Deciding between the two sounds like a nice problem to have. They are somewhat different guitars in terms of tone, and of course the accessibility to the upper frets will be slightly different. To me a master volume is nice, but not critical. As primarily a jazzer these days, I do not need to get way up to the upper frets with any regularity, so that would not be a consideration for me. Deciding which pickups have a better tone for my taste would be my main concern. If I could try them both first then I could make an educated decision on all points. Not being able to do that would kind of make it a crap shoot. Perhaps I would get whichever was most different from what I already have. On the other-hand, I have an X-500 with HB-1's that sounds as good as any arch-top I have ever played, so I know those pups are nice. I have never played a Starfire with the anti-hum (mini pups), but I have played an X-175 with those pups, and I loved them! I can't say one pup is better than the other, but in my opinion the mini's are a little brighter and with a little less output, kind of in between the HB-1 and Franz pups. I know this puts me on the fence. I suppose I would get the 60's Starfire with the condition of each being similar, and mainly because I have the HB-1's on an X-500, and I will soon have the new Franz pups on the new X-500. I hope that is helpful :very_drunk: