ST-70RW Deluxe Series : Not for me

I was initially quite skeptical about buying a guitar online without playing it first and this proved to be well founded. When the guitar arrived, I was excited to get my hands on it and to see what it could do.

First impressions weren't bad - the finish on the body was ok for the money and the chrome hardware looked good. Playing-wise I noticed the action was set a bit higher than I would have liked and on inspecting the neck/fretboard I found out why. The finishing on the fret ends were very poor and a couple of the frets at the lower end were sitting too high making a lower action impossible without fret buzz.

On the plus side, the guitar did stay in tune very well even with some tremelo playing and the pickups provided some excellent tones.

However, overall I am disappointed as having read previous reviews I thought you could get a bargain at this price point, but the quality of the neck and fretboard have confirmed my initial fears - "buy cheap - buy twice" and the guitar has been returned.