Electra Phoenix

Made sometime in the mid 80s, my guitar has factory humbuckers in the neck and bridge position and a factory single coil in the middle position. The volume and two tone knobs also serve as coil taps when pulled up. The stratish-shaped body is made of poplar I believe, quite light, and painted a metalic gold. The fretboard is a dark and relatively tight grained rosewood.

All in all, it is a good looking guitar budget. The paint job has a couple of inperfections.

The range of sounds produced by this guitar is stunning. Although none of them are directly comparable to high end American or Japanese guitars, my Electra is capable of swampy Les Paul growls, shimmering strat-like chords, and piercing tele sounds. It also has all of the quirkiness of a budget Japanese guitar. If you like Hound Dog Taylor, this guitar has all of his tone, including the humming and whistling at high volumes. I know it's not for everybody, but the sound is versitile and fun.

Great action. Purchased at a pawn shop two years ago. The guitar was played very little, so I assume that the set up was done in the factory.

This guitar is a little war horse. Overall, more durable and reliable, and better made than my 1974 Tele Deluxe. My only complaint is that the jack is of inferior quality and needs to be tightened up occassionally. No problems live.

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I've been playing for about 15 years and have owned a number of guitars, and this is my favorite electric. It provides more sonic possibilities than any guitar I've ever played, and is of superior quality when compared to other electrics in the $500 and less category.

I bought this clunker in mid 1980's. It was a red, kind of 80's metal style guitar with a wild design. If you are making a video and want a cool looking guitar to "pretend" to play, this is the one for you! It had a stiff, non-functioning whammy bar. All I can say is it was an expensive "impulse buy" lesson (I bought it new -- they can be picked up for less than $100.00 today)

The sound was the WORST thing about this guitar (believe it or not I saw this disaster hanging in a local pawn shop the other day). It had the thinnest, weakest most anemic sound of any guitar I'd every played (even my beginner's "Memphis Les Paul" had a mightier roar (and piano string action lol).

The action was pretty good. Everything was set up well at the factory. The finish was flawless and nothing was loose or poorly cut/set. But, it was the proverbial gold painted trash can!

This guitar was built to last. You could use it as a crowd control weapon, drop it off the empire state building, and use it as a trampoline and it would come up fighting! BUT, it still sounds like crap!

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I wish I'd never bought this guitar, but it was my foolish, impulsive and expensive 1980's lesson!

My Electra was made in the early 80`s it features two humbuckers and 1 single coil pickup.It also has 3 push pull knobs.I play a lot of hard rock-n-roll and this guitar has every sound you could imagine,the neck is a slim design which allows you to very quickly hit a ton of different notes all up and down the neck.I also own a les paul custom and the les paul ended up being my backup guitar,crazy but true my electra actually sounds better.The les paul definately is a higher quality guitar playing wise but sound wise forget it.

I use a Peavey 5150 amp and this guitar gives me all the metal I need,I also have a Hiwatt dr201,and this guitar really does have a deep rich evil sound,you know what i mean,when you play you kinda drift off you and the band and come back together to end the song,The only thing about this guitar it sucks for bending strings on the real high notes.

Well I bought the guitar used,but the pickups sound great,the action is real low to the frets(just the way I like it)the guitar is made out of heavy wood.I have dropped it 3 times an a tile floor and no damage at all.I do a lot of string bending and it really stays in tune well.The only thing the guitar is a metallic green color my friends think it`s cool but?

This guitar could withstand me jumping on it and throwing it when I am pissed believe me everything on this guitar was built to last and it has this guitar has thousands of hours on it and it still isnt tired.

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I have been playing for 18 years and this guitar is the most veritile and best sounding I have owned,I have had solid body Takamines,Ibanez,Gibson,Hohner,and this is the one I use.

Im not sure when it was made, probably in the early 1980's in Japan. This Electra Phoenix has 22 frets, mahogany body with maple butcher block stripes and a rosewood neck. the finish on the body is thick and durable. This model has 2 double humbuckers with a toggle for top, bottom and both, a coil tap, a tone knob, an out of phase toggle and a pre-amp with dedicated volume knob. All knobs are brass including the bridge. The bridge is a standard with no tremelo option and the strings are through-the-body. The body style is strat-like with a fairly wide neck. I purchaced this guitar used with a case and strap for about $350.00 US.

