Fender Highway 1 Strat HSS

I recently purchased a Gibson Explorer, didn't like it and ended up trading it for two new Highways One's. The H-1's are 2006. One Amber colored, the other Walnut. Both HSS with rosewood necks and alder bodies. Both have the non-glare satin finish. Tuners are stock. Has a Fender "60th Anniversary" emblem on the back of the 70's style headstock, very cool addition. Just a personal note, I would have liked to see the Fender company logo engraved on the chrome back plate wherre the neck is bolted tot he body like it is on theo other American made models.

These two guitars have the new "Fender Greasebucket" wiring system. I don't know that its all that much of an improvement. All in all I own 6 Stratocasters. All but two (the H-1's) are American Deluxe models with the LSR roller nut, locking tuners, etc. They each have their own sound and all are capable of getting the deep tones you need sometimes for that rich rock sound. The H-1's are lighter sounding. The bottom sounds are not there. I play through a Vox 60 watt VTX and a Marshall TLS half stack. My other Strats can do anything from rock to blues to country, jazz, etc. The two H-1's can do most of the same but thay cannot reach the bottom like the others. I guess the correct wordage would be 'too bright' for my taste. Other than the 'too bright' comment, the sounds are just as good as the more expensive Fender models. I was very impressed for what you get for the price you pay.

When the two guitars came in I opened the first box while the guitar salesman opened the second. He looked over the walnut model, I looked over the amber model. On mine I noticed a low action, no bowing in the neck at all, it was slightly out of tune but all of them are when they come from the factory. I was please with what I saw. Then we switched guitars and I observed the same with the walnut H-1. Wow. Both of us were impressed. I was planning on leaving the guitars with the tech at the music store but niether one needed a thing. Low action, no buzzing, good tight jointwork. They literally came ready to play right out of the box.

The frets have a thinner width than my other Strats but I seem to prefer it. It plays fast and chords easily. There were no blemishes on the body, neck, headstock, etc. For a low priced guitar I was very impressed.

I play daily and have recently joined the church praise team as one of the guitar players. I've never had a problem with any Fender guitar. They remind me of a hand tool-like a screwdriver. If you take care of them they'll last a lifetime. They'll even last if you mistreat them.

Mine came with the gigbags which was cool because I'm running out of space for storing hard cases.

Never delt with them.

I've been playing for about 8 years. I've had many guitars during that time but always gravitate back to the Stratocaster. It just feels right. It just sounds right. If it were stolen I'd get another one the next day. I have Strats that I paid way more than the price of the Highway One. I honestly cannot see the $500.00-$900.00 difference between the H-1's and the American Deluxe.

your typical strat......

it was that typical strat sound that sold this guitar to me
all the pick-ups sound fine to me

ok...here we go......the kneck was bolted on at a slightly off angle and it was hard to get a good set up....so i took it to a guitar tec and he had to shim the kneck,put it back on straight,stone the frets and i got him to put on a brass nut and now its lovely so im afraid the new condition of the action was very,very poor

the paintwork is extrememy thin and fragile and i have found knocks on it that i didnt even know i had done.
as i said earlier the nut was replaced with a brass one and that really livened up the guitar.
other than that its a strat......drop it and it will bounce back(minus the paint work)

2005 usa 22 fret
Same as the others. Killer 70's headstock. I have floyds in all my other guitars and to my surprise the trem on this is great. It does look a little shoddy, but it sounds great and is easy to adjust. I did not like the pickups so I put a Duncan Custom Custom in the bridge and a Dimarzio Red Velvet(incredible p/u) in the neck. It had some tuning issues so I installed Sperzels and they work flawlessly. I can dive bomb with no tuning problems. The stock nut is excellent and does not bind up at all. Came with nice gig bag. The tone controls really add some variations to your tone. A lot of guitars have all these knobs and what-not and they really don't change the sound much, but not this guitar.

I play metal mostly and some blues. I have a VHT Ultralead and a little Line6 practice amp. The sound is great. It is sort of "open" sounding if that makes sense. It isn't like super tight sounding but it is very defined. Pretty bright sounding, in a good way. You can change that with the aforementioned tone knobs. Harmonics fly off this thing. With the Dimarzio neck pickup on the clean sound is absolutley amazing. Better than my PRS or Jacksons. It has that chimey, bell like tone. It's a Fender.

