Vantage Avenger AVG325

1983 Matsumoku Japan. Clear red on 4 piece solid ash double cut body strat/sg hybrid. Bolt on Maple on Maple neck 22 frets 1-5/8" Brass nut thin profile clear finish medium jumbo(ish)frets black phenolic dot, strat type string thru gold hardtail. 2 vol, 2 push/pull tone, 3 way, top jack. Serial # and logo on neck plate, nice chunky ferrules on body back. 2 black open coil tapped "MMK45 super magnaflux" humbuckers @11.2K. Vantage 6 inline tuners. Dual string retainers on headstock

This guitar sounds pretty good. It's not a strat or tele or lp or sg sound. It has it's own tone, from very bright and sparkly to dark and a bit muddy neck. It has incredible sustain, really. Sounds best with gain or o/d. I like to use it for fat rockin stuff with pedals.

This guitar was 23 years old when I got it and had never been set up or played by the original owner so I got to see it as it came from the factory. It played just fine as it was, but I do my own setups so now it's has great action (12" radius?) and intonates perfectly. This basically a brand new 23 year old guitar. The fit and finish is perfect. The electronics are silent and solid.
On the downside, the neck strap button is under the horn and causes the strap to twist and the creak of the leather against the finish comes out thru the amp. The Vantage tuners are very poor quality. Iv'e had the guitar for 2 years and the tuners are shot,period. The brass nut has to go. it makes the strings bind and is not spaced quite as I like. (it looks cool tho). The guitar is lite with a contoured back and is very comfortable to play. The thin profile neck plays very much like a strat. The neck radius allows for big bends and low action.
The body is made of 2 pieces of 1/4 sawn ash that have been split and flipped and laminated into 4 pieces, very solid. The neck is 2 piece 1/4 sawn maple, very stable.

The electronics are quality parts with no foreseeable problems.
Strap locks and tuners or live playing is a no go.
I'm a strat blues player and this is not really a blues guitar, though it plays much like a strat, I won't gig with it but it would work just fine with no let downs.

No support on old stuff.

I'm a 40 year player, I prefer my 59 strat, but use a 59 Japanese reissue with custom wound hot pickups most of the time. Vintage Ibanez Scofield AS200 for jazz. I like my fender amps, but build my own to suit each guitar. I bought this as a parts guitar, but it is in new condition and is really fun to play so I'll leave it as is.
Apart from the tuners needing replacing this is a good quality intermediate guitar. It will last longer than any of the new offshore guitars and there will be no comparison in workmanship and parts. Try and find a guitar with 1/4 sawn lumber, they call them custom pro shop. I can't say if all Avengers were made with wood of this quality.
I wouldn't replace it if lost or stolen, but I would buy another in a heart beat if it crossed my path at the right price.

1983 transparent blue, thick polyester finish,brass nut,string through the body hard tail bridge, 2 vol,2 tone with push/pull coil taps for both pickups 3 way switch maple neck and board. Pretty much the pick-ups and controls of a Les Paul on a Strat style body.

This guitar has plenty of sounds.....not one of them has character. I'm rating this guitar on it's clean sound ONLY since I have no idea what amp or effects you may have. If you have a bunch of stomp boxes then this guitar has huge potential. I've never had a guitar that had such controllable feedback like this one. Nigel Tufnel would be proud of it's overdrive abilities. But still - when played clean it sounds like a crappy import.

This guitar came set up excellently. 1983 from the factory, it was set up with medium low action, 10 gauge strings, and spot on intonation. The finish that they used on these was way to thick. The thick finish is definitely a tone killer - but - it may be why the guitar is so controllable with feedback.

This guitar deserves a 10+ in this category. It's always worked well and then some. Back in 1985 I was gigging with someone that sounded way better than me. At one point we were trading simple guitar parts and my amp started crapping out. I was kind of drunk and pissy, so I tantrumed like a spoiled loser and totally destroyed my Carvin SX-100 with the Vantage (thats probably not saying much - that amp was shit!). The amp is history but the guitar lives on (I did crack the neck and totally fuck up the guitar body finish.) I repaired the neck crack and still use it - although the frets are a bit worn now.

N/A - never needed it

This is a great guitar for loud, distorted music. It has a crappy clean tone. It's comfortable to hold and play. It has no ability to sound good on it's own. Still, I like this guitar - a lot.

