Walter Broes
Enlightened Member
I had a Newark Street X175 on order for a while, and it finally arrived last week. I ordered the sunburst model with the wood bridge and the harp tail - because I've seen a couple of the "amber" natural finished models and wasn't too crazy about the finish.
I did put a metal (stainless steel) Tru Arc bar bridge and a Bigsby on it though. The Bigsby is a NOS USA Guild one I got off the bay, it came in gold, but I polished the goldoff with some car polish.
Here it is minutes after the Bigsby install :
Before I start nitpicking and "taking it apart" I'll say this first. I'm very, very impressed. It's an awful lot of guitar for the money, and it's almost scary to see the trouble they went to to copy a late 50's Guild.
Things that are really great about it :
----------------------------------------------------------
-The body silhouette, arch, weight, shape and size feel exactly like '60 X175 I used to have. Somebody really did their homework.
-Same goes for the neck - it's not the usual Korean scarfed on headstock and heel, it's constructed like a 50's Guild neck, two pieces of mahogany with a strip of maple in the middle. Shape is a LOT like my old X175's, and it has the same fingerboard radius too. Frets are very well finished medium jumbos, matter of taste, but I do a lot of bending, so I'm very happy with the bigger frets.
-The headstock is a new design, really...it's a 50's style headstock with a 60's style "peak", and I think it looks great. Tuners are open back Grover Statites with round buttons, and they work great. (and I think they look great too). I already had a set of those with the kidney bean buttons replacing the vintage ones on my Starfire, and they're great tuners.
-It has a very well cut bone nut
-It's poly finished, but it doesn't feel like it's dipped in plastic. It's a little shinier than I'd like, but it's a very nicely done sunburst, and it looks good.
-It comes with a very nice case
-It came with a little more neck relief than I like, but there's a nice truss rod key in the case, and one tweak got the neck to near straight, how I like it. And even adjusted like that, the fret job on it proved to be nicely done : no buzzing or rattling, no loose or high frets.
-It sounds GREAT! I doesn't sound exactly like an old one, but for a brand new, stock-out of the box Korean built guitar with a sub $1000 street price, it gets awful close. More about that later.
Things that are different than what I'm used to :
--------------------------------------------------------------
-the control layout and wiring is "Gibsonized". On a Hoboken Guild, which this is kind of a copy of, both volume controls are on top, and the corresponding tone controls are underneath on the bottom row. Not on the NSX175 : the control layout is the same as on a Les Paul. No big deal at all, just confusing if you're not used to it. I have grabbed the wrong knob on it already, rehearsing with it.
The volume pots are not wired "decoupled" as on a Hoboken Guild - if you have both pickups on and you turn one down competely, the guitar goes silent. Not so on a Hoboken one - again, no big deal, just a matter of taste.
-The lead pickup sits closer to the neck. You can even tell by looking at pictures of it, and comparing. It's probably a concious decision, because the lead pickup on a Hoboken Guild sits pretty close to the bridge and can get a little thin and spikey. On this NS Guild, the treble pickup sits a good deal further away from the bridge, giving the bass strings more low end, and taking some ice-pick off the trebles.
It's cool, but I would have put it somewhere between where it sits now, and where it sits on an old one. The lead pickup by itself is definitely more usable and less spikey, but the middle pickup position gets a little mellow for my taste.
-The pickups, while inside and outside being impressively done Franz pickup clones, are hotter than what I'm used to. I've rehearsed with the guitar twice, and I've gone back and forth between it, a Hoboken X175, and a Hoboken CE100, without changing the settings on the amp, and the new one is louder, a little less twangy and airy, and the pickups, while still getting some of that Franz twang, treble, and growl, have a little more of an upper midrange Gibson P90 snarl to them than the old ones I'm used to.
And it's impossible to say if it's just the pickups of course, because they're not on the same guitar, but it does translate into a slightly less dynamic and subtle plugged in playing experience. I've recorded some of the rehearsal because we were working on a tune, and recorded, it sounds better, and more like a Guild than I thought - because in my hands while playing, it felt a little more "blunt" and less subtle than my old guitars.
They're not bad pickups, and they're not P90's - they're well within the old Franz pickup ballpark, just a little fatter and and louder. Which for a lot of people is probably more usable than the old pickups, because plugged into the wrong amp, they càn get a little too twangy and spikey.
I'm not sure yet, I might have them rewound, as I have a good friend who winds pickups and does a great job. But then, I'm not sure I will, because I have two old X175's, and I kind of like the sound this one puts out. Also, this is going to be my rehearsal/flying gig/shady bar guitar, and the slightly hotter pickups might be a good match for the hired backline I have to deal with on fly-in gigs sometimes.
I'm really not sure yet.
All in all, it's a very nice, if not amazingly nice guitar for the price. I would still think it's a great guitar if it cost a good deal more. It'll do old style Jazz, blues, swing, Rockabilly, twangy Honky Tonk, or any non-power chord style you throw at it, and do it well. It looks almost exactly like a Hoboken X175, and feel-wise, it gets closer than I thought it would. I've rehearsed with it twice so far, and while I was picking nits and saying what I maybe didn't like about it, the two other guys in the band were saying "dude....that thing sounds KILLER, and it looks almost exactly like your old ones, but new!"
