Striped Series - Black with Yellow Stripes

Great guitar, Sweetwater always sets them up nice!

I've been looking forward to these guitars since I saw them announced at NAMM this last January. I have a couple of EVH guitars already as well as a Charvel San Dimas modded to EVH specs and was curious how this would compare. (plus I've always dug the Black & Yellow stripes.) I've been waiting for my local GC to get one in stock, but when I saw them available on Amazon, I jumped on it sight unseen hoping for the best.First Impression:This guitar goes _way_ beyond my expectations. The neck is amazing. The neck on my USA Wolfgang is hands-down the best neck I've ever played and the neck on the Striped Series matches perfectly! The fret dressing is fantastic, super smooth with nice round edges. String action is nice and low without any buzz. This neck also has the graphite reinforcement rods and thumbwheel trussrod adjustment like on the Wolfgang. The only difference is the Wolfgang has thin stainless steel frets while this guitar has big jumbo frets. The locking nut is rear-mounted the way I prefer vs. front mounting that seems to come loose more often. (Got a floyd that goes out of tune? check the lock-nut.)Second Impression:The pickup is the next thing that floored me. It is a BEAST! Is this the same wolfgang pickup? When the SS was announced I was hoping they would put a Frankenstein pickup in there, and was disappointed to hear that it was a Wolfgang. In the Wolfgang guitar it sounds good, if a bit tame, in this guitar there is no disappointment, this pickup has balls. Beefy, chunky lows with clear highs, I'm impressed.Misc. observations and comments:The guitar is setup perfectly out of the box. Just had to tune the strings and it was ready to go.Paint job is beautiful. I thought the stripes may be a decal or something cheap for manufacturing. Nope! It's real taped-off stripes and it looks fantastic!Like the USA wolfgang, the neck thickness on this guitar is right between a Fender C-shape and a thin Charvel. The Charvel necks flex a bit too much. The graphite reinforcement in these necks allow them to be a little thinner without the flex.Packaging works better than expected. These guitars don't ship with a case or gig bag, just wrapped in some foam and cardboard. I was expecting a ding or two, but nope, not a blemish on it.A few years ago Charvel released striped guitars similar to these at a much higher price. Honestly, they were not worth it unless you were a big fan. The price on these is set perfect and I feel I'm getting more than my money's worthMinor gripes:Tuners not aligned straight. A nit-picky gripe, but really... In the age of CNC machines there really is no excuse for them to be crooked. Heck, a strait-edge is all you need. Cheaper guitars get it right, so should this one.No hardshell case. Charvels that are made in the same factory and are similar in spec and price, ship with a case. Hopefully EVH will start doing so as well. And when they do, I hope they include the trem-arm pocket like on the Wolfgang case, that feature is awesome!Final Thought:If you're looking for a bare-bones rock 'n roll screamer with a classic look, these can not be beat.(Update Jan. 2015) Since I bought the Y+B stripey, I've bought a couple more of these guitars, the Red, Black & White, and the Black and White. They're all basically the same guitar, but there is an issue with the B+W jackplate (strat type) that I wanted to make folks aware of. The cord exits the output jack at a steeper angle than it should and the trem arm catches on the plug. It makes it difficult to use the arm when playing. If you're having the same issue, buy a made in USA fender jackplate. The USA jackplate angels the cord at a shallower angle so the trem arm easily clears the plug. I guess it's a difference between a MIM and a MIA jackplate. This could also effect the Circles guitar, but I haven't bought one of those yet.

This is the 4th EVH guitar I've purchased. I have a Frankie, and two Wolfgang USA signatures as well. Very typical of the EVH series, that I've had to shim the neck to get decent action on them. This one was no different. On the USA models the action was also higher than I like, but nothing like the Mexican models.The Frankie, when I purchased it 2 years ago had the same issue, where I measured 80 thousandths of an inch at the 12th fret, which for me is two times higher than I like. Most of my other guitars I can get down to 40-50 and some a little bit lower. This was 80 on the low E and about 75 on the high E. Unacceptable and very uncomfortable to play.I suspected when I placed the order that I would have to shim the neck so I had ordered the shims at the same time, and it was a 10-minute process to shim it and get it down to around 45 at the 12th fret. I only needed a shim of about 20 thousandths to get down 40, because of the neck angle changing, so that was no big deal.That was the easy part.The harder part was the action at the first fret coming in at over 35 thousandths on the low E and the same on the high E. That took quite a bit more work. I had to remove the Floyd Rose string lock at the neck, and use a sanding block on the headstock with 320 paper for about a half an hour to get the locking nut mount even and lowered. The problem stemmed from the fact that I did not have a perfectly flat surface under the locking nut and had a bit of convex in the middle; definitely a QC issue from factory. I had to flatten that out and then lower the whole thing to get it down to about 18 on the low E and 16 on the high E.I also had to add a tiny bit of neck relief, as the neck was perfectly flat and I had a little bit too much buzzing beyond the 10th fret. I did all that, put it back together and she's as close to perfect as she's going to get. For some reason, these EVH guitars don't love low action. I suspect that to get action as low as on any of my Les Pauls, or my Jacksons, I would have to take these guitars in and have them either refretted, or have extensive fret work done. Makes me wonder if Eddie played with such high action or if the quality is just what it is and they can't get it better than that.That said, the finish is absolutely beautiful and overall it's a very nice piece for the price.To be noted as well, half of the tuners were loose on arrival, and they're not the best quality tuners either, as they're very tight once you put a little bit of tension on them. I don't really care a whole lot about that because I've got the locking Floyd Rose on there, but I've had better quality for less money. It's nothing that would keep me away from this guitar, as it really does play very nicely, feels good in my hands and sounds exactly like an EVH should. The Floyd Rose 1000 is about as poor quality as anyone can get for a Floyd Rose with a very rough tuning. The best thing to do is oil the threads on the tuners, and that will help you smooth out the tuning somewhat, but it'll never be an OEM Floyd or an Ibanez in terms of quality.Honestly, the quality of this guitar as it came from factory is reminiscent of Gibson a few years ago. The redeeming quality here is that it's a fraction of the price of any of the better Gibson guitars.

Updating on older post. This guitar plays and sounds excellent. I did find the tremolo bar and instruction warranty info tightly wrapped up and taped to the upper inner part of the box it shipped in. I would buy from this seller again. Thank You for a great playing guitar!

This is my fourth EVH guitar and it's well worth it. Heavy metal was practically invented by this guy and it shows. I do recommend a setup initially but that's about all.

The neck and paint job are great. The tone not so good. My old Kramer Focus 3000 has better tone and a better Floyd Rose aystem. The Wolfgang Special is a far superior guitar. I am going to swap up the pick-up to improve the sound. No attack on this stiped series guiltar. When I play Romeo Delight the pick-ups Don't carry the tapped harmonics as well as my other guitars. There is a significant defiency in tonality and attack on this guitar.

Meets up to its claims. Plays well. Stays in tune.

初めて実物を見たのですが、写真で見ていたより、美しく、カッコ良かった。しかも、手に馴染み、弾きやすかった。買って良かった！本当にそう思った‼︎