Schecter Stiletto Classic

Review by Trond Vold.

Price paid and store

New for 999$ on eBay.

A little story behind the buy

I was on the lookout for a new guitar, and i must have spent days browsing the net for potential candidates. Could'nt find one that i thought looked cool, had my needs and at the same time came with a friendly pricetag.

Then i came across this beauty on the Schecter homepage, and found saw a nice deal on eBay.
Was a bit worried by the lack of reviews online, but it was basically what i was looking for, and it looked cool!!
I asked around at local stores and Norwegian webshops first if it could be imported at a similar price.
The answer i got from 8 out of 8 stores was: 14,500nkr. Which would equal to $2250!!
Well, needless to say, i went and clicked the always inviting eBay "Buy it Now!" button next!!!

Specifications

Mahogany body with solid burl maple wings.
Neck-thru- body.
EMG Active 81-TW/SA/SA.
Schecter/Gotoh locking tremolo system.
Multi-laminate maple/walnut neck.
Bound ebony fingerboard.
Matching headstock.
24 jumbo frets.

Appearance and feel

In short, It's STUNNING!
The guitar is perfectly carved out and very balanced weight-wise.
The neckjoint was surprisingly fat! Didnt expect that. Took some playing getting used to, but now i cant go back to the SLSMG, which is practically joint-less!!
The big and carved joint actually makes playing higher frets more comfortable now.

In addition, bigger joints just sound better too.

Floating bridges are something new to me. I've only owned one other guitar with a floater, which happened to have a really crummy one.
But this Schecter/Gotoh bridge seems to be more stable and solid. And as a matter of fact, i still haven't had the need to tune it. It was perfectly tuned to E when i opened the box!

10/10

Sound

If you like EMG's like i do, then you'll love the sound. It features the new EMG81-TW humbucker with coil switching.

The biggest surprise was the really pleasant and warm tones from the active single coils.
You wont get the typical Fender twangy-sound though, but since i'm not really a fan of that sound it works to my advantage!

The coil-split was a letdown. The possible configurations with the split just sounded weak and dull to me. I doubt i'll get any use of it, atleast not on my current rig.

9/10

Overall impression

I'm impressed! The guitar sounds like i want it to, it feels good, plays well and it's not bad to look at either. I think i've found my new main axe! I just hope it stays as solid and wellmade as it is now (*knock on wood*!)

An odd thing i noticed though was that the pickguard is like a super-charged magnet for dust! I've had plenty of guitars with pickguards, but never seen a pickguard attract dust like this.
But I wont deduct any points for this. I usually wipe my guitars quite frequently so it's not a problem. Just found it quite strange.

9.9/10
(0.1 point reduction in overall score due to the dissapointing coilswitch)

**Sound samples comming soon!**
--Sensible Jones 20:58, 14 June 2009 (CEST)