Unplugged, it's not as warm and dry sounding as my 50 year old X175's. But plugged in, I doubt anyone in the audience could really tell the difference. Great guitar, and highly recommended!
I did put a metal (stainless steel) Tru Arc bar bridge and a Bigsby on it though. The Bigsby is a NOS USA Guild one I got off the bay, it came in gold, but I polished the goldoff with some car polish.
Here it is minutes after the Bigsby install :
Before I start nitpicking and "taking it apart" I'll say this first. I'm very, very impressed. It's an awful lot of guitar for the money, and it's almost scary to see the trouble they went to to copy a late 50's Guild.
Things that are really great about it :
----------------------------------------------------------
-The body silhouette, arch, weight, shape and size feel exactly like '60 X175 I used to have. Somebody really did their homework.
-Same goes for the neck - it's not the usual Korean scarfed on headstock and heel, it's constructed like a 50's Guild neck, two pieces of mahogany with a strip of maple in the middle. Shape is a LOT like my old X175's, and it has the same fingerboard radius too. Frets are very well finished medium jumbos, matter of taste, but I do a lot of bending, so I'm very happy with the bigger frets.
-The headstock is a new design, really...it's a 50's style headstock with a 60's style "peak", and I think it looks great. Tuners are open back Grover Statites with round buttons, and they work great. (and I think they look great too). I already had a set of those with the kidney bean buttons replacing the vintage ones on my Starfire, and they're great tuners.
-It has a very well cut bone nut
-It's poly finished, but it doesn't feel like it's dipped in plastic. It's a little shinier than I'd like, but it's a very nicely done sunburst, and it looks good.
-It comes with a very nice case
-It came with a little more neck relief than I like, but there's a nice truss rod key in the case, and one tweak got the neck to near straight, how I like it. And even adjusted like that, the fret job on it proved to be nicely done : no buzzing or rattling, no loose or high frets.
-It sounds GREAT! I doesn't sound exactly like an old one, but for a brand new, stock-out of the box Korean built guitar with a sub $1000 street price, it gets awful close. More about that later.
Things that are different than what I'm used to :
--------------------------------------------------------------
-the control layout and wiring is "Gibsonized". On a Hoboken Guild, which this is kind of a copy of, both volume controls are on top, and the corresponding tone controls are underneath on the bottom row. Not on the NSX175 : the control layout is the same as on a Les Paul. No big deal at all, just confusing if you're not used to it. I have grabbed the wrong knob on it already, rehearsing with it.
The volume pots are not wired "decoupled" as on a Hoboken Guild - if you have both pickups on and you turn one down competely, the guitar goes silent. Not so on a Hoboken one - again, no big deal, just a matter of taste.
-The lead pickup sits closer to the neck. You can even tell by looking at pictures of it, and comparing. It's probably a concious decision, because the lead pickup on a Hoboken Guild sits pretty close to the bridge and can get a little thin and spikey. On this NS Guild, the treble pickup sits a good deal further away from the bridge, giving the bass strings more low end, and taking some ice-pick off the trebles.
It's cool, but I would have put it somewhere between where it sits now, and where it sits on an old one. The lead pickup by itself is definitely more usable and less spikey, but the middle pickup position gets a little mellow for my taste.
-The pickups, while inside and outside being impressively done Franz pickup clones, are hotter than what I'm used to. I've rehearsed with the guitar twice, and I've gone back and forth between it, a Hoboken X175, and a Hoboken CE100, without changing the settings on the amp, and the new one is louder, a little less twangy and airy, and the pickups, while still getting some of that Franz twang, treble, and growl, have a little more of an upper midrange Gibson P90 snarl to them than the old ones I'm used to.
And it's impossible to say if it's just the pickups of course, because they're not on the same guitar, but it does translate into a slightly less dynamic and subtle plugged in playing experience. I've recorded some of the rehearsal because we were working on a tune, and recorded, it sounds better, and more like a Guild than I thought - because in my hands while playing, it felt a little more "blunt" and less subtle than my old guitars.
They're not bad pickups, and they're not P90's - they're well within the old Franz pickup ballpark, just a little fatter and and louder. Which for a lot of people is probably more usable than the old pickups, because plugged into the wrong amp, they càn get a little too twangy and spikey.
I'm not sure yet, I might have them rewound, as I have a good friend who winds pickups and does a great job. But then, I'm not sure I will, because I have two old X175's, and I kind of like the sound this one puts out. Also, this is going to be my rehearsal/flying gig/shady bar guitar, and the slightly hotter pickups might be a good match for the hired backline I have to deal with on fly-in gigs sometimes.
I'm really not sure yet.
All in all, it's a very nice, if not amazingly nice guitar for the price. I would still think it's a great guitar if it cost a good deal more. It'll do old style Jazz, blues, swing, Rockabilly, twangy Honky Tonk, or any non-power chord style you throw at it, and do it well. It looks almost exactly like a Hoboken X175, and feel-wise, it gets closer than I thought it would. I've rehearsed with it twice so far, and while I was picking nits and saying what I maybe didn't like about it, the two other guys in the band were saying "dude....that thing sounds KILLER, and it looks almost exactly like your old ones, but new!"
Unplugged, it's not as warm and dry sounding as my 50 year old X175's. But plugged in, I doubt anyone in the audience could really tell the difference. Great guitar, and highly recommended!