Fender Traditional Sam Ash 48th Street Stratocaster

I believe these guitars are exclusive to Sam Ash retailer. I have not seen them anywhere else. Or I just always see them at Sam's. Either way this is a type of deluxe Fender Straocaster built in Mexico. The construction is pretty lousy and cheap. The pickups are terrible as most Fender pickups seem to be. I have replaced the pickups in every single Fender guitar I've own. They are just flat out garbage.

This guitar features a humbuckering and two single coil pickups in the middle and neck positions. All pickups in this trio are lousy and will need replacing. It is amazing how these Fender guitars come to life after getting a pickup change.

UTILIZATION


Model Name Sam Ash 48th Street Stratocaster
Series Traditional Series
Body Poplar
Neck Maple, (Satin Polyurethane Finish)
Machine Heads Fender®/Ping® Vintage Style Tuning Machines
Fingerboard Indian Rosewood
Frets 21 Vintage Style
Pickups 2 Tex-MexTM Strat® Single Coils and 1Tex-Mex Humbucking Pickup
Bridge Vintage Style Tremolo
Hardware Chrome
Pickguard 3-Ply White Pearloid
Scale Length 25.5"
Case Not included
Included Accessories None

SOUNDS

The tone on this guitar with these pickups is not inspiring at all. This isn't a bad guitar for the money, but a pickup change is essential to get this guitar rocking.

The guitar is self is made out of poplar which isn't that great of a tone wood. You don't get much play for tone wise out of this wood. The maple neck isn't bad but it doesn't jive with poplar all that well. This is a cheaper guitar and so cheaper materials will be used. The problem I see is that alder is a pretty inexpensive wood and works great on these shaped guitars. Either way this setup is not that great and not very inspiring.

OVERALL OPINION

At new these guitars come in at around $700, which is more than I would have expected. You can save up about $300 and get a real Fender Stratocatser made in the USA. I would suggest that over this guitar. I like have the humbucker and two single coils but not to the tune of $700. It just isn't worth it and when it's all said and done you still need pickup which will cost you around $150-200 for the set. You might as well buy a used Fender US Strat and get some pickups and for the same price be set up.