Vintage AV2 Tele

Before I start out, the guitar i'm reviewing is prototype that varies slightly to the production model. It has a nice gloss finish, though there are a couple of blobs that are raised, over an attractive lump of alder which also has tone chambers too. Its a bit neck heavy because of this though. Its a tele but has a small cutaway on the top horn to help make easier upper fret access, it seems a bit unnecessary because access is good anyway. There is a lump of bubinga attached to the bottom of the neck for an improved join apparently, it does have niced glued in neck feel though due to the smoother curve over normal tele style joins. It has all wilkinson hardware and pickups and the stepped brass saddles seem to do an excellent job with the intonation. It feels quite a wide D shape neck which is nice to have something to grab onto. Quite chunky frets too. The pickups are wilkinson and do a good job and aren't too noisy either. Where my guitar differs is that it has a coil tap on the neck humbucker whereas the production model has an extra "roll control." I just have the standard tele control panel, which i think looks better that the production model anyway.

It makes an absolutely lovely sound. No doubt about that. Plenty of sustain and chime, along with the usual tele style bite. I'm no tele expert so its hard for me to pass opinion on it as a tele, but it has a great singin voice. My beloved strat is gathering dust. Stock strings were cheap 9s which were quickly swapped for some heavy bottom d'addarios and were a vast improvement. The coil tap works excellently too, i even prefer the tapped sound, gives more bite. The tone and volume controls don't give much control however, gets a bit muddy when turned down. I paid nearly half price because it was an early show model and for that money it gets a 10, however for rrp ??320 street ??260 it gets an 8 and a half with plenty of cometition at that price point.

The guitar was superbly set up, however this guitar was used at a show to advertise the new AV series and i suspect it was specially set up to a high standard for that reason. Finish was good barring the 2 small blobs, which seemed a bit careless on an otherwise excellent guitar.

Feels a bit lightweight due to the tone chambers but i reckon it will take a good beating before it breaks.

Been playing 5 years, average playing ability but i do believe i understand good tone, which is something that this guitar has. It does lack the feeling you get when you're playing a fender/gibson but so what. At ??300 odd pound it is a fair amount of money to blow on a "Vintage" Its certainly worth a look and the street price of ??260 make it a very tempting guitar. Stolen? probably get a different guitar cos i like change, but its certainly been an excellent tonal addition and the sound makes it really rewarding to play. A good solid 8 I reckon