Well, I am not sure where this was assembled at (us, mex) but it did need some work. Nothing much though. Just a couple of turns in the truss rod and some bridge adjustments. Otherwise it was perfect. I love the finish. It is going to look great 10 years from now. This is definitely a guitar that will just get better and better with age. Plus it cost 1/4 the cost of my PRS. The more dings and scratches this guitar gets the better.

Seems to be built great. When I changed the pickups I inspected the electronics. Cheaper guitars usually skimp in this area, and the solders and everything were perfect. Very clean and organized. With the Sperzels I would gig with it. Without the new tuners I would still gig with it but would stay away from the trem bar or really wide vibrato.

Never dealt with Fender.

Manufactured in USA in 2003. Alder body. Maple neck. Rosewood fretboard. 2 single coils and 1 humbucker as fitted. Came with Fender gigbag, cloth and manuals. When I went to Peter Cooke's I wanted a 3 single coil version. Fell in love with the SSH when they plugged it in.
I decided I would buy a USA Strat but haven't got a grand for a Clapton or Custom Shop etc so chose Highway 1 on reviews in Guitarist. I have not been disappointed and all they say about this guitar is spot on.
My only other electric is a 30 year old Yamaha SG30. I was simply blown away by the range of sound the Strat produces.

I play mainly acoustic, but plug the strat into a Line 6 Guitar Port so I don't wake up the children. Sold my amp years ago. I play along to many songs from Steve Earle to Jet. The Strat sounds fantastic. Probably even better through a good amp.
The humbucker gives a very warm cultured sound at high gain. The setting for the neck and middle together is awesome. Individually the SCs are great too. I've only had the guitar for about 7 months so I'm still experimenting with the sounds but I've been inspired to play things I only dreamed about previously.
The pickups are a bit noisy and the SCs lack the output of the HB but then they are supposed to.
I can't think of anything I really don't like about the sound.

Action was not brilliant from the box although the bloke in the shop did some setting up.
Finish on the body was flawless and very neat indeed. The body on mine is 3 pieces which have been bookmatched very well. The fretboard was very dry and had a few minor lateral scratches i.e. at 90 degrees to the grain. Have restrung and treated with lemon oil a few times and its getting better.
Frets were finished to a good standard. Tuners worked fine, nut well cut.
I did have it profesionally set up by Dr Robert who adjusted the neck and the action, fine tuned intonation and dressed the frets. The guitar is now at least twice as good as it was when I bought it. He also tapped down the magnets on the single coils and adjusted the height of the pickups which has improved sustain considerably.
Overall, good setup out of the box but you have to have it set up to your own tastes.

Definately for live work. This is an alround workhorse which will probably look and sound even better with a few miles under its belt. I haven't gigged for a few years but other than for broken strings wouldn't want a back-up.
All hardware is solid if basic.
I use the tremelo accasionally and it never goes out of tune!

Have never had to contact Fender.

Been playing for 25 years (break for about 12 - family).
I have a Yamaha SG30, Yamaha FG423 and a Yamaha FG312 12 string. I also have damaged Fender DG4 which I have given to my 10 year old son.
Didn't really compare to others except a Mexican Tele and a second hand Yam SG2000. Chose this because of the range of sounds, and to be honest, the strat is the best looking guitar around.
I would not buy this model again because, now I have more knowledge about Strats I would spend the extra #100 or so for an American Series with a hard case. The gigbag is a bit of a joke. I bought a cheap hard case on ebay for #25 which is much better.
Wish it had a coil tap, but look at the price! Awesome value, a gem.

My HWY HSS strat is a new 2004. Had to order it from my local music store, because they did not have it in stock at the time I wanted it. Ita has a rosewood fretboard, 22 frets, and a light stained amber color body. I chose the amber color because I liked it. Its a strat with a humbucker in the bridge and two single coils in the mid and neck. Has late 60's - 70's style headstock. Came with a nice Fender gigbag.

