Peavey Raptor Plus

1998 (9?), Made in Korea, 21 fets, Multi-laminated body, 5-way selector, S/S/S, one volume, one tone, strat copy, covered tuner, thin frets, 25 1/2 scale. This guitar has oversized pole pieces on the pickup and truss adjustment at the base of the neck. Simple, no frills.

I'm learning the blues. This strat suits this style. I have a Squire Sidekick amp, but I use a headphone most of the time. The single coils hums a lot, even in hum cancel mode. I live next to a power transfomer, so that may be the cause. I had to ground myself to get rid of all the hums. (I tried wearing an anti-static grounding strap, but the resistance is too high. So, I built a grouding plate to step on with my bare foot when I play. Noise goes away as long as I keep my foot on the plate. I have no heat in the house, so playing with one bare foot on cold aluminum is a real pain in the foot. I may have to amputate the foot after this winter.) I can dial a wide range of tones from this strat. The oversized pole pieces may be the reason for both the wide tonal variations and the annoying hums.

The high strings would buzz against higher frets when fretted at a lower fret, so I re-adjusted the neck relief, action, and intonation.
A screw for holding the tuning key was missing when I got the guitar. The guitar shop had Peavy send me a new screw. But, I couldn't get the new screw into the stock. It turned out that the previous screw head broke off and left the stem of the screw inside the stock. So, I had to drill a new hole to fit the new screw.
The rosewood finger board is not smooth. The high strings tend to catch in the grains when I bend the strings.
The tremolo unit was on high tension when I bought the guitar. I couldn't bend the pitch up, only down. I had to re-spring the unit so I can bend up. But, the pitch would not return to what it was before the bend.

I've never played live. I have no trouble, except for a broken string. The tuners are cheap, but holds the tune.

No contact.

This is my first guitar. I've been playing for 7 months. I had to tweak a few things here and there on this guitar. Except for the humming problems, this is a nice beginner's guitar. If this guitar were stolen. I would go buy a different Strat.

A korean copy of a strat. Has three single coil pickups, the factory pickups sound pretty good. Controls: one volume, one tone (I know the real strats have 2 but the other ones useless), and a 5-way pickup selector. The neck is a little thin and the scale is small but it feels great. It's tremollo holds the tune decently. It has a nice black finish on it.

The sound on this guitar is excellent for the price I paid. With the controls on the guitar and a small Peavey practice amp I have, I could dial in almost any sound I wanted, from metal to nice, clean tones. It doesn't have the powerfull feal of a guitar with humbuckers but you could work around that with a good distortion pedal.

This guitar came close to perfect out of the factory. The paint wasn't splattered all over the place and the finish wasn't scratched. The strings on it were nice. The pickups required little if any adjustment.

This guitar is built like a rock. I'm a little bit of a klutz and I've put this guitar through a lot. Its paint scratches a little easily but it stays on pretty good, a little polish or wax will fix it right up. I would probably bring a backup to a live gig just incase you need a different tuning but other than that I would play with this live. The cord seems to fall out whenever I jump around a lot but its not a big problem.

This is a wonderfull guitar for beginners and pros alike. I've been playing for 2 years now and its stood up the entire time. Compared to other guitars in its price range, its one of the best.

1997 korean strat copy, lacking a second (useless anyway) tone knob. rosewood 21 fretboard is nice, wammy bar holds tune within reason
the burgundy sparkle color is really cool.

with my crate gx-40c+, and the guitar's 5-way switch, i can dial almost any sound you can dream of. period.

set up well at factory for price

built like a tank. i would gig with backup just so i don't have to tune between e and drop d.
just today jamming, my friend was thrashing on the guitar, and the strap came unbuttoned. the guitar didn't skip a beat

1 year limited warranty on electronics, lifetime on wood

great guitar for those who don't require humbuckers, and, at least occasionally, play with a clean sound (punks and metal heads need not apply)