This guitar suits my style perfectly. I play alot of blues, metal and classic rock like Rush, Queen, Yes and stuff like that. I play through a 1980 Peavey Classic and use a Zoom processor, a Boss chorus, Ibanez flanger and delay and occasionally a Boss heavy metal distortion pedal, all analog. This guitar tends to have a bright sound due to the pre-amp and EQ settings on the tone knob. Since the top pick-up is so far from the bridge, I get a pretty good Strat sound. Using both pick-ups with the out of phase switch, I get a godd "Brian May" sound. The pick-ups have good tone and the harmonicks are right on. The only thing I don't like is the width of the neck, I feel it slows me down a little. For some reason I break alot of strings on this one, especially 10 guages. I love the sounds I can get-Les Paul, Strat, Tele,ect. The pre-amp can overdrive a clean channel and is very quiet (-700Db). This is a heavy guitar and very tough. I have dropped it as well as my sister-in-law and it's still together after 13 years. I once owned a Westone that was basically the same guitar. Unfortunantly it was stolen and I found this one at a guitar shop in Wilmington, NC.

The guitar was built well and the intonation was perfect. Since I bought it new, I don't know how it was originally set up.

As I said before, this guitar is built solid with a thick finish that stands up to bangs, dings and drops. I've played live with more than any other guitar and it is reliable, you just have to make sure the 2 nine volts for the pre-amp are fresh. It strings up quickly and stays in tune well.

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I've been playing since 1979 and play This Electra, a Kramer Striker 350, a Carvin flying "V", an Aria Pro hollow body and have a Sigma-Martin acoustic. I would buy this again, as I had to when my Westone was stolen (miricle!). I wish I could put a Strat neck on it, I just think the one on it now is too wide. My Electra Phoenix just fits the bill for everything I play and I think it's a good looking instrument too.

I think this guitar was made in asia? It is a 22 fret guitar whichs kida looks like a BC Rich Warlock, only curvy. It has a laminated top, 2 humbuckers, 2 tone controls that you can push and pull. I think that the fretboard is Rosewood, but Im not too sure. Its not very good. It has a pearly white semi transparent finish, standard tuners, and a crappy termolo.

When using 10's it sounds alright, I only got it for 75 bucks and have had it for 10 years! The pickups are noisy and it has a muddy tone. The harmonics are ok, not that great.

The action is ok. I had it tuned about 2 years ago. The frets are thin and the strings do not hit frets when bended

I dropped it a few times and its still kicking. IT is very heavy

Never used it

For a starter guitar, its pretty good. But other than that, its about it

Not sure when it was made (80s?), but I bought it used in 1989 - the $100 cost included an hsc, which actually made it a reasonable buy. Manufactured in Asia, I think. It's a pretty standard cheapo strat copy with fairly normal tone/volume controls, although with humbucker pickups. The fretboard was some kind of dark wood that was not easy to play on. It also had tuners that didn't stay in, and a bridge that didn't really intone.

Fortunately, I only used this guitar infrequently, playing occasional rhythm guitar in the 60s/70s-type pop/psych band I usually played keyboards with ("Shake Some Action", by the Flamin' Groovies, was a cover we did that used 3 guitar players). Therefore, I mostly played it through a keyboard amp (Roland Cube 60), through which it sounded like an OK strat copy that did nothing to interfere with the sound of the two real guitarists in the band. And when I played it through my friend's Mesa/Boogie studio 22, it sounded like every other guitar does through that kind of amp.

Perhaps the guitar just had a bad setup, but it was the most unplayable electric guitar I've ever touched. It was no fun.

The parts and seemed sturdy enough, but I never played it enough to test its durability. Since I only played it on a few songs out of a large repertoire of the band I was in at the time, I had no need for a backup, but I wouldn't recommend it to a real guitarist as either a main instrument OR backup, as it never stayed in tune very well.

Never tried to contact St. Louis music. They seem to have good warranty service (at least for their Ampeg and Crate amplifiers), so maybe they could have done something to improve it.

This was my first electric guitar (after having learned chords on an acoustic for a couple years), and probably accounts for why I'm now a bassist! It WAS stolen, and I pity the thief who got stuck with it. The only thing I miss about it was the incredibly cool MC5 - 'Kick Out The Jams' sticker that I put on the case. I replaced it with an American-made Peavy Predator for $125 (no hsc, though), which is a far superior guitar, and a perfect buy for someone of my limited abilities. The only reason I can think of to buy an Electra Phoenix is if you want to do a Pete Townshend act, but don't want to smash up a decent guitar.