I've only had it for about a week so I'm still very likely in the honeymoon period, but this is the nicest guitar I've had thus far (my other guitars are a Squier Tele, a JMJM, and a partsmaster). I don't know if it's the correct trem spacing or the alder body, but something about this guitar just resonates and sings like none of my others do. I thought I wouldn't like the medium jumbo frets but the jumbos on my other guitar now feel clumsy by comparison. The neck is a bit thinner (about 1mm less than the JMJM at the 1st fret) and a bit deeper, I've seen it described as a U profile in some sites. Fits the hand like a glove while being very easy to wrap your hand around, and the satin finish is wonderful (a bit hard to compare with the JMJM cause mine has shined out a bit over the years). And yes, the neck is almost completely bone white. The color is kind of hard to take a picture of: in some lights it's almost black and in some lights it's very very blue.
This is the first of the MIJ Hybrid series, which seems to be Fender Japan's response to hearing all the trash we've been talking about them and addressing some issues -- the pots are full-sized CTS, the switch is solid, the tuners are Gotoh vintage-style locking, and *drum roll* all the Jazzmasters in the line have MIA Pickups.
Now, which US Pickups entirely are an interesting questions. The newer Jazzmasters in the line claim PV65 pickups, but you might notice when looking this guitar up that it just says "US Jazzmaster Single Coil Pickups". I heard here and there on the forum that they had V-Mods in these, which would have been ridiculous IMO (going from strat-like MIJ Jazzmaster pickups to... strat-like MIA Jazzmaster Pickups) but I couldn't really find a source for that info other than hearsay, so naturally I had to check when I changed the strings:
They don't look like V-Mods to me... I know it's a terrible pic but it's a grey bobbin and the coils seem plenty flat and wide -- or at least much flatter and wider than the pictures of V-Mods I've seen. Anyone have any idea what these are? They sound just a bit more mellow and bassy than my JMJM, but of course it could be a wide variety of factors that spell the difference.
Lastly I just want to commend the setup at Swee Lee Singapore. This came shipped, and I've heard tons of horror stories of guitar stores who had no idea how to set up a Jazzmaster, but it actually arrived out of the box with nary a rattle, and the trem was actually set up to lock! The only issue I had was that the pickups were set too high which made the whole thing sound a bit honky and middy and didn't help assuage my pickup fears, but a small screwdriver and a bit of patience later and they've got everything I want out of Jazzmaster pickups.
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