1983 ash body transparent red finish,brass nut brass hard tail bridge 2 vol,2 tone with pull coil taps for both pickups 3 way switch maple neck and board,med frets. one of the best deals of the time i think. made in japan,came in a few trans/colors cost around 350 US, bucks new and worth it

sounds awesome i can get so many sounds with these taps and stuff.my first one had a seymore duncan in it it was the best guitar i had played and i own a few fenders and a gibson and some nice high end jap guitars and this was every bit as good and better i didnt know it had duncans in it for 2 years when i took the pickups out to look at them.so i looked around for another one and found it .it was all stock and the stock pickups sound pretty good too,but i was so used to my duncans at that point i didnt want to change but love both of them and i want to get more if i can find one,go to the therathole.org and find all you want about these great guitars

mine is perfect the neck is very much like a fender and one of them i sanded it down to thin it to my liking the trans finish is rare and beautiful you could get red or blue i also have a solid black one,all of mine were used so i dont know they came new but they play as good as my fender or G&L the brass hardware is a nice touch and gives a unique brite tone,the tuners were ok and the build quality is real good they also used good pots and wire/switches

a very strong guitar you can just feel that its not delicate i never had any trouble and ive had them for over 10 years,always used with no backup

never needed it

ive been playing for 20 years and play most styles of rock and blues and some progessive rock stuff the vantage can do most anything you want and it takes modifications well mine has been modified with duncans and a kahler pro trem and a roland gk-2A if it was stolen i would have a hard time finding another but would look until i did

I bought this guitar in 1983 when I was really poor. I was looking for the best sounding guitar I could find for under $350 and was afraid to buy used. I played evrything out there and kept coming back to this. I paid $200 new at a music store closeout sale. It has 24 frets with 2 passive humbuckers and non-locking tuners, all stock. Neck is maple and I think the body is Alder. Finish is black with medium frets and a string thru body adjustable bridge. Body style is a smaller modified strat design. Apparently at the time Vantage was giving a go at making it's own distinctive line of guitars (obviously given the close out sale they were not particularly successful), this one has a thin body with slightly sharpened strat features and a bevelled top. It is distinctive and I have not seen another styled quite like it. It has a tone and volume control for each pickup, the volume controls can be pulled away from the body to split either humbucker into single coil mode. This is a neat feature and gives a good variety of tones.

I pay primarily hard rock and old style punk and this guitar truly kicks ass for this. The clean sound with the stock humbuckers is a little muddy and with both in single coil mode they are a little sharp and thin but quack quite nicely. Although the output is a little low, these humbuckers really sizzle when distorted. This guitar gives you a colorful,hot, harmonic laden distortion that is great for rythym guitar. While it doesn't sing with sustain on leads it is O.K. I run it thru a Musicman 212 amp from the 70's, a digitech RP-5 and Morely distortion pedal. The guitar is not noisy even in single coil mode. This guitar sounds as good as guitars that cost more than twice its price (and that is 200 1983 dollars). When I was shopping I wold play this, go to another store and play strats and stuff I couldn't afford then come back and the Avenger always sounded better. I don't know if my guitar is a lucky fluke or all their guitars at the time were truly good.

This guitar is set low and does buzz a little but it is a pleasure to play, the action is great, in fact better than the vast majority of "better" guitars. The black finish is a little trasparent which is probably a reflection of its price but it looks good and still has a nice shine. The tuners were also from Vantage and were no great shakes. About 2 years after I bought it the high E tuner literally fell apart. Also the nut is plastic and the string grooves cut too wide. The G string tuner pings annoyingly near proper pitch. It stays in tune pretty well and all the problems were easily fixable. It has been 20 years and the pickups and tone pots still are fine. The frets are nice and have no sharp exposed edges.

This guitar has been put through the ringer. Since 1983 I have moved 13 times, it got caught in a flood, dropped many times, transported everywhere without a case, left outside in below freezing temperatures and it has kept on playing and sounding good. After the initial annoying problems with the tuners and nut it has been solis as a rock. Oh, yeah, the left hand strap button fell off and rolled away one day but I replaced it with a screw that has worked out perfectly. It is dependable and I have used it without a backup, although that is probably not a good idea. This thing has been through 20 years and never let me down (except when the tuner disintegrated).

I have no idea. I went back to the Music Store I got it at about 12 years later to have them check something out and they denied ever even carrying Vantage. I went to a Vantage web site a few years back and it was unhelpful, but I did it more out of curiosity than necessity.

I have been playing guitar for 28 years. I bought this when it was all I could afford and it has more than held up its side of the bargain. I own some "better" guitars now that I am no longer destitute (Danelectro, Peavey, Gibson, Yamaha) and there are things that they all do better than the Vantage Avenger, and that is why I own them but I still play this guitar about 50% of the time. And when I really need a kick-ass distorted powerful sound for rythym or some harmonic laced lead runs, this is the guitar I reach for. Everyone I have played with have all at one time or another been impressed but this guitar. It has the most bang for the buck I have ever seen. I would buy it again in a second. Like I said, I don't know if this was just a lucky model but if Vantages' other guitars back in the early eighties were like this, they were a highly underrated company