Fender American Vintage ii 1973 Stratocaster - First Impressions and Review. NOT Love at First Sight
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- čas přidán 27. 11. 2023
- Back again! In this video I do an initial first impression and follow up review on the Fender American Vintage ii 1973 Stratocaster in Aged Natural finish.
What can I say... At first I was not a fan of this guitar. It was plagued with quality control issues and a pretty atrocious setup. That said, I'm a lover not a hater :) I was compelled to give it a second chance. When I took the neck off, I was greeted by a pleasant surprise that made it feel like destiny to keep this one and put in the work to bring it to a state of glory.
I hope this provides some good insight and information if you're thinking about grabbing one of these!
:40 First Impressions
2:20 Tones
3:50 A Second Chance
6:51 Overall Thoughts
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Fender is not Ibanez
Strats needs moderate high action to perfect sound and performance.
Personal set up is variable.
Beautiful guitar❤❤❤
Nice video, mate! Keep 'em coming!
To boot, in the 80s and 90s you could only give away 70s Fenders. The bullet strats with 3 bolt neck plates were just unloved. Having truss rod adjustable at the headstock is a plus though. The weird hole in the neck plate was for adjusting the neck fit in the pocket. Necks in that era were of varying width’s unpredictably and that was the design choice. They had blanks left over from many models and many years prior and just repurposed them however they wanted.
My Fender gold foil tele (Mex) was perfect out of the box. $1199. Sounds unbelievable. I looked very hard at this strat. Had a '78 Antigua that was very nice, and your sounds really good too.
Only thing better than a nice guitar is a nice guitar at a great value.
Great review! I was worried about the neck on an AV2 61 strat and went with the Pro 2, although I much prefer the sound of the AV2. The neck on this seems like it's much more my speed, but it's wild that a $2000+ guitar would require so much work straight out of the box.
Indeed. Kind of hard to stomach the idea of spending so much and have it not be amazing right out of the box. I will say, in all fairness, this one I bought was technically "Used," so I suppose I granted a little extra leeway based on the fact that it could have been a return or an undisclosed B-stock. The neck on the '73 is by far my favorite part about the guitar.
Typical setup stuff like action, truss rod, intonation etc should be expected with any new guitar purchase, regardless of price. These are instruments and they are made out of wood, so things do adjust with exposure to varying temperature and humidity.
It’s weird that players seem to have forgotten about getting a setup done on a new guitar ASAP these days, as that was pretty much standard when I was first buying guitars.
The fret ends though...
@@3rdStoreyChemist I agree. I kind of look at it like buying a nice suit. The nicer the suit, generally more the need for final tailoring and alterations.
Guess it’s luck of the draw as I got a ‘61 avii and it’s beyond flawless. Plays like a custom shop and sounds killer. Frets were perfect. I did play before buying though.
Yeah I have that same guitar and I love it too. The ‘61 is my favorite of the AVii line
Yeah I have that same guitar and I love it too. The ‘61 is my favorite of the AVii line
Hey nick you should have grabbed one of the vintera 2 strats. I just picked up on e of the 70’s strats it’s beautiful plays like a dream. Big headstock not orange seafoam green rosewood neck 70’s voiced pickups and no issues praise the lord. Check’m out. Love the channel bro. Happy holidays. Oh I almost 1/2 the price.
Hey great tip! I have one of the 50’s vintera ii strats on order. Looking forward to comparing it to the AVii series ‘57. Glad to hear you got an awesome guitar right out of the box!
Nice review.
Thanks, Bob! This guitar took a while to warm up to, but after 4 months of ownership I’m glad to have it in the quiver.
Imagine having a real '73 Strat in natural finish just like this and its not a "reissue" or some new guitar that' been beaten up at the factory.
I’ve thought about selling my entire guitar collection to fund an early 60’s strat. That would definitely add some space in my garage :)
I’ve owned 3 different 70’s Strats, and looked at hundreds. They were not very consistent and the body weights are insane. Not unusual to see them come in at 10lbs . Very hard to find a ‘good one’, probably why Blackmore smashed them all the time.
