RavenWestGuitar Co. K2-570T

I'll second the first reviewer's opinion. Super value and quality for such an inexpensive instrument, and, truly, at almost any price range for an electric.

This is a very faithful shot at a Tele with the bonus of neck-thru design for improved access to upper frets and sustain. The finish is almost non-existent satin, which I prefer for non-interference with tone. The wood selection, bubinga and mahogany, is very nice. The three-piece neck has a great solid feel, and 22 frets is a plus.

Pickups are very good and don't need replacement. I've been told they are Wilkinson licensed...don't know for sure.

The tuners are good enough, smooth, non-locking.

The nut is cut okay (never great in this price range) and I think it's plastic. I just put a b-bender on and may switch to a graphite nut but really haven't found a need to yet.

The bridge assembly is individually adjustable saddles that may be steel or pot metal, with string-thru mounting. Sounds fine. The bonus of this bridge for me is that it's a dual loader, which made adding the Hipshot b-bender a five-minute non-project. Yay.

Standard three-way tele switch and kinda cheesy volume and tone controls but both have usable sweeps and will only need to be replaced if they aren't durable.

String tees are kind of important if you like to do behind-the-nut bends. The position of the tee gets in the way of these bends on the b and e strings. The g string does have some hot behind-the-nut mojo (pun intended?).

Tele's aren't feature rich. But what this is is a rich Tele.

I'm using this for original composition with a b-bender. Sounds great. Very satisfied overall. Pickups are solid and have all the tele sounds you know and love, including good sensitivity to harmonics for those behind-the-nut soars. The neck pickup has a nice warm yet articulate tone, and the bridge has that smackin' twang; a little bit microphonic at high stage volume with the gain up, but manageable. Together they are hum-cancelling and really versatile. Love that middle setting. A good tele has more fullness and body than a strat, and this one is right there. The neckthru design gives great sustain, rivalling or maybe beating my neckthru Carvin DC400T.

I'm not sure this was brand new, but it didn't appear to have ever been played so I think I can comment. The action was high. The intonation was close but off, but then it was strung with cheap 9s (on a tele?) so irrelevant. The nut was cut unevenly and a little high. The frets were nicely leveled and finished (kudos to RWG!). The neck itself is great. It came with a little back bow (there go those 9s again) but the truss rod adjusted smoothly and easily to my preferred almost-no-relief setting. The overall balance and strap hardware are fine. I always expect to have to set a guitar up, regardless of its pedigree. This one was actually pretty good. Bonus round -- it was exactly matched with the hipshot b-bender out of the box. No drilling necessary, five minute job. That's NICE!

Feels solid with the good quality materials used. The tuners are good enough. We'll see about the strap screws but I'm betting okay.

N/A

Many moons, many guitars of all types and makes, play out regularly. Main guitar is strat style, my favorite is a rare bird made early 90s by John Buscarino with Fralins. My other main players are a Carvin DC400T that's versatile with a capital V, and a rare old Yamaha SG1000 with a factory Kahler trem. Rivera and Fuchs take care of the amp side.

I bought this based on consistent reviews for RWG together with my good experience with neck-thru construction on the Carvin DC400T. So far, so good.

I've owned two other teles including a Fender early 80s natural ash that looked/played like 52 reissue and a Bill Lawrence. Both were great, I actually preferred the japanese Bill Lawrence. This RWG has all the bite and twang plus more fullness and sustain than either plus one more fret... it wins.

Incredibly beautiful mahogany and bubinga body and neck. Neck through design with a satin oil finish. The bubinga wood top is totally killer and the neck through allows the best access to the upper frets there is. The back of the body is contoured where the neck meets the body so there's no lump to stop your fretting hand at all. The rosewood board looks to be stained a darker shade but it only makes the scorpion fret inlays (in abalone no less) to stand out more. The frets are nicely finished medium jumbo style. Standard tele-style electronics, great sounding pickups, excellent quality hardware. Check the Raven West site for all the specs, if you were about to waste your money on any other tele style out there, you'll be glad you did.

It sounds like the best tele you've ever heard. On their site they say the neck through style and woods enhance the sustain and even out the tone while still letting the guitar sound like a tele. That's no b.s., it does! I've owned a bunch of real teles and copies and this is by far the best sounding one with the easiest action I've played.

It came with the best setup I've ever had right out of the box. I changed the strings to 9s but the intonation, truss rod, action and pickups were adjusted perfectly. The finish is a satin oil (I think). It feels almost like there's nothing between the wood and you. The difference in tone and resonance from a heavily finished body is incredible. You've got to hear it to believe it. The pickups are great.

The guitar is built like a tank. I don't see anything that would be of concern. I don't know how they do it but I'm not complaining!

Before I bought from them I read the other reviews here and everything they said about Eric is true. He went above and beyond to answer my questions and make sure I was satisfied with my purchase. It has a limited lifetime warranty that I highly doubt I'll ever need.

I've played most of my adult life and I admit I'm a guitar nut. That Raven West can produce this level of quality for such a small price is something that I'm astounded by. Kudos to the Koreans who build them and many thanks to Eric and the guys at Raven West for letting all of us get our paws on them for such great prices. I'm a convert, I'm checking out their whole line and will be buying another real soon.