Fender Squier Affinity Series Strat

Typical Strat configuration, 3 single coil pu's, 5 way switch, "vintage" style trem, 2 tone, 1 volume control. Mine is is a 1998 model made in China by real Chinese prisoners (why else do you think that they could sell them for about $100 and still make a profit?). It's arctic white with a w/b/w 3 ply pickguard, and maple neck with rosewood fretboard. The tuners are covered and cheap, but hey, they do what tuners are supposed to do...get the guitar in tune, and keep it there. Oh, and don't complain about the whammy bar making it go out of tune if you're doing dive bombs with it. This type of trem wasn't designed for dive bombing, the Floyd rose was. If you have it set up correctly, it will stay in tune reasonably well, even with heavy use.

Well, I bought this guitar planning to upgrade most of the parts over time, but after playing it for about a month now, I think I'm just going to leave it stock. This is not a bad guitar, and I believe the stigma around the Squier series revolves around the fact that 99% of them are bought as a first guitar by some guy who want's to be the next James Hetfield. I have played guitar for 17 years, and have owned everything from this Squier to various Gibson's, Hamer's, Charvel's, Jackson's, Epiphone's, Peavey's, and...you get the picture. I have come to the conclusion that you don't have to buy some upscale, expensive whatever to get an excelent tone. The BIGGEST factor in anyone's sound is...you, not your equipment. If your equipment sounds like shit, you probably play like shit. The only thing those expensive guitars are going to get you is an empty bank account. Now I will admit that you would be a fool to by the first Squier Strat that you pick up (except in my case). The guitar store had 12 of these sitting out for $119, and I spent a good 2-3 hours playing through them to find the best one (which happened to be the first one I picked up). The quality varies greatly on these. Find a good one, though, and it's every bit as good as an American Standard Strat. I own 3 other Strats besides this one; an American Standard, and 2 Mexican Strats. This one is just as good as my others, it just cost a lot less. It suits all of my musical styles from psychadelic, to blues, to classic rock, and even Slayer (yes, I really do play all of these). This guitar does a fine job of translating the sounds in my head, through my fingers, into the amplifier.

It was set up ok at the guitar store, but I adjusted the action to my liking at home. I changed the strings to 10's, raised the action a little, adjusted the trem to just barely float, and adjusted the truss rod. If you don't know how to do these things, learn. It will save you time, money, and a lot of headaches in the future. Finish is nice. Overall, it looks like it was well put together (unlike some of the other ones I tried out).

Stratocaster's are the BOSS pedals of guitars. They will survive just about anything except fire and being run over by a semi. In a fit of rage I once threw a strat from a 3rd story deck onto the concrete sidewalk below. Well, it did go out of tune, and got small indentation where it impacted the concrete, but it was still in perfect working condition.

Who cares, don't want or need it, unless my guitar just split in two for no apparant reason.

To all of the people who have ripped these guitars...next time before ripping on something, take a good look at yourself first. How long have you been playing? Are you any good? Should you have bought this guitar if you are going to play in a band called "Brain Dead Rotting Flesh"? Did you buy the first guitar you picked up? This is a decent guitar. You get out of it what you put into it with your heart, soul, and fingers.

Comfortable neck, maple with rosewood fretboard 22 frets. Body is made of plywood but until some of the finish got scraped off I wouldn't have known. Standard Strat style tremolo, bad for tuning. Crap tuners, if you have the money replace these as soon as you replace the crap pickups. Electronics arent that advanced, master volume, indiv. tone controls for neck and mid pickup. VERY noisy.

I play lots of things, mostly metal, rock, and punky type things, though I love classical but I've only been playing for a year and am not exactly a virtuoso. Very bright sound. Great clean sound (minus the horrible noise that comes out of this thing) Decent distorted sound, with my Korg AX1G i can get some heavy s*** coming out of it. I run it through the AX1G into a cheap o Park MKIIwhtevr 10 watt solid sate amp and it sounds allright, though I cant stress the noise enough.

Whammy bar broke off in a very short time, finish scratched easily. The non locking trem bridge in combination with the crap tuners make sure that it never stays in tune. The neck is pretty good, real comfirtable for chording, but the rather low radius makes it a little hard for soloing. The wire connecting the output jack breaks constantly, I can seem to be able to keep it soldered on. It broke after playing the thing for a month and breaks probably monthly now.

