Suhr Guitars Quilt Top Classic

This guitar has what Suhr Guitars refers to as the "Classic" body, a traditional Stratocaster style, with Suhr Guitar's unique contoured neck heel. The body is basswood, with a highly figured two piece bookmatched quilted maple top, sans pickguard. The finish is a Cherryburst which starts with a deep amber in the middle, bursting to a reddish brown at the edges, which continues along the sides and back. The finish is deeper than the Pacific Ocean, and is flawless.
The guitar has a slim neck, with an even C shape, 1.6875" at the nut, with 22 large (6100) frets and a 12-13" compound radius. The neck is a beautiful maple, with a satin finish, and a Madagascar rosewood fingerboard. The fingerboard has a reddish tint which looks great with the finish of the body. The guitar comes with the Buzz Feiten tuning system, and came with the intonation dialed in perfectly. The action is very low at both ends of the neck, and unlike most Strats with action this low, there is absolutely no fret buzzing. The nut is a Tusq nut which is made from synthetic ivory.
The hardware is chrome, with locking Sperzel tuning pegs, and a Gotoh 1099 bridge. The Gotoh bridge is non locking and has two mounting points at the top to connect to the body. The bridge floats a few millimeters above the body, and has three springs. The bar is shaped similar to the bar on a Floyd Rose, and is attached to the bridge with a small allen screw. Although the only locking is at the tuning pegs, the guitar stays in tune extremely well even with enthusiastic use of the bar.
The pickup configuration consists of two custom wound single coils in the neck and middle position, and a custom wound humbucker in the bridge position. The neck and middle pickups are V60s, which are modeled after the '60s Strat sound. These pickups work great for anything from totally clean to totally overdriven, these have the killer single coil sound. The bridge pickup covers the range from vintage rock to shredding metal, depending on how hard you drive it. There is a five position switch for the standard set of pickup settings, and volume and tone controls.
The guitar comes with a beautiful black G & G case, which has a plush black lining, and a large center compartment. The guitar ships with a solid black cover over the fretboard, it looks like a fretless guitar, and startled me for a second when I opened the case. There is a small instruction pamphlet on the Buzz Feiten tuning system, and a few small allen wrenches, one to adjust the truss rod (which can be done without removing the neck, and with the strings still on the guitar), and others to adjust the bridge saddles and tighten in the bar.

Before plugging the guitar in, I sat down and played it acoustically. Even without an amp, the guitar comes alive in your hands as you play it. So many people have said this about Suhr guitars that it is almost a cliche, but trust me, it's true. The light body, coupled with the extremely solid connection to the perfectly formed neck, makes the guitar sustain and feel great.
Once I plugged the guitar into an amp, these qualities were amplified (no pun intended) by the electronics. This is one guitar that rings like a bell and works with you actively like a partner when you are playing it. If you play soft and sweet, the guitar sounds soft and sweet, yet sustains as long as you want it to. If you play hard and mean, the guitar reacts in kind and just plain gets down. The range between is huge, and it will respond to everything you do.
The guitar is very versatile, easily handling a variety of sounds from totally clean tones, through blues tones, to hard driving rock sounds. I'm mainly going through a POD and an Alesis effects unit, I'm recording at home and haven't been playing out lately, so instead of going through a guitar amp and speakers I'm going into the board and through the monitors or headphones. I've been playing to CDs a lot as well as recording on top of your typical instrument mix (synths, drums, bass), so I've got some good reference points for judging the tone in real world recording situations. Through the POD, it is almost impossible to get a bad sound with this guitar.
I've compared the Suhr to a Strat with Seymour Duncan Alnico single coils, another guitar with Seymour Duncan Hot Rails and a Seymour Duncan Custom Humbucker in the bridge, as well as a guitar with EMG single coils, and a stock Fender USA Strat. The Suhr wins hands down compared to all of these, it just amazes me with it's combination of clarity and punch - it is bright and full and responds to any subtle nuances while you play. Although I haven't done a direct comparison, I've played a number of PRS guitars, Les Pauls (owned a few in the past), and various other guitars. I haven't ever played a guitar that sounded so good for so many different types of music than this Suhr Custom. John just brought everything together (the wood, the manufacturing, the pickups, the hardware, the neck) to optimize the qualities of the guitar's tone.
I don't typically try and compare tones to other players or the guitars they use, my belief is that tone is a matter of so many factors, it almost becomes pointless. Qualities I look for are whether the guitar cuts through the mix without sounding harsh, whether a heavy tone has crunch without being muddy, and whether or not clean tones have body to them. I personally don't like EMG pickups, and I'm more of a fan of vintage Strat pickups than something like Lace Sensors. Regarding humbuckers, I prefer a pickup that you can drive hard and develops a bright crunchy tone, rather than being the loudest and most distorted. I won't typically pick up a guitar and try and get someone else's tone, I'll pick it up and try and get it to sound good. That said, I did play along with a few old favorites, representing a range of rock tones. Here's a few examples:
Pink Floyd, intro to Wish You Were Here: Using the POD and the Alesis effect, I set the Alesis to a dark big room reverb, and set the POD on "Tube Preamp", no drive, compression on full, bass/treble full, middle half way. I put the Suhr on the notch between the bridge and middle, and cut the tone on the guitar to about 3 (it has a chrome knob without numbers, but on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being full on, I was down around 3). This is somewhat counter intuitive for a lead tone, it's the cleanest tone you can get out of the POD, but it sounds great! The only thing I couldn't get was the way Gilmour's guitar buzzed out on some of the high E string bends, because the Suhr just doesn't d that!
Pink Floyd, Wish You Were Here (middle part): I set the POD to "Modern Higain", moved

