mexican reissue costs. Build quality similar to a lot of the high $$ boutiques, but more vintage looking/feeling/sounding. A two-piece alder body in a stunning Seafoam Green. I haven't seen many this good. Maple neck w/ a light vintage tint and nice grain w/ a fat slab of rosewood fingerboard that is about as nice as I have seen. 6130 frets, perfectly finished. Locking tuners that look vintage but work well and alnico 3 single coils w/ a blend control that I requested.

Great Strat tones. Rock to blues. Just ! All the sounds you expect from a strat are there, from SRV to Hendrix to Cray. Blend control lets you get a decent middle-tele sound too. I play mostly through a Vibrolux, and it sounds so good I don't use effects anymore. Positions 2 & 4 are hum cancelling as expected. Even the bridge position provides some great tones, it is not overly bright.
I jammed with a buddy's band recently. Just me, this guitar and my fender amp - no effects. The other guitariist had a Fender Custom Shop '60 strat (w/ texas specials which I think suck!) a Peavey 2x12 amp and an effects rack that looked like a store display. While he is as good of a player as me and probably better, I blew everyone away with just the straight no-toys-in-the line tone of this guitar, mostly on the in-between switch positions. My point being - you can't make up with effects what ain't there.

Built with attention to detail. Nice tight neck fit, beautiful finish, clean routing & wiring. On par with many big buck custom builders I have palyed and owned over the years. This guitar makes most Fenders under $1500 seem like junk. After extensive searching for a long time for the "perfect" strat, I recommend the following: IF you want a gretaplaying & sounding guitar (as good as any american fender I have played) and don't care whats on the label . If not, get a G&L (G&L's are awesome, especially for the price. While the Grosh has better attention to detail and feels "better," G&L's are the most bang for the buck out there).

I haven't had it long enough. It certainly seems as solid as any strat should, but in fairness I will not say more than that.

Amanda & Dean have personally answered all emails, and spoke with me on the phone at some length ansering all my questions. They have been patient, approachable, and genuinely concerned to get me the tone I want from this fine guitar. Solid customer service.

Have been playing around 10 years. Own or have owned at one time: a cheap LP copy; an MIJ Strat; Gibson SG; '78 strat; Rick 360; '57 reissue strat and a Gibson ES-335. This ad strat is among the best.. While looking around I played about 10+ Fender Strats priced from $900 - $1500 that i feel didn't compare. Also played an Anderson or two which were very nice but didn't quite have the true strat sound that I really wanted and found with this guitar. While this might not be made quite as well as an Anderson, it really has awesome tone and playability. When the price is factored in, this has got to be the best kept secret in Strats!!

A very high qualit Strat copy.
Color is a Seafoam Green lacquer on Strat-style body. Bridge is modified vintage tremolo. I asked for it to be installed flush with full springs, so as to make it pretty much non-tremolo. Tuners are Gotoh vintage. Neck is 22-fret soft V profile, highly-figured flamey maple with vintage tinted lacquer. Pickups are SpeakEasy Vintage Special single coils(this is the house brandpick up) with volume, tone and speacial wired blend control. Pretty ard not to rate this category a "10". I was able to specifiy most of the features myself!

The sound is lush and warm with a big voice-like presence. The blend control adds a lot of flexibility and is particularly helpful for darkening up some of the Tele character of the bridge pickup. It is quite resonant, evidenced by its airy acoustic sound when played without an amp (an accurate indicator of the quality of tonewoods and assembly in a solid-body guitar, which in this case is spectacular). Sounds perfect for blues and rock.

The guitar was set up as I had specified for my playing style. Assembly was rock-solid and without discernible flaws of any kind. Most surprising was the feel of the neck, which was simply spectacular. Perhaps the highest praise I can give is to say that it felt like a guitar I had been playing for years, rather than a brand new model. Fret finish is a good as any I have played.

I have only had this guitar for 3 months but with the quality of materials and the workmanship that went in to it, it feels built to last.

I purchased this guitar on ebay.
Amanda was wonderful to deal with. She returned e-mails and calls promptly, and talking with her was educational. I wanted a quality guitar, but did not have a huge budget. I got a guitar that should have cost WAY more money. I also spoke with Matt one of the luthiers and he was knowledgable and willing to go the extra mile when helping me obtain a guitar that matched my requirements.

I have been playing blues and blue-rock for 20 years. During that time I have owned a variety of intruments from all of the major makersin every price range. Without question, this is one of the sweetest Strat-style guitars I have ever owned or played and it was under 600.00!! I love the fact that even thoughit is new, it plays and feels like an old frien. Usually takes a long time for a guitar to feel like that. It makes me want to play and is very hard to put down once picked up.