I play many styles of music, including classic rock (VH, 60's, 70's and 80's stuff), jazz, blues, fusion. This guitar has handled all styles so far with ease. The humbucker seems to be very hot, great for that raw rock sound. The single coils are noisy, but what do you expect from them. All and all, the guitar handles my styles greatly.

When the guitar arrived at my local music store, I went to pick it up and gave it a test run. The action(setup) seemed great. The neck played very good. I could and still do not see any flaws in the finish. I dont care about all that, because I bought this guitar to be a work horse, and do not care it it gets scratched up. I think it adds to the personality to the guitar anyway. It speaks of where a player has been in his musical life.

The guitar will def withstand live playing. The guitar came off with no problems the other night. Rock solid. Like I said before, the finish is a ligh amber color, and I dont care if it gets scratched up or banged up. Im going to play it until it falls apart. I never gif without a backup, so thats not even considered.

Never dealt with fender.

I really like the HWY 1 HSS strat. It fits my styles very well. Looks great, plays great. I may later on replace the 6 point vintage trem with a Wilkinson 6 point trem for better tuning, and also may replace the neck with a Warmoth all maple neck, because I really prefer maple fretboards. All and all, the HWY 1 HSS is a great guitar, and for the price tag and quality you cant beat it. You get alot of guitar and more for the money.

This is a follow-up review. I posted my original review in the "Fender Highway 1 Strat" section. Now that the HSS section exists, I figured I might as well post my follow-up here. Anyway, I've had the guitar for about a year now. I figured it would do the good to see a review of the guitar that wasn't written immediately after it was purchased or tried out in the shop. Now that I've had the guitar for a year, I know what it's capable of and I think I can provide the readers with a much more informed opinion on the guitar.

Anyway, the features (still all stock):
Rosewood fretboard, 22 frets.
Maple neck.
Large headstock.
Cocoa transparent finish.
Black atomic humbucker in the bridge.
Two standard single coils in the neck and middle.
Vintage trem.
Came with a deluxe gig bag.
Basically a regular strat with a humbucker in the bridge.

I still play metal (Ozzy, I attempt Dream Theater from time to time), and I've also moved onto some classic rock (Lynyrd Skynyrd, ZZ Top). I've since gotten a new amp, a peavey classic 30. Compared with my old peavey rage 15 watter, the sound is obviously far better. The hss pickup configuration makes this guitar very versatile. I can go from screaming humbucker distortion to twangy single coil sounds with a flick of the pickup selector switch. I've managed to set my amp up so that I never have to touch it. I can just roll back the volume on the strat to lower the gain, and eventually get a nice clean tone. Switch to one of the "in between" positions, set both of the tone knobs to 0, and you'll get a very deep, warm, muddy overdrive which seems very well suited for blues. The best clean tones this guitar makes come from the "in between" positions. They provide a very woody clean sound, almost like an acoustic! Overall, the pickups are great. I absoloutly love the humbucker, and will never consider putting a different one in. The single coils sound exactly like single coils should. They are a liitle noisy, but that should be a dead issue by now. If you can't take a bit of noise, don't buy a guitar with single coils.

The classic 30 isn't exactly a high gain amp, so I will probably end up getting an overdrive pedal eventually, for when I feel like more gain. On it's own, the strat coupled with this amp can produce excellent Randy Rhoades type sounds, or growly classic rock sounds.

Anyway, this guitar is very versatile sound-wise. You can cover almost any genre with this guitar. Metal, classic rock, blues, jazz, country. The only thing missing for me is a neck humbucker. However, as some reviewer here once said "different horses for different courses". For what this guitar is made to do, it's perfect.

From the factory, the guitar wasn't set up perfectly. That doesn't matter though. All that matters is that the guitar can take a good setup. My rating for this category is based on that, not how it came from the factory. Once this thing was set up properly, it played great, and still does. I have the action set pretty low, and I get minimal fret buzz. If you don't strum too hard or press too hard, you won't get any buzz. The neck on this guitar suits me perfectly. I haven't tried a guitar that feels better to me (yet). The guitar didn't have any flaws when I got it.

