Hagstrom HL-550

See the hagstrom website.
Nothing special here, just poor quality on/off pots and a plywood pickguard that delaminates in a dry climate.

Very bright and jangly. Totally the opposite of what you would expect in a jazz box.

Not impressive at all.
Had to seat and level the frets myself. Spent an afternoon filing the sharp edges off of the fret ends. A quick peak inside reveals huge gaps between the back plate and the center block, and sloppy glue work. Headstock "inlay" is painted plastic that looks good from a distance. Mine is a left-handed model, but they used a right-handed neck.
Tuners seem to hold up OK. Neck is great for beginners like myself, once the fret mess is cleaned up.

It's a chinese copy, so how much can you expect?

Fine for bedroom practice. Bought it because nothing else was out there for lefties, since most manufacturers have shut down left handed production with the recession. The suggested retail price is outrageous.
Get an Ibanez instead, if you're lucky enough to be a right-handed player.

Recent production Hagstrom, made in the PRC (China)
22 frets, 24 3/4 scale, 1 5/8" width at the nut. 16 1/2 " bout.
Max body depth is 3 1/2".
One volume and one tone button, on the pickguard. Single humbucking neck-mounted (floating) pickup. Laminated construction, inexpensive gold art-deco style non-locking keys. Factory installed gold strap buttons.
The fingerboard is a resin-composite, looks like ebony.
Features the famous Hagstrom shaped-beam neck reinforcement.
The neck feels a little thicker than the typical flat elliptical Hagstrom necks, such as the Ultra Swede. This neck has closer to a d-shaped cross section. Traditional archtop bridge, set up for thin strings (the factory intonation assumes a non-wound g string), Black micarta nut. Set neck, with a massive jutting out heel. The neck angle is a bit acute, I am guessing 5 degrees to the top, rather comfortable.
The neck profile is a bit of a disappointment. Covered in thick shiny black lacquer, not as pleasant as a hand-rubbed oil finish, or a thin nitrocellulose finish would be.

If you expect to play it unamplified you will be disappointed. The laminated construction probably does not help. More importantly, the top has massive ladder bracing, and a massive connecting piece that locks the top and back of the guitar together, in a violine-like fashion.
The guitar has just a little bit more sound than a solid-body would.
Compared to one other laminated arch-top I have, (a Gretsch g3900) the Hagstrom has maybe a third of the acoustic voice, no bass whatsoever.

You could argue this is a design feature. The guitar sounds pretty good plugged in, and this design is clearly intentional, probably meant to suppress feedback.

Yet, this was a disappointment for me. The way I look at it: what is the point of making a nearly full-size, deep body jazz box, if you then go out of your way to kill the acoustic sound by putting in massive bracing and locking the top and the back together?

I will have to try it with a heavier set of flat-wound strings, and see if that improves matters.

Likes and dislikes: It is a pretty playable guitar, the quality is comparable to (say) an Ibanez Artcore, but with a lot more personality. With a decent set of strings, a fret leveling and polish, bone nut, a decent hardwood pickguard, a decent ebony bridge and ebony volume and tone knobs I think it will be quite enjoyable for its next owner.

The factory setup was fine. No major flaws. The finish is sketchy at places. E.g.: the pickguard is some laminate, spray painted matte black. It could definitely use some extra sanding, looks rather crudely made.

The frets were not leveled and polished. Comes with a cheap set of thin roundwoud strings. Rather crudely made bridge. Thick, UV-cured non-transparent shiny black lacquer finish.

I happen to dabble in guitar repair, so I will fix it up with the necessary part upgrades.

Looks solidly built. I am not sure about the tuners.

No idea.

I have been playing for decades. I am a collector, and I own many different guitars and other gear. I bought this guitar because I wanted to check it out. In all likelihood I will fix it up and pass it on. If it was "good enough" I would have kept it, and sold my Gretsch G3900. As it is, there is no comparision between the 2. The Gretsch wins hands down.

The design of this guitar makes no sense to me. Given the acoustic limitations, they could have made it smaller, like a 15" bout and 3" max. depth, making the guitar much easier to play.
Also, a bit wider ) 1 7/8" flat elliptical neck profile and a bit more attention to the finish would make this instrument a lot more compelling.

This is a jazz archtop made in China it's got the one pickup set up near the neck. It's I guess a mini humbucker

The whole guitar is mahagony except for the fingerboard - which is some kind of combination material that Hagstrom claims makes this a wonderfully playable guitar ....
like an ebony mixed with something else .....

The tuners are like grovers but they say Hagstrom on them. They're perfectly good.

