Kramer Striker FR424S/M Reviews 
5 / 5 based on 1 reviewsStumbled across MusicYo.com and thought "Wow, no way a Kramer guitar can be any good at this price!" Did some research, found them to have a good reputation, and decided to give it a go.
$199.99 wholesale ($679.99 MSRP), ordered on Friday with 3 day select shipping and the guitar was delivered Tuesday afternoon (a day early).
Enough of that!
This guitar is sweet! I can't think of a better term. I ordered the metallic blue finish, and it's absolutely perfect. The body is nicely sculpted and fits the neck more tightly than any bolt-on fiddle I've ever had. I especially like that the back is tapered where the fastener plate meets the neck. All 24 frets are easily accessible because of this.
The maple fretboard was one of the things that really blew me away. I've always liked maple fretboards, and there's not one unit out there that I know of in this price range that offers this. The frets are jumbo nickle with no burrs anywhere that I can find.
The action is low and bouncy and the Floyd Rose licenced tremolo with locking nut stays in tune pretty well after a beating (Gotoh machines as well).
This particular model comes with 2 quad-rail humbuckers (neck and bridge) and a dual-rail pickup (center). They are the same size as a normal dual-humbucker or single coil, but each has twice as many coils built into it. Couple this with the coil splitter switch and 5 way pickup selector, and you have 10 very distinct tones at your fingertips. Very powerful pickups with all of their respective coils engaged and very sweet and bright sounding when split.
I can find no faults with this guit-fiddle. Out of the box, it is nicely setup, but would benefit from a few minor adjustments depending on how picky you are about things. Considering what you save buying this, dropping $40-$50 at your local guitar smith doesn't pose a problem.
The construction and quality of the FR424S/M is a 12 on a scale of 10. I've had Guild, Ibanez, Vester and Yamaha electrics, as well as a vintage '62 Les Paul Custom (with maple fretboard :) ). Only the Les Paul played better than this Kramer.
Bottom line: Professional or just getting started, if you're in the market, you'd be silly not to give the Kramers a try. I've found MusicYo to be tremendously reputable, and my experience in dealing with them has been great.
Larry Oster rated this unit
on
2001-06-27.
