ST-70 Black Paisley : Love it!!

After watching Nick in the States (YouTube channel to see what an inexpensive guitar was like. This one is more than twice the price of the most inexpensive HB ST but you get the Wilkinson pickups and trem plus a very beautiful Paisley finish. It's a fun guitar and it has that ST sound with some extra punch from the humbucker. The frets are nicely finished and the tuning pegs feel good as well.

So what's the difference between this and a guitar that costs five times more? Well I only have two other guitars, but both were pretty expensive when I bought them 35 years ago ('79 Takamine Acoustic and '82 Ibanez AR 105). First thing I noticed is that when looking carefully at the finish it has some texture, unlike my Ibanez which looks like glass. At this price point I doubt there is enough clear coat to buff. The next thing I noticed is that the nut can catch your finger. It needs to be shaped a bit near the high E string. As others have mentioned, it looks like they don't condition the fret board so a little "Wax and Feed" will be applied. The volume and tone knobs seem stiff compared to my old Ibanez, but they are functional. The pick guard and pickups are protected by a plastic sheet and it seems that you have to remove the mounting screws to get it all off. Lastly the action is a bit high.

I've only spent a few hours playing it and I can't speak to how well the trem system keeps tune, but like I said at the beginning, it's fun to play. I didn't have a thousand bucks laying around but I wanted that Strat sound and I'm not disappointed. I don't know if they let us amend these comments, but I'm confident that after a proper setup this thing will be pure joy. And it really is pretty in person. They changed that cover shown in white here on the site to black which is much nicer. It's early to tell but I'm sure there will be more HB guitars in my future. If you can do without the Paisley and want to mod something, you may want to buy an even more inexpensive HB, but I had to have the Paisley and luckily I really like the sound so I won't even bother swapping out the pickups.