@@toddwilliamson2651I've heard stories of them going well over 10lbs, like 13 or so. Swamp ash is super variable, you can get some incredibly dense pieces and the Fender of that era truly DNGAF.
@@toddwilliamson2651 Blackmore usually smashed factory rejects or whatever you call those that factory didn't pass QC?
If I'm not mistaken, you've tried out the 60s American Vintage II and the 57. Of the three, which do you prefer and why? Me, I love the look of the natural strat but the sound of the 57.
That’s a tough one. I think the deflecting answer seems to be the absolute truth which is, they each have their own thing. At the moment I have the ‘73 in the batter’s box. I’m playing it through the Marshall JTM studio that I just picked up. The pair make a sweet sonic couple for that edge of breakup sound.
Why did Fender put a pre CBS C shape neck on a 1973 U neck standard Stratocaster?
I thought the same thing before I bought it, so I did some research and found out that in 73, they actually did come with a ‘C’ shape neck. I suspect this is why they chose ‘73 for the model year on the AVii, which otherwise doesn’t seem that notable.
@@NickHandleyCreative U shape is the gold standard for 1970s Stratocasters. I bet 95% of the Stratocasters in the 1970s were U shape. I know I used to be a guitar tech in the late 70's.
I finally got one and it is actually a U neck even though it is marketed as a C neck. I should know, I have 9 other 70s Strats.
I have blue one. Only thing I don't like is poly finish. I didn't know it doesn't get relic easily
I’m confident that I leave this guitar in a room with my kids it’ll be relic’d in about 20 min 😆😆
How does it compare to the A.V. ii 61 strat?
They’re both cool. The poly neck finish on the ‘73 is the most notable difference IMO. Also the pickups are a little hotter on the ‘73.
Headstocks then still got nitrocellulose lacquer on top of the logo decals. That caused them to darken like that even though the bodies were otherwise polyurethane and that headstock got both chemicals ;) 😂
Wow that’s an awesome bit of historical knowledge! I had no idea.
Do you think rosewood makes any difference that you can realise?
I think some would say yes, some would say no. For me I tend to gravitate toward the rosewood necks, probably primarily because I like the look.
was it uncomfortable while you slept on it? did you use it as a pillow or maybe a mattress i guess. did you notice any change after sleeping on it?
When it comes to actually sleeping with guitars, I prefer the feel of a les Paul. Less pokey 😉
I keep trying to tell you the story of my guitar because it's so much like your story here, but it keeps getting flagged as spam, so I guess you'll never know.
Ok well now I’m curious. Does it work if you reply to this reply?
@@NickHandleyCreative I have a very recent, VERY similar story about a very similar guitar. I was testing out a B.K. Butler tube pedal at the store and grabbed a fiesta red Vintage 2 '61 strat to test the pedal with and noticed the wood grain on the headstock made an absolutely perfect bird, very raven-like, and for the next few weeks I just couldn't stop thinking about that thing! I would wake up at night! I had never played a 7.25" radius either and instantly fell in love with it which is weird since I'm a Les Paul guy. So I bought it, and when I took the beautifully bird's-eye figured neck off to do the initial setup, the neck pocket was hand-signed by Eowin (I'm Tolkein-obsessed), and the serial number ended in 666 (They all start with 7721, so mine was 7721666). At first I was going to call it The Bird because of the bird's eye figuring and the basically perfect stencil of a bird on the headstock, but after finding that serial number I may instead name it The Beast. LOL I absolutely love the Vintage 2 series. Thanks for the content!
Uhh this guitar Sounds Like a sponge. Really dead and mushy. Never would buy IT.
Our ears are certainly our own, and as such have their own opinion. But just so you’re properly informed, I think the sponginess you’re hearing is the amp. The 5e3 circuit is one of the spongiest amps in existence and ironic to your comment, is one of the most sought after attributes about this amp.
The deadness you speak of is probably just me not being that great of a musician 😉