It has arrived and I've finally gotten around to taking a picture, which we all know is the most important part of a post!
Build quality is excellent, I'm very impressed. It arrived completely flaw free. Did a normal setup, very minor intonation tweaks and such, otherwise ready to go out of the box. The pups sound great, although not an exact match of the original HB1's. They seem a little more harsh, but then they haven't had 40 years to mellow them out a bit. It's nothing horrible, just slightly more sizzle in the upper frequencies. I might still need some height adjustments to dial it in. The neck is a tad wider, and the headstock is definitely smaller in every way than previous generations. It's narrower and thinner. The Grover open tuning machines are actually really attractive and hold tune well. The frets are probably the biggest difference, they are tall but narrow. I miss the phase switch but it's not make or break. If I feel adventurous in the future I might research adding one. I did follow Hagmeat's example (thanks!) and changed the switch tip to chrome, and the truss rod cover to a traditional Guild "bell". That amber switch tip belongs on a well aged Les Paul, not an S-100, and the cover although nice, is a bit busy, competing with the inlay logo and 3 line chesterfield. The screw holes are exactly the same so no extra drilling to change it out. Overall, this is a great new generation of the S-100, it is it's own thing. For what I paid, ($640 shipped with hard case) for a brand new guitar, this is an amazing deal. If Guild can get these into stores and into peoples hands to try them out, I'm willing to bet they'd sell quite a few of them.
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