I am an amateur guitarist and have been playing on this guitar for two months, mostly on a Fender 57 Custom Champ without using pedals. So far I am very satisfied with it and recommend it to everyone who looks for a high quality vintage sounding Stratocaster.
Unlike most Fender guitars, this guitar comes from the factory as a hard-tail version in the sense that anyone who would be keen to use the tremolo, would probably first need to remove some of the five springs in the tremolo system and then have the intonation properly checked/adjusted by a luthier. I decided to use the guitar as a hardtail version, the factory intonation was properly done. The guitar comes from the factory with 10 gauge nickel strings.
I found the quartersawn maple neck of the guitar with the gloss nitrocellulose lacquer to be really beautiful and vintage looking. On the other hand, the only thing that disturbs me in playing this guitar is the back of the neck which can sometimes get quite sticky. Probably the sticky feeling will disappear as soon as the lacquer will start wearing off. Nonetheless, I found this quite strange as I have not experienced this with other nitrocellulose lacquered necks (e.g. on Gibson guitars).
The guitar hard case is of very good quality with a very tasteful black plush interior. As regards the accessories, the only part which looks a bit cheap is the brown guitar strap.
The nitrocellulose lacquer on the body is beautiful but very sensitive and thin.
I particularly liked the staggered vintage looking tuners, which seem to be more precise than the standard tuners used on other Fender guitars.
Given the vintage specs of the guitar, the truss rod is only adjustable from the neck pickup, and not from the headstock, which is not so practical. I.e. in order to adjust the truss rod, one may have to remove the pickguard with the pickups first.