The guitar, besides the finish, could have a bomb dropped on it and it would still play. The hardware is all good, esp the strap buttons, except the tuners, these things blow. I cant depend on it at all because i never know when the output jack wire is goin to break.

Uhh...

I've been playing since Christmas 1998. I own some kind of Washburn dreadnought acoustic, a Korg AX1G effects box, and a Park (Marshall) 10watt crappyamp. My dad bought me this guitar cuz its the cheapest one we could find. If it were stolen or lost I would say good riddance cuz I would have an excuse to buy a real guitar to replace it. I really like the clean tone, but thats about it. I've played my friend's BC Rich Warlock and Mockingbird and all different kinds of guitars in stores and liked em all better, bsides harmonys and crap, and other fenders. If it had better pickups it would put the score up a few points higher.

I have a Chineese made Strat. 24 Fret. It has a nice 5 way selector, volume and tone controls. All in all it has a decent amount of features compared to many "replicas" of this model.

I use a squier sidekick amp with my guitar and although it's not the best setup in the world it's ample for my home use. Some tone settings do cause a fuzzy noise but this is to be expected, after all it's not the most expensive of guitars.

Well my wammy bar broke after about a month what I was a bit pissed off about apart from that it's been pretty much ok.

This isn't exactly a guitar that I'd use for live gig use. However I'm not upto that standard at the moment so for the while this guitar suits me fine.

Dunno!!

This was my first of 3 guitars. I've only been playing for 8 months. It's no way an amazing guitar but it's fine for the beginner but I wouldn't recomend it for the semi pro or pro. I was annoyed when the wammy bar broke so soon but on the most part the guitars been OK. I think that if I ever do buy another guitar it will be a REAL Fender Strat not a Squier as I do love the design, I'd just like something thats a bit better built.

Its your standard cheap-O strat. 21 frets, 3 single coils, etc.. The model I bought had the maple fingerboard and an artic white finish. Very classy looking. Not much else in the way of features

Contrary to popular opinion, Squier's do not totally suck, you just have to put a little work into them that's all. There are lots of aftermarket strat parts available and beleive me they are a REALLY good investment. Admittedly, the stock pickups aren't the best and are a little noisey (but no more than other single coils), but there are some totally useable "strat" tones in there. I replaced the stock neck pickup on mine with a Seymour Duncan Hot Rails and what a difference this pickup made. My guitar now sounds equal (if not better) to my friends $1800 (CAN) American Standard Strat, and I only paid $200 for the guitar and $100 for the pickup (both new). I plan to change the other stock pickups later too. I give it a 10 for sound quality after you do some upgrades, otherwise by itself I give it a 7.

When I received my guitar, the action was set up very well and I have had no problems with it. There was a minor imperfection in the finish (I mean MINOR!) but otherwise the guitar was in excellent shape. Most of the hardware on the guitar was in good shape but I will probably upgrade to better stuff shortly (like I said there are many things on this guitar that you can improve on)

It will withstand live playing and it has. The hardware seems like it might wear pretty easily though, so I am going to replace most of it. Finish is good and seems like it will handle wear and tear. I would definitely use this guitar on a gig without a backup.

Never dealt with them.

I have read some really bad reviews of this guitar and of all Squier's for that matter. Frankly I think a lot of people have brand-name-itis. I played Washburn BT's and MT's, real Fender's and a bunch of other guitars before I bought this one and many of them would have required the same upgrades that I am performing on the Squier, and they cost over twice as much. It is an excellent beginner guitar by itself and with some upgrades can become an excellent main guitar for a full time musician. I have not been disapointed with this guitar yet. For the price, it's a steal.

You should all know what a Strat is by now. Mine is a red1997 model, made in Korea.

The sound of this thing is pretty crap. The single-coils are noisy and the electronics in it suck. I play all sorts of different styles and the variety of this guitar suits me but it's so NOISY!

The guitar came from the factory looking quite good but on the back of the guitar the finish is all rippled. It wasn't set up very well but i didn't expect it to be. The hardware on it has held up quite well to a years worth of hard playing but the pickup selector swith is starting to get harder to move.

I think this guitar would stand up to live playing because i've knocked it around quite a bit and it hasn't affected it. The strap buttons on it are good and have never let go once. I would use it without a backup.

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I've been playing this guitar for a year now and it has been good to me. If it were stolen i wouldn't buy it again though. I like the way there is a varitey of sounds avaliable from this guitar but i hate the cheap components they use in it to keep the price down.