The finish of this guitar is flawless, simply a thing of beauty. The quilted top is gorgeous, the neck grain is beautiful, and the finish is incredible. The neck is set into the body so perfectly, that combined with the incredible finish it would lead you to believe John grew this whole guitar as one piece. The guitar is incredibly light, lighter than any Strat I have ever played, yet with a solid feel that just drips quality. Suhr Guitars pays incredible attention to detail when putting the guitar together, and you really notice this. The string height at the nut is excellent, whenever you go to bend a string, the other strings are exactly at the right height to work with your fingers. On a lot of guitars you notice the action because it might be kind of high in one place and as you play chords you'll notice it, or the action might be low yet somewhat unbalanced as you bend notes. This is simply not so on this guitar, the action literally disappears because you never notice the strings being anywhere you don't want them to be.
The neck is extremely even and responsive, it gets amazing sustain and the notes sing out everywhere on the fretboard. Most guitars have a few sweet spots, this guitar is more or less one big sweet spot, and depending on the frequencies highlighted by the tone you have dialed in, it will respond beautifully. For any kind of lead tone, the higher ranges, particularly the E string past the twelfth fret sing out and wail. This guitar will sustain forever, even with cleaner tones. The low strings have a lot of definition, particularly down low on the neck, even with a gnarly crunch tone. There are just no weak areas of the neck - it will sound great and feel alive under any circumstances, with any tone. There is something about the feel of the fretboard, the combination of the perfect frets and the wood and the setup that just feels awesome. The finish on the back of the neck is great too, it is as smooth as silk.

Although I don't gig out, I have done so extensively in the past. The build quality of this guitar is to such high standards I have no doubt it could stand up to live playing and heavy use over the years. The finish is superb and is not likely to wear off. Other than the fear of breaking a string, I would easily use this guitar on a gig without a backup. For any recording sessions, I would just bring this guitar, and be done with it, there would be no reason for me to bring anything else with me. The hardware is also extremely solid, the strap buttons are nice and big and attached to the guitar with felt beneath them. A top quality guitar giving me every indication it will easily stand up to years of use

As many people have stated, the customer support from Suhr guitars is fantastic. John will go out of his way to spend the time with you to determine exactly what options to use with the guitar, and to answer any questions you might have. John's also one of the nicest guys in the business. Considering the incredible amount of skill and knowledge he has, he is patient and considerate with his customers, to the point where you know you're getting best service you possibly could.
On the subject of customization, this guitar was configured to my tastes. Another player might prefer a Floyd Rose locking tremelo, different wood combinations, a different neck or body style, or different pickups or hardware. Suhr Guitars offers a variety of options, if you check out the Suhr Guitars web site at http://www.suhrguitars.com, you can see the options list, and pictures and descriptions of a number of different guitars. I recommend you check out the site even if you aren't currently in the market for a guitar like this, it's an interesting site with discussions on different wood choices, and a lot of great pictures. As well, you can always contact John to discuss your particular preferences, and get recommendations based on your playing style. Because you can custom order a guitar (in fact most guitars are custom ordered), you don't have to settle for something close to what you want - you'll get exactly what you want.

I've been playing for about 35 years, so I've gone through a fair amount of guitars. Because I was able to discuss every aspect of this guitar with John before buying it, there is nothing I would have wanted to ask that I didn't get a chance to. I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted, John helped me to define that in terms of all the components and choices for the guitar. If this guitar was stolen, I would order another one in a second.
I know the instructions for this review say "Be critical! Nothing is perfect", but I am just overwhelmed with how good this guitar is. I've played a lot of vintage, custom, and high end guitars, and I'm really speaking from experience when I say that this guitar shattered my perceptions of how good a guitar can be. I have to say I love everything about this guitar. Depending on the time of day or the mood I'm in, my favorite feature might be the way it plays, or the way it sounds, or the way it looks - I guess if pressed I'd say my favorite feature is the way the whole guitar fits together and feels so alive in your hands while you play it.
Before purchasing this guitar, I had played a number of other guitars, and as I've said, I've run through quite a few guitars over the years. Compared to the other high end guitars (PRS, Anderson), excellent in their own right, the Suhr guitars have an incredibly high quality of fit and finish, and at least to me feel like they were built to be played, with no compromises. Other guitars might look nice, or have expensive components and detail, but the Suhr guitar is the heart of an original 50's Strat combined with modern capabilities and incredibly high end fit and finish.
I can't recommend a guitar more highly than one from John Suhr Guitars. John is obviously an artisan of the highest degree, and has the extremely rare ability to blend creativity, design, and flawless execution in order to deliver the best guitar you can buy. Everyone involved in the making of these guitars is a superb craftsman, and the whole process of making the guitar, from the time you order it to the time it is delivered, is done to the highest professional standards. I couldn't be more pleased with this guitar - it looks great, sounds great, and plays great, and is clearly built to the highest standards by a master craftsman. This is not an inexpensive guitar, but it is an incredible value for the money. If you are looking for a high end guitar, you owe it to yourself to check out a Suhr Custom.