Johnson JE-330

I am writing about a Johnson Catalyst aka JE-330.
Surely made in China. As far as i can see the bolt-on neck is made of one piece (!) maple.
Body is made of alder and has a quilted maple top (i am not sure whether the maple top is massive or laminated). The maple top looks really good.
Gold floyd-rose licended tremolo, 24 frets, 2 humbucker, locking nut, gold tuners, 3-way toggle switch, one volume control and one tone control (also gold).
I rate this 8 because it has good features and all you need.
If it had switches to split the humbuckers and a stop-tail-piece instead of a floyd rose copy, i'd rate this guitar 10.

By the way: please excuse my lousy english. I am no native speaker.

This guitar sound really really good. I was surprised.
I did not expect sucha good sound on such a cheap guitar!
I play it on a 50 watts Engl straight combo (all tube), an amp that doesn't hide any mistake, and the sound is really good.
Because it has an alder/maple body and a floyd rose, it sounds like a good stratocaster, what means medium to good sustain, the dry tone is very balanced, not too loud with decent treble tones. Without sounding too trebbly. As i wrote - very balanced.
Played via a very clean all tube amp it sounds a little bit steril, it does not have much "personality", but the very balanced and neutral tone gives the guitar player much possibilities to make it sound like he wants the guitar to sound. The attack is not very strong (not like a good telecaster), but its ok.
The humbuckers are very quiet and have a high output. If your amp or your clean chanel tends to distort, you must turn down the gain to keep the sound really clean.
Played via high gain/overdrive chanel the JE-330 comes to her strong side. The neck-pickup sounds sounds more bassy than the bridge pickup, but it sounds good and precise. No muddy sound like many mahagony guitars produce with an overdriven neck pickup.
The bridge pickup is a rocker. Good trebble, not to few mids and a tight bass. A really good sound. Balanced and rocking!
I am quite sure many guitars that cost several hundert bucks more do not sound better.

Regarding the very low price the sound deserves a 10.
Minus one because it ist not very versatile. Neck- and bridge pickup and both together give different you tones, but the differences good be more intense in my humble opinion.
But i think 9 is still a very good rating for such a cheap guitar.

Usually the first thing one has to do with such cheap guitars is to replace the pickups. At least if you want to get a good sound.
Not with the Catalyst. The pups sound really ok.
If i should replace them some day, then not for their sound quality but to get more versatility.

The weakest part of theJE-330.
I bought it second hand, but i think the original buyer had kept the original settings. And these settings were very really bad.
Original strings are louse, the neck was not adjusted very good, the pickups were too close to the strings, there was too much buzz from the frets and so on and so on. The higher frets were almost unplayable because of too much buzz. The tone control was very hard to move.

The "optical" finish of the body looks great, i did not discover remarkable flaws.

The main problem of this good-sounding guitar are the bad settings. These settings make this guitar unusable for beginners (what is a shame) unless beginners have a good dealer that does the primary settings.

1 point for the lousy settings (tremolo, neck, pickup positions and so on), 5 points for the very good neck. Frets could be higher but the shape and the silky lacquer make this neck pure fun to play.
I have fat fingers and I am used to fatter necks, higher frets and broader necks, but i feel very comfortably on the neck of the JE-330 Catalyst.

Johnson offers lifetime warranty, so guess the reliability/durability is rather o.k.
Because I own this guitar for just 9 days i do not rate the durability.

No idea, therefor no rating.

This guitar gives me 3 great smiles and one cry.
Big disadvantage: settings when delivered. The experienced players needs some time to set it up properly (but can do it), the beginners surely will fail.

And now the big advantages: very good sound and good neck, great look (yes, the JE-330 looks really good) and an unbeatable low price.