I love the modern radius of this guitar - and the subtle, chilled tone of the '69 pickups. I notice some playability differences from an American Standard - but for this price this is an exceptional guitar. I've used mine regularly for gigs - actually bought two of these so I could have one for standard tuning and one for half-step down. Very satisfied.

GoRoryGo owns this item

This guitar is well build, no loose parts and it feels pretty consistent. I would like to start with the neck...

First of all the neck feels just amazing, and it fits my hand perfect. The headstock looks really classic 60's, and I think that's great! The truss rod, can of course be adjusted, but you have to take the neck of first. The fretjob on my neck, is actually pretty well done. The medium jumbo frets, feels and sounds great, and I think they add a little bit more sutain, than a vintage type fret. But I highly recommend, that you check how the fretjob is before you buy a guitar. Mabye I was just lucky...

Now the body of the guitar feels really great, but I guess a strat body always feels that way. Mine has a really beautiful sonic blue finish! Kind of like a baby blue color. It has a cool looking aged white pickguard, and matching knobs. I have changed the volume knob with a black one. Just because I think it looks cool! Also the two-point tremolo is great for tuning stability, and for that Jeff Beck tremolo style.

The sound of this strat is mind blowing for a guitar at this value! And the classic strat sounds of this guitar, is of course the killer 69' custom shop pickups. These pickups just sound fantastic. Really classic Hendrix, SRV and all that kind of stuff. They both sound good on there own, and also in the in between positions.

Let me just tell you some things about the guitar out of the box. I bought mine personally in af store, and I tried it before I decided to buy it. The guitar wasn't setup that good at the start. But after I set it up, to my specs, it played much better. I also bought a nice Fender vintage style case, in brown tolex for it.

The only mod I have done to this strat so far is just: strap locks, black volume knob, and I recently put a set of graph tech string saver originals on it. Those have given me a little more sustain, and they have reduced string breakage. So know my guitar is a little more live friendly.

Strat-man 1954 owns this item

That's right! Very Poor Setup! First off, I love Fenders and have been a Fender Stratocaster owner/player all my life, Also, I have been playing for over 30 years. The Custom Shop designed Classic Player '60s Stratocaster is a great sounding guitar and the Custom Shop 1969 pickups produce a well rounded warm sound that's great for various styles of music including jazz and is particuarly great for playing Jimi Hendrix's music. The medium jumbo frets provide good solid action and contributes to the acoustical sound quality of the guitar. Unfortunately, the Custom Shop Designed badge on the neck plate, makes this guitar fall short of expectation due to the poor setup. The guitar was delivered to me brand new in the box with a truss rod that was totally out of adjustment. Also, for the life of me, I could not figure why I was getting major fret buzz from the first 3 frets on the 5th and 6th string. It turned out that the bridge saddle height screws were the wrong length for the 4th, 5th and 6th strings, therefore the string heights were too low, causing the fret buzz. After arranging the bridge saddles to match the appropiate string gauge and adjusting the truss rod, the guitar sounds and feels great and will most likely turn out to be one of the best Stratocasters that I play. I would not recommend this guitar unless you are prepared to have it properly set up or have the patience to exchange it out enough times to get a good one that is setup properly.

secondplanetguitar owns this item

This is a fantastic guitar designed by the Fender Custom Shop folks. Vintage style tuners, heel adjusting truss rod, and add the classic three tone sunburst make for a stunning Stratocaster. To further add in more modern features such as a 12" radius for big bends, two point tremolo, and a durable finish make it a fantastic guitar. The Custom Shop pickups are true to the 60's with a lower output voicings. This is a very well built guitar. However, I have a few issues that may turn some players off. The flatter radius gives the neck a thinner feel which takes away from the thumb over the fretboard players. This may be uncomfortable to some players. Another point is the pickups are great sounding clean pickups without the reverse wound middle pickup. The lack of the reverse wound can be a problem on stage or when using high gain. Also the low wound, low output pickups are not ideal for higher gain or heavy crunch players. Fantastic guitar for the money, well worth the investment.

This guitar is another remarkable Fender product. This models gives the "real feel" 60's sound, having played during that decade. The "C" profile neck is really comfortable and easy on the hand, while the 9in radius fingerboard makes string bending a little easier than the 7.25in radius of the earlier years models. The quality of build and finish are really good and compare well with the USA-built Fenders, (Try both before buying).

Alan W owns this item

Overall, I love it! It plays like a dream, and with all the great features that come standard on these models, what's not to love?
The main reason I ended up with the Classic Player's 60's Stratocaster was all the features included with this model. I have been searching for a production level Stratocaster with a 12 inch radius neck (which I prefer - not for everyone I realize) and none of the American Standards or even the Vintage series have that. The only guitars that seem to have that neck stock are either very high end or signature series guitars, and I already own a SRV signature strat. Along comes this model having a 12 inch radius neck, throw in Custom Shop 69 pickups, the two-point bridge (previously only available from the Custom Shop), aged pickguard and knobs, vintage tuners, and it seemed like a perfect match to the specs I was looking for! These guitars are designed by the Custom Shop (Greg Kessler to be exact) and it shows in their quality. I don't get hung up by MIA versus MIM as Cornona is only miles from the Ensenada factory and these guitars, with the guidance and training from the Custom Shop are top notch. I would stand up this guitar next to any American Standard without hesitation, and in a lot of ways, it beats them when you compare the out-the-door prices and quality.
The fit and finish is excellent ... albeit a poly finish, instead of nitro, and well put together throughout!

Cliffd64 owns this item

This is one hell of a guitar, folks.
If you look for the classic sixties tone and strat feel, here you have it.
The neck feels absolutely great, the string action can be adjusted to a very convenient level, and the pickups give you the right tone you expect from a classic stratocaster guitar.
This guitar might be the best combination of Mexican origin and Custom Shop supervision. Don't hesitate to grab one! I prefer the sonic blue one!

echtzeit2012 owns this item

If you want a guitar that has brilliant tone, beautiful playability, a neck to die for, and the versatility of the gods, AND you don't want to pay $1200, go ahead and do yourself a favor and pick up one of these beauties.

I've played music for over 15 years and have played and owned more guitars than I can recall, this one stands out more than almost all of them.

OUT OF THE PARK FENDER, OUT OF THE PARK!

bsutherland owns this item