1998 Chinese model. Standard Strat stuff. Features are like all Strats.

Suits Blues very well.. The guitar doesn't sound bad at all compared to other options in the same price range.

Well set up out of the box. Almost a year old and no problems. The neck on this thing makes it the easiest guitar I have to play. Much easier than any of the other three Fender Strats I have, all of which cost significantly more. That reson alone makes it well worth the price, and invaluable to me.

I've used this guitar live and gotten away with it. I wouldn't try it however until I replaced the top two bridge saddles with graphite ones. I broke light gage strings on the rough saddles far to frequently to count on the thing gigging. (Blues = Bend) I also see some problems with the 5-way switch starting to short once in a while. The tuners are absolute garbage also. The finish is very nice.

No needs.

This is a great guitar to learn on. Buy a new one and take care of it. If you are lucky, the neck might be as fine as the one I have. The "v" shape isn't chunky at all, and the 9" radius makes an easy playing neck too. Someday I might rip the neck off this thing and mount it on a better body with good electronics, but I hate to touch it and mess up the playability. I learn new stuff on this cheap junk and then repeat it on my better guitars.

Entry level Strat. Basswood body-same as Japan Reissues. Maple neck Rosewood board.Vintage hardware. Unknown tuners. Cheap pickups. Made in china and unbeatable for this price.

It sounds like a Strat. Pickups are weak. But plated through a valve amp with small speakers I got an excellent Ren and Stimpey sound(listen to the theme music) I have written this because I am fed up reading- I play a cheap strat through a solid state practise amp and it wont sound like metallica. This is a cheap strat and it will make cheap strat noises.A valve amp greatly improves the tone.

This guitar was sh and I tried it against 3 other simular guitars. It was better than the others. I also tried it through a 30w valstate and it souded fine. This one was set up by the shop as is all their s/h stock.

I sold this guitar after two weeks-read overall rating to see why. Weak points-pickups,change to seymours or simular-trem ugh. Tuners change to anything. What you do get is a good body and neck with fender on the headstock. Everything else can easily be changed.

N/A Vendor has always been good to me.

A workmate wanted to buy his first electric. To cut a long story short I saw this strat in my local shop, compared to any other guitar in its price range it was one of a kind. It was better than all the other chinese strats. Past experience told me to buy it. I did. I gave him the option of buying it at cost or I would keep it. He played it for 5 mins and gave me cash (the git). Moral of the story don't play just one guitar of the same model. And being honest hurts. I give this an overall 8 cos what else can you buy for this money,also its the only guitar I've sold without making a loss.

Bought it new in '98. China-made. 22 frets. Solid black. Maple neck. Rosewood fretboard. Plywood body. Your usual Fender configuration. And like everyone else's, it's cheap as all hell.

Well, what can I tell you, the sound sucks, unless you mistakenly bought it as a microphone, then you should be pretty happy. I play it on a Peavey 158, Crate GFX65 and a Line 6. I bought it as my kick-around guitar, and it sure can take a lickin'.

When I bought it I went to GC and grabbed about 6 or 7 of these things, sat down, played them, and picked the best of the bunch. Good action. The neck wasn't set right though: the low E string was almost off the fretboard at the higher frets, but nothing a cut-up credit card couldn't fix. Paint was well done.

I've knocked this thing around a ton but it doesn't seem to mind. I would never gig with with, but for sitting 'round the house, playing with your garage band, it's fine. I mean, how can you go wrong at $139 bucks?

Okay, here's what I did to this thing to make it decent: I ordered a new pickguard from Steward-MacDonald for ten bucks (one with a humbucker cutout at the neck). Then, before I put it on I sheilded the cavity with copper tape and got rid of the ground loop (took all of about two hours). Then I took a Dimarzio PAF I had laying around the house and put it in the neck position (on the new pickguard). Then I recently bought a new set of Texas Specials for another guitar of mine and had two left over so I threw those on the Affinity. So now I've spent about 160 bucks for a guitar that sounds awesome and hasn't cost me hardly anything. If you want it to sound better, swap out those crappy pickups, I mean, geez, ANYTHING sounds better.

