"Classic S Suhr, the best American Super Strat today?" Come on! Let's assume the bold statement that the Classic S from Suhr Guitars (suhr.com) represents the best of the modern Super Strat in the production guitar segment.
Big fan of John Suhr (whom I hope to interview one of these days!!) and his work in the world of guitar products, I've been eyeing a Classic S from his brand for a while to equip the showroom. It's done, I bought one for this review, here it is in video.
Note that I bought this instrument to be able to do this test independently. To be totally transparent, the European importer gave me the artist discount.
Classic S Suhr review
What I enjoyed the most
- The quality of manufacture and finishing
- The comfort of the neck
- The sounds in all positions
- The beauty of the wood grain
- The general elegance
What I enjoyed the least
- Nut not perfect up for tuning stability
- Volume pot that scratch a little
Photo album
Conclusion
This guitar is dripping with quality on all sides. It's hard to fault it, whether it's in the manufacturing, in the raw materials used, in the electronics, in the beauty of the Sunburst and in the sounds, this is the top of the line.
Only small negative points, the saddle pinged a little on the G string, I had to use a small file to give it a good stability of tuning. Also the volume pot scratches a little, I'll have to fix this. This is not normal at this price level for these two points.
Having bought the guitar directly from the European importer, it might not have undergone the normal check-up that a store would do? Just a guess.
This Classic S is a real pleasure to play in all 5 pickup positions. All sounds are excellent. The proprietary SCII noise reduction system works remarkably well. It gives very nice single coil sounds without the buzz inherent to this type of pickup. Note that this system is completely passive and therefore does not require a battery.
I had specifically chosen a Super Strat with modern specifications (Gotoh 510 vibrato, stainless steel frets, PU finish, SSCII system, SSH config) to have a reference guitar at 2021 level, I am not disappointed, this is a top of line guitar.
The Guitar Channel podcast
The audio version of the video is available in the podcast on iTunes, Spotify and below:
Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
Until the next interview, keep on playing the guitar!
Pierre Journel.
For more info:
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