c.2004 Squier Affinity Stratocaster Electric Guitar

A local fellow brought some student gear in the other day and I've finally gotten around to giving them proper setups to get them ready for resale. I have to admit that the vast majority of factory Asian-made instruments make perfectly good guitars once they've been setup correctly. This one is no different and it plays well and has a good approximation of that crisp but also bell-sweet Strat tone. The sound above is through a little 2W tube amp set relatively neutral.

The big difference between something like this Affinity Strat (made in Indonesia) and something fancier are all of the cost-cutting measures: flatsawn neck stock, cheaper body, less-rugged pots and wiring, and less quality control on the pickups and hardware -- that kind of stuff. Still, I'm always pretty shocked by what you can get for $180 new shipped to your door these days. I'll bet that if you had someone close their eyes and play this it would be somewhat hard to distinguish it from a Mexican Strat.

This guitar has some light use-wear but to me it looks like a kid played this for a few months and that was it. It's pretty clean and it also comes with its original (somewhat flimsy but "good enough") gig bag.

Proper action and a set of 10s makes this a quick guitar. It's setup to the usual 1/16" at the 12th fret. The frets are in good shape with only very light wear (not even worth leveling/dressing). The nut width on this guy runs to a hair over 1 5/8" so it feels sort of like an old 60s Strat.

Enclosed, perfectly-functional tuners, too.