I got this guitar along with the Squier Strat Pak. It was made in China. It emulates all of your basic Strat features; it has 22 frets on a rosewood fingerboard, maple neck, 3 piss-poor passive single-coil pickups, a trem. I'm not certain of the wood used for the body -- the Squier website just says it's made of "select hardwood". The body is, however, .5 cm thinner than a normal Stratocaster, though that makes very little difference. It comes only in solid colors, and mine is candy apple red. And, the tuners (which are covered, rather than die-cast) are awful. But, the things are extremely inexpensive... you can pick them up through Musician's Friend for 130 bucks.

I try to dab around with a wide variety of types of music, and while I play primarily rock and blues, I also fool with jazz and classical. The pickups, as aforementioned, are very poor -- probably the weakest component in the guitar. They are extremely noisy, even in the hum-cancelling, out-of-phase positions. And the noise is greatly increased when I'm not touching a metal part of the guitar (I see that others share this problem). Acoustically, however, it sounds fine, and I think that with some new pickups, it would sound fairly good. Whether I want to invest 150 dollar on saving this guitar is another question, though.
I play through a 15w solid-state amp (a Squier Champ) that also came with the Strat Pak. This amp has horrible tone, and I can't get anything that resembles a pleasant overdriven sound, so I mostly play clean. I've played the guitar through some better amps, though, but it still sounds pretty bad. It just has a weak, flubby tone. Also, even with a good amp, it's tough to get any usable distortion, which I blame again on the pickups. This guitar gave me a bad image of Strats in general, though this changed when I recently test drove a Fender American Standard.

Out of the box, the guitar had a pretty good action, and it's always played well. I prefer low action, though, so I've since changed the bridge height. The pickups were set up horribly, and the neck pickup began sinking into the body. I've since fixed that, too. The finish, as I already described, is a solid candy apple red (or, more specifically, Torino red). The finish is very poor; it was not applied very evenly, and has some ugly streaks running through it. It also chips very easily, and I've put quite a few dings in it. But, hey, it's all character. =) The pickup selector isn't very noisy, and the pots aren't scratchy or anything. With my personal modifications, this category scores a 7 or 8, but from the factory....

I don't do any live playing, so I couldn't comment on that. I don't know if it could stand up to a great deal of battery, as any little bump will result in the finish being chipped (but that's just the finish). The tuners are already starting to corrode a bit, so that's a testament to how crappy they are. Also, I never play with a strap, because it falls off every five minutes or so. You would *need* straplocks. But, otherwise, it's fairly solid.

i've never dealt with customer service, as I'm a do-it-yourself kind of guy. Likewise, I'm not sure about the warranty details.

I bought this guitar 7 months ago, and, at the time, I was a complete novice to the electric guitar world. Since then, however, I've learned an incredible amount about guitars and am a fairly proficient players (I have over 12 years of experience playing Piano). Since I am 18 years old, I kind of have a problem with coming up with the large sums of money necessary to purchase a quality guitar, so this is all I can have for a while yet. (If you would like to donate to the Nick Murphy Guitar Fund, you will get good kharma....) While the guitar is, overall, a piece of shit, I'm happy with it. Without having purchased it, I never would have been able to learn as much as I have. In my opinion, it's a fine guitar for beginners.
Were it stolen, I would not buy again. Ideally, my next guitar would be a Paul Reed Smith McCarty Rosewood, but... I don't see that happening anytime soon. I'm building a tube amp right now, and will probably be buying a Epi LP sometime soon, so I'll be able to lay this thing to rest shortly. And, while it's my first guitar, and there's some kind of emotional attachment kind of thing with it, I don't think that I'll miss it a great deal. =)

Made in some far east country, 21 frets, 2 tone 1 volume controls, 3 single coil pickups, made of some cheap wood, covered heads, maple fretboard, black finish.

I play tons of Metallica and really heavy music. This guitar is not what I should have bought. It has no sustain and crappy tone. I use a crate GX15 amp and a Zoom 505 processer. The cheap single coil pickups are extremely noisy and pick up many annoying FM radio stations (such as spanish channel). It often squeels high pitched when facing an amp, tv, or computer.

I have adjusted and readjusted the pickups and found that the factory setting is the best. The high frets (19, 20, 21) are hard to reach and uncomfortable when playing a long solo. The shape of the neck often hurts my hand after 45 minutes of playing. The back of the guitar scratches on the touch of any other metal object, especially belts.

Haven't had anything break, although I've been tempted to break it myself.

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This guitar sucks. I don't care if you are a beginner and can't afford anything else. SAVE YOUR MONEY!! Wait untill you can get something else. You'll thank me.