The finish is thinner than most (that shouldn't be a surprise to anyone reading this review). Because of that, it is a little easier to scratch up. Since I first got it, a few scratches and dings have surfaced. If you can't take take, don't get this guitar. I treat my instruments well, so, this isn't really an issue for me.

This guitar can certainly withstand live playing, although I've never played live before. The hardware will certainly last, as will the finish if you treat it right.

I've heard many people bitch about vintage trems. I can't say I've ever had severe tuning problems with mine. If you wind your strings properly, stretch them properly, and occasionally tighten the tuners, you should be fine. Look at Yngwie Malmsteen. All his guitars use vintage trems, and he quite often goes crazy with them. He doesn't seem to have tuning problems. If you set it up properly, you shouldn't have any severe problems. I will admit, the vintage trem can't compare to a floyd rose as far as tuning stability goes, but it can come much closer than you think if you know how to use it.

I've still never dealt with Fender directly, so, no rating here.

I'll now have been playing for a bit under two years. I'm still quite pleased with this guitar. I can safely say I'll never make an effort to get rid of it. I'd be really pissed if it ever got stolen. If it were stolen, I don't know if I'd get it again. This is a great guitar, but, I may still want to step up on the Fender ladder, or try something new. When I first tried it out at the store, I compared it to an Ibanez RG, a Gibson SG special, and some ESP. The RG was decent, but the pickups blew and the neck didn't really agree with me. The SG was too expensive, and the ESP just plain sucked. This one was clearly the most versatile and wasn't insanely expensive.

Anyway, even after a year of owning this guitar, I still love it as much as when I first got it (if not more). I still find myself itching to play it every day. That right there has got to mean something. Pardon any spelling/grammatical errors. I didn't proof-read this.

2004 Fender U.S. Highway 1 Stratocaster HSS

Alder body, maple "C" shape neck, 25.5" scale, rosewood fingerboard, 9.5" radius, 22 frets, satin finish, 2 vintage single coils (neck and middle positions), Atomic humbucker in the bridge position, vintage style tremolo

This is a cool combination of vintage and modern styles, with the added edge of a humbucker.

No single guitar ever has or ever will have all the features that one could want, but a Strat is essential, so it gets a 10 on features.

The stock Fender humbucker sounds great. The single coil pickups are a little weak output-wise, but nevertheless sound good clean. The guitar excels in overdrive and high gain amp settings. Single coil sounds are very much like Hendrix or SRV. The humbucking sound has just the right amount of brightness and clarity, and has great sustain. I might try different single coils in the neck and middle positions, but other than that, the guitar sounds great.

The guitar was set up very well. The action was just how I like it, frets were polished, and the guitar was very close to being in tune right out of the box. The pickup height was a little low, but I figure there's nothing to complain about there, everyone has their own preferences for that. The satin finish is very cool. The guitar itself is lighter than my other Strats. Everything was in perfect condition when I pulled it out of the box. Superb!

I find that most guitars hold up very well as long as you don't smash them on a stage floor. This guitar looks like it will hold up for a long time. It is very solidly built. The satin finish seems a little thin, but I guess I'll find out its durability over time. This is my new backup guitar for gigs (my main is a PRS Custom 24). I will rely on it heavily.

Never had any trouble with any of my Fender gear. Any diagrams or schematics I needed, or any questions I needed answers to are covered on Mr. Gearhead, Fender's customer support website (www.mrgearhead.com). Lifetime warranty, so I should be good.

I've been playing for 10 years. I own 3 Strats and 2 PRS's. These five guitars cover all the tones I desire. I checked out the specs on the guitar, liked what I heard, and ordered one. They were back-ordered at the time and I waited a little while for mine to be built and shipped out. I pulled it out of the box at the store, tuned it up and played it, and it sounded great. I couldn't ask for much more than that.

My main rig is a Mesa/Boogie Triaxis preamp, Mesa/Boogie 2:90 power amp, and TC Electronic G-Major running through a stereo Mesa/Boogie 4x12 cabinet. Everything is controlled through MIDI. I have one set of presets for my PRS's, and one set for my Strats. The Strats do not have high output like the PRS's, so the Strat presets in my preamp need the gain and volume boosted slightly. When I bought this guitar, it fit right in with my other Strat presets, no problem.

