AS53-TF : 22 frets not all easily accessible

This is a beautiful instrument. I find that the bridge pickup is lacking clarity in higher frequencies and that the neck pickup could be a bit warmer. I am comparing this to my 30 year old Columbus 335 knockoff.

The neck is strange, it starts getting thicker close to the body as expected but the weird thing is how early it starts, around fret 14 or thereabout. This limits playability on fret 16 when playing solos on high A. Any higher than that and I am struggling. This is different from my other guitars where high A position is well accessible.

Another thing I observed is that the neck comes in very high relative to the body so the distance from the strings to the body top is unusually high, possibly interfering with finger style picking where one finger on the body would stabilize the hand.

Lowering the action helped the situation slightly.

I would prefer to swap the position of the pickup selector and the volume button to have it similar to the ES-335 setup.

Very well built guitar but strange how the neck joins the body, possibly interfering with playability on higher notes. Stay low!