Product: SX FTL/H Thinline
Price Paid: Euros 120
Submitted
06/29/2009
at
12:45pm
by
Noah
Features
:
8
Made in China, year unknown, plobably 2008/09.
Ash body, Maple neck w/ maple fingerboard and (oddly) skunk stripe. Nicely figured, rather dark maple. 21 frets, C-shape. Standard SS PU and control configuration. Mother-of-toilet-seat pickguard. High gloss finish all over. No name chrome HW. Modern style tele bridge w/ strings through body. Beware, the distance between the bridge PU and the string holes seems to be somewhat non-standard, so most likely you will have to drill new holes if you mount a traditonal bridge. Haven't trid, though.
Body is even more hollowed than a traditional Tele Thinline, in that there is a hollow space between the pickups.
So the guitar is VERY lightweight: 6.4 lbs /2.9 kilos and a little neck heavy. transferring the upper strap button to the neck plate (almost) remedied this, now it's easy on the back for hours and a joy to play.
Shipped with allen keys and cardboard box, nothing else. But what do you expect?
Sound
:
8
First off, it sounded a little thin to me. adjusting the PUs helped a lot, and I suspect when i switch from the supplied 009s to my usual 011 strings all thinness will be gone (will wear down the factory strings though, as they are very good, much better than expected on such a cheap guitar).
That said, the neck pickup sounds amazing right now, beefy, warm and sweet. Bridge PU has some brittleness to it, not unusual for an ash-and-maple Tele. Switching to alnico pickups might be a future project, but I'll take my time.
9 for the neck, 7 for the bridge.
PUs measure with 7.65 and 8.3 kOhms (neck/bridge), if anyone is interested (so not too weak).
Action, Fit, & Finish
:
6
Action was OK for me, too high for the average customer. Got the impression the setup was done by drawing, not by feel and ear. INTONATION WAS WAY OFF. Had to tighten all of the saddle scews reaaly a lot, to the point of wondering wherther the bridge was positioned correctly. Worked out eventually, but the bridge i dfinitely the weakest part of the guitar. Scews are rather soft and wear easily. Pity that the odd measurements make it hard to switch bridges.
Nut is cheap plastic and needed work too, but that was easy.
Finish is awesome, if you ignore a little sloppiness on the f-hole edges (which also happens on much more expensive guitars. First impression of this guitar is excellent, and on closer inspection the woods and finish hold their own (which is what counts, as you can tweak h/w and PUs more easily than the basic construction.
Electronics are surprisingly good, smmoth pot action and noiseless 3-way-switch.
9 for the finish, 3 for factory setup.
Reliability/Durability
:
No Opinion
The bridge and nut will have to go sometime. Tuners are decent and hold tuning well after I got the strining right (see frets.com). Everything else seems bomb proof.
Customer Support
:
No Opinion
No idea, bought it via ebay, don't expect support. I can help myself.
Overall Rating
:
8
It's often like that with cheap guitars: the clientele that would need it, can't do much with them because of initial flaws that could easilie be remedied by an experienced user, but not by a rank beginner. I would not recommend this as a first guitar, but if you know what you're doing you can make this an awesome sounding and playing guitar with a little work and maybe another $70-100 for a new bridge, bridge PU and nut.
This is an incredible bargain if you know what you're after, but not so much out of the box.