The body is a burgundy color with a satin finish which looks very nice. It's got the standard shape "f" holes on the body with a painted on white trim that looks good enough for me. It's got a black pickguard with the volume and tone knobs on it, which is also non problematic

The bridge looks like it's made out of the same material as the fingerboard - it has the strings going over it and connecting to the gold, nice looking tailpiece. You can adjust the action using the gold hand tuners on the bridge and also by fooling around with an allen wrench - I haven't done any of that because the action coming out of the box was good enough for me.

Its got a very good sound. It doesn't quite sound like Barney Kessel's or George Benson's axes
......... that really full very pleasing jazz tone - but the tone is very good anyhow - with enough of a balance of high, mid and low qualities.

What I really find to be a plus on this guitar is the dynamic range ....you can go from quiet to loud without adjusting the volume knob - you just have to pluck or strum harder and get what comes off to me as a remarkably good response dynamically from the guitar. it will however take some getting used - to........

This is not the kind of guitar I would think you'd bother getting electronic special effects from - it's a jazz axe baby ....... that's cool enough

This guitar has very good action right out of the box - I've been playing it for about 2 months
and haven't felt a need to adjust anything - but the company is touting the playability and adjustability of the neck - so at some point I may fool around with those aspects....in the meantime I have no serious complaints about the action

First of all I 've got to get a case for it .....which is perhaps a little tricky - this not being a well known guitar at all in the states. Second - I have not yet used it on a gig or even in a group setting - so I can't say definitely if it really is working well in those situations - my educated guess is that I'll have to work out necessary adjustments to get it working the way I'd like it - soundwise on a gig and with other musicians on the bandstand - which is always the case anyhow........

the strap knobs are good

I bought this for $275 total off e-bay ! The ad said it was "not producing sound" and that's why it was going for such a low price. I figured it must be a bad electrical connection that needed to be fixed and that I'll bring it to somebody to have it done. That's what I immediately did and it cost $25. It was a bit of a gamble but wound up being exactly what i thought the problem was and now I've got a brand new archtop for a total of about $325 - I think it's going for a bout $750 out there so ...no I've not had any dealings with the company but the case purchase might be a bit of a hassle

I've been playing guitar for more than 40 years.

If this gets stolen or lost I'd probably get something else only because I'm constantly curious.

My favorite thing about the Hagstrom is the dynamic output. I am wondering about consistent tone quality in regard to that output but nothing's really bothering me about the guitar to really say "I hate it"

Chinese made, 22 fret, mahogany laminate top and sides, deep semi acoustic jazz box, one neck mount pickup, resonator wood bridge, one volume control and one tone control. I've given it an 8 as it is quite basic as far as electric guitars go, but at the same time it does what it's intended for very well.

I run this guitar through native instruments guitar rig or a Peavey Bandit 112 with Dunlop wah wah and Line 6 tremolo pedals and I've got to say I've been very impressed with what the instrument sounds like through even a fairly basic setup. The sound that comes from this guitar clean is warm and very jazzy (also quite acoustic) and you can also get a nice bluesy tone if you add a bit of crunch, I suspect that it would feedback a bit if you were to try to run it with a lot of distortion but that's not really what this guitar was intended for. I was looking for a jazz sound when I got this guitar and it certainly delivers that.

The guitar I got seems to be pretty solid with real no flaws and the quality of the finish and hardware is spot on. The bridge needed a little adjustment when I changed the strings for the first time but this worked out for the best as I lowered the action slightly at the same time and the guitar now plays like a dream. The neck is fairly thin and now it's been tweaked the action is super low. Although I've got quite heavy gauge strings on the guitar it really is effortless to play.

I've not really had the guitar long enough to comment properly on the durability but it seems to be pretty well made and I doubt that you'd have any problems with it as long as it's properly looked after. I imagine that it wouldn't take knocks as well as a solid bodied guitar but I reckon that'd go for most semi-acoustics regardless of build quality. Although I've not had the chance yet I'm looking forward to gigging with the guitar at some point in the future and I certainly wouldn't be worried about the guitars reliability anywhere near enough to bring a back up.

Not had any problems

I also own a Yamaha SG 700s and a Tanglewood TW45N - NS and I've been playing for about 15 years now. I've been looking for a nice semi-acoustic jazz guitar that plays well for about 5 years ever since playing a George Benson signature Ibanez. It's taken me a while to finally buy one as although I've played quite a few, I wasn't willing to sacrifice playability and the other instruments that I've played (Epiphones, Ibanez Artcores, tanglewood etc) in the same price range have come nowhere close to the HL 550. This is the only semi acoustic guitar within my price range that I've even considered purchasing, the main thing I was looking for was a guitar with a thin neck and low action and this guitar certainly delivers, although the variety of sounds you can get from it may be a little limited, it has the warm, classic jazz sound that I've been looking for. I have played guitars that are nicer to play than the HL 550 but the bottom line is that after 5 years of searching I've not found anything in the same price range that's even in the running.