For $450, I got a guitar that rivals my $3000 PRS Custom.

The same as everyone else. I did have the trem blocked and 11's put on though.

I give it a 10 because it has everything I would want in a Strat and more (humbucker).

I like to play blues, pop rock, and 90's alternative. This guitar sounds great to me and suits my style just fine. I have seen some bashing of the pickups in other posts and beleive that if a player can't make this sound good the problem must be personal and not the guitar. This will sound like a strat with a humbucker, it will never exactly replicate a les paulr or other mahogony humbucker equipped guitars but that's not it's purpose. If you are expecting that, I would buy a different guitar.

The middle, and neck pickups sound very traditional while the humbucker is meaner and gritties. I am very happy with the range of sounds from the humbucker and beleive it gives you a lot more versatility than going with a standard sincle coil at the bridge.

To be honest, this guitar is flawless. It is very sturdy, the frets,and finish are also very smooth.

The finish is perfect.

This is definitely a 10.

I feel this guitar will stand up as ell as any fender guitar. The finish is a little bit thinner to cut costs but I see absolutley no issues with it. All of the knobs and switches are also spot on which is different than previous Fenders I have owned.

I have been playing for about 5 years. Currently I own an high end acoustic and this is my only electric but I have been through a mim strat, a mim telecaster, and a squier telecaster. I would defenitely buy another one as this guitar just seems to have "it" for me. I would have considered a G&L Tribute but this one just felt right.

Made in the USA 2002, 22 medium jumbo frets, vintage bridge, alder body, maple neck with 9.5" radius, 3 vintage style alnico pups with staggered pole pieces, this one has a HSS pickup routing. What I like about this guitar is it has some modern feautures like the neck radius and medium jumbo frets and some vintage feautures like the vintage bridge and pups.

The sound and playability is what I like about this guitar. Amps consist of a Fender Silverface Champ and a Mesa f-30 (great clean sounds) and a tonebone classic distortion that I play through the clean channel of the Mesa. I had been searching for a strat for about 6 months and had considered an American Series, American Vintage, American Deluxe, etc. but this Highway 1 just seemed to feel right and sound right.

I have been intrigued with the noiseless pups so after owning the H1 for about 7 months I dropped in a set of very well regarded 50's vintage style noiseless pups (not fenders) hoping I could keep the great sound of these pups without the noise. Here is the interesting part. The noiseless pups sounded very good, bell like and chimey. However, I preferred the stock pickups so the noiseless came out after a couple weeks and I have the original pups back in and I am very pleased with the sound again. These stock pups are somewhat darker with more midrange and don't have that twangy bright 50's sound. All 5 positions sound great and are very distinct. The bridge is biting, the middle is very clear and usable clean or driven, and the neck pup is throaty and woody. When driven these pups become rude and nasty in a good way - think Hendrix.

I bought this from a local small shop that is a Fender dealer so I think they spent some time with it before putting it on the floor because the set up was good. I inspected the guitar closely so it was in good shape with no other issues.

Here is the rub on this guitar. The finish is thin and not durable so any slight bumps to the finish either cause a dent or the paint comes off to the wood. However, I knew this in advance and for $535 bucks new it is what it is and I'm not worried about it. Other than that it is a strat and the reliability and durability should not be a problem.

Have not had to deal with Fender or have not had any warranty issues.

I have been playing for about 22 years. I also own a PRS McCarty, and a Hamer Newport. Both very nice and expensive guitars. Believe it or not I like this strat the best. There is just something about a strat the sound is so unique. If lost or stolen I would replace.

If you take your time and play a bunch of different strats you can find a good one without having to pay a lot of money. Strats are made different that most other guitars because they are held together by a bunch of screws, the pups are mounted to the pickguard, etc. Certainly if you buy a more expensive strat you will get a better paint job, maybe better pickups (but that depends on what you like), and better hardware. But I don't think that always necessarily means the guitar will play or sound better (with one disclaimer the electronics need to be of good quality).