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Yamaha SE203 Reviews  4 / 5 based on 1 reviewsPurchased used on eBay for USD 101 from a canadian seller. Having owned and used other Yamaha stringed and electronic instruments for years I thought this would be a good buy despite its age (15+ years). I was not disappointed!
Typical 3-single coils strat copy, glossy red finish with black pickguard and pickups, high quality materials all over including chromed bits and tuners. Pickups sound awesome, with the little harmonics and overtones typical of single-coils that are wired with inverted magnet polarity. I did not know that stock pickups could sound that nice! I use the guitar with a Peavey Bandit 75 amp and it sounds great. Strong construction.
Nothing, really! For $101 it is nearly impossible to find a best deal.
Two little glitches: one pickup magnet fell off and got stuck to the next pickup! Easily fixed by re-gluing it with contact cement. Also, the string nut cracked after installing new strings and was replaced with a Graph Tech Trem-nut which cost me CAD 7.50. Considering the age of the instrument this is not a big deal. I know lots of people who bought brand new guitars that had to be adjusted or fixed many times during their first few weeks of use.
As mentioned earlier, excellent quality of materials, solid (adler?) body, maple neck with rosewood fretboard. The 5-position switch is a bit scratchy but a little electronic cleaner can fix that. Neck is straight. Stays tuned forever. Very strong instrument, not too heavy. Better built that most sub-$500 guitars. Yamaha quality.
If you find one like this, get it! This guitar is better than a new cheapo genuine Strat and is highly customizable if you want to. An equivalent new instrument from Yamaha today is worth over $500. Fran rated this unit on 2004-05-07.
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