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My friend who bought the Starfire 7 today (see this thread) and he let me play, record, and take pictures of the Starfire 7!
Sadly my lights weren't quite right since I had *just* set up the "studio" and was a bit thrown off because it's different than my old place, but worse things have happened.
Some comments having played it for a bit:
In the original thread we all went a bit nuts about the neck and the fretboard break that was done to reset the neck to the point that I seriously warned him against buying the guitar. I'm here to tell you that unless I pointed it out to you you'd never know it was there. The guitar plays great up and down the fretboard, the neck is straight, the frets feel great, and I probably would have walked out with it too, having played it in person. Yes the problem area affects its value, but I dare you to not fall in love with the guitar while playing it.
To my ears it doesn't sound like anything else. Certainly there's a bit of diminishing returns going on because a beginner wouldn't likely be able to hear or feel any difference, but it doesn't sound like a Starfire II or IV, it doesn't sound like an Artist Award, and it doesn't sound like an X700, though I'd probably say the X700 is the closest thing I've played to it.
According to the Hans Bible, the top is laminated spruce while the X700 is solid, so that's different. Looking in the nicely bound F-hole, there is a sort of strip of wood running from front to back on the inside of the back of the guitar where you'd expect the center block of a Starfire IV to be, but it's maybe only 1/4" or so tall (I didn't measure), so that's different too. Sadly I wasn't able to get pics of this because we were limited for time. There appear to be two parallel braces on the top similar to the X700 or a Starfire II/III. Aside from these braces and the... thing... on the bottom, the guitar is hollow.
At first I thought how odd it was that the neck had no binding, but the binding is there - it's just black!
The neck reminds me of some late '70s Starfire IVs I've played. Sadly, I didn't measure it. The neck pickup is absolutely divine. I got him to play some stuff more worthy of the instrument then I could play, so I'll get that together and post it soon. The guitar is an absolute feedback monster with any type of gain or volume, but even the feedback sounds good.
All I wanted to do was take it apart. LOL. Normally I would sit with a guitar for hours while I document all the little fiddly bits with various instrument from bore-scopes to calipers and everything in-between, but he only had about an hour, of which we spent 90 minutes. He lives in South Carolina so it's not nearby. He did say that I could come and visit in order to spend more time with it so maybe one of these days I'll pack up my gear and pay it a visit.
Sadly my lights weren't quite right since I had *just* set up the "studio" and was a bit thrown off because it's different than my old place, but worse things have happened.
Some comments having played it for a bit:
In the original thread we all went a bit nuts about the neck and the fretboard break that was done to reset the neck to the point that I seriously warned him against buying the guitar. I'm here to tell you that unless I pointed it out to you you'd never know it was there. The guitar plays great up and down the fretboard, the neck is straight, the frets feel great, and I probably would have walked out with it too, having played it in person. Yes the problem area affects its value, but I dare you to not fall in love with the guitar while playing it.
To my ears it doesn't sound like anything else. Certainly there's a bit of diminishing returns going on because a beginner wouldn't likely be able to hear or feel any difference, but it doesn't sound like a Starfire II or IV, it doesn't sound like an Artist Award, and it doesn't sound like an X700, though I'd probably say the X700 is the closest thing I've played to it.
According to the Hans Bible, the top is laminated spruce while the X700 is solid, so that's different. Looking in the nicely bound F-hole, there is a sort of strip of wood running from front to back on the inside of the back of the guitar where you'd expect the center block of a Starfire IV to be, but it's maybe only 1/4" or so tall (I didn't measure), so that's different too. Sadly I wasn't able to get pics of this because we were limited for time. There appear to be two parallel braces on the top similar to the X700 or a Starfire II/III. Aside from these braces and the... thing... on the bottom, the guitar is hollow.
At first I thought how odd it was that the neck had no binding, but the binding is there - it's just black!
The neck reminds me of some late '70s Starfire IVs I've played. Sadly, I didn't measure it. The neck pickup is absolutely divine. I got him to play some stuff more worthy of the instrument then I could play, so I'll get that together and post it soon. The guitar is an absolute feedback monster with any type of gain or volume, but even the feedback sounds good.
All I wanted to do was take it apart. LOL. Normally I would sit with a guitar for hours while I document all the little fiddly bits with various instrument from bore-scopes to calipers and everything in-between, but he only had about an hour, of which we spent 90 minutes.
He lives in South Carolina so it's not nearby. He did say that I could come and visit in order to spend more time with it so maybe one of these days I'll pack up my gear and pay it a visit.
I wonder if it sounds more like a 1970s X-500 (Iaminated spruce top, HB-1s)?
