The American Special Series should be ONE guitar that symbolizes the Fender name.

First, it is loaded with all your favorite features:
1. Retro 70's Head Stock, Texas Special pickups (neck and middle) position
2. Atomic bridge Humbucker that provides a whole new dimension of tweakable tone options and allows for a fat, overdriven blast of lead potential, available
3. The serious (I'm a pro and dead series about my tone) color finish options such as: Sunburst finish that will make your knees weak BLACK on BLACK, or Candy Apple Red.
4. The brilliant Grease bucket tone circuitry that keeps your tone (your tone) when you hit certain frequencies.
5. I have not even mentioned the price yet, $200-$500 stays in your pocket when you buy this model as opposed to the (boring) American Standard.

Go to your local guitar shop, pick any American Standard and play it first. Then, grab this one, and get out your car keys because you are done shopping. This is the better guitar by far.

FenderPlayer_29 owns this item

Out of the box it was in tune??? A slight setup and it is surreal. I have several Fenders and G&L, and Gibson...this is now my main axe.. Atomic Humbucker just sings....Wow

Yoda Dogg owns this item

I spent a few hours in the local guitar shop and had my eye on the special HSS, now I played it for awhile and tried different pickup positions and the output was really good, the bridge pick up was really great however the bridge kept pulling forward when I did any bends on the strings and would not return to its original position, the guitar came out of tune very easily. I could have just got the one bad apple out of the bunch that wasn't set up right, could just need some adjusting, but I went and picked up the American Standard Strat with the jade metallic finish, and played that for about an hour and fell in love with that guitar. I ended up buying the American Standard, My advice is spend the extra cash on the American Standard.

The American Special is an awesome option for someone who wants a great American made guitar that doesn't skimp on quality one bit but has some unique features at a lower price point. The biggest differences you'll notice between this and an American Standard HSS are the jumbo frets and the 6-screw trem as opposed to the 2-screw trem found on American Standards and Deluxes. The pickups are different but can easily be swapped out if the stock ones don't suit your needs. In my opinion, they're great. Plenty of growl from the Atomic Humbucker in bridge and that full single-coil Texas-Specials in middle and neck position.

DerDrache owns this item