Product: Blade Guitars Texas Strat
Price Paid: US $500
Submitted
04/10/2002
at
07:31am
by
danny gotham
Email: steelstringer at aol<dot>com
Features
:
8
date of birth, approx. 1996-ish. standard strat style scale length; rosewood fretboard, ebony nut, levinson pickups--which are very high quality single coils. has master volume, master tone, 5-way toggle switch, and a booster toggle switch, driven by a 9V battery (for toggle/boost and pickups?) in a very clean, inconspicuous, rear-mounted rear cavity chamber. has a tremolo,and it is a very good one, but i do not use it much. black finish, white pickguard. very nice levinson (kluson style) tuners. really nice and clean fat frets. the neck heel cover says "levinson"; i am not certain if this one was made in switzerland or (more likely) japan. again, i have to guess and surmise a lot based on info gleaned elsewhere.
Sound
:
10
a great, thick, fat strat tone. lots of balls. rear pickup gives a nice tele-esque bite. i think the 9V drives the pickups (i'm a techno-nerd) as well? in any case, the pickups are very quiet. a fantastic guitar for blues, rock, country...even have used it for some jazz gigs.
Action, Fit, & Finish
:
9
everything is clean, and fine. no problems. looks great. nice action. the bridge design is definitely a cut above the standard strat style; very hefty and smmoth bridge pieces. the tremolo springs are nice and beefy--the bridge lies nice and flat on the body, no swishy stuff....
Reliability/Durability
:
10
rock-solid. no problems; travels well.....
Customer Support
:
No Opinion
as far as i can determine, the blade web page has not been updated since 1997. i don't even know the exact model name of this guitar--i remember it was a "texas" model--there is the texas special, which has a humbucking in the bridge position, then there is the texas vintage, which sports vintage finish touches, and a push-pull tone boost knob, as well as a more traditional 3 volume/tone knob strat configuration. so i think it is just a "texas" model. no matter, since the instrument has had no problems, but it would be nice if blade was a little more customer active, and kept their website current.
Overall Rating
:
10
i have had several fender strats over the years, including a couple vintage ones from the sixties. this is the best strat i have owned. it is rock-solid, clean as a whistle and it sounds great. curiously, i have heard from some others that they were turned off by the contour of the headstock, and the logo--both are very different, and might not be to your liking. i could care less; the guitar plays and sounds great, and that is all that matters. the $500 price was a steal; i kept looking at their various models in the musician's friend catalog for probably two or three years in the late 1990s, and waited until they began to phase out the blade line, and got this instrument at a closeout price--believe me, it was a huge bargain.
