Members kit_strong Posted July 25, 2013 Members Share Posted July 25, 2013 The wait seemed eternal but today Fedex delivered my shiny new Retronix R-800 Tremolo. The first surprise was that it arrived in a hard case. I don't recall ever seeing anything in the write-up about hard cases being included and for $500 I definitely wasn't expecting one. Opening the case reveals a lovely metallic green guitar Along with a decent amount of "case candy" A quick trip outside to try and better capture the color A quick look at the back reveals nice locking tuners Initial Impressions The pictures already show you how it looks, and in my opinion it looks great, but equally important, or more for those of you that actually play:), is how it functions. The guitar is well balanced with a good overall weight. The neck has a great, slightly chunky but not-fat profile with a nice raw feel. The fretwork and setup are great right out the box. Unplugged it's got good volume and resonance. The Tremolo has a nice smooth feel to it but I do wish it had a push in arm instead of threaded. I believe a Hipshot would drop right in so if it get's to be too much of a problem I'll just swap it out down the road but for now it's fine. The Pickups, Dracowire Humbuckers, are a big surprise and they sound fantastic. Like the guitar they are manufactured in Korea to Bruce Bennet's specs and I think the plan is to make them availalbe as aftermarket pickups. The electronics are also a big win. The volume and tone pot both have a a good resitance while still rotating smoothly and they have a great taper to them allowing for very good control. Pickup switching is courtesy of a 5-way switch with positions 2 and for providing coil-splitting options with a pretty significant output drop. For some that may seem like a negative but I like it because it allows a really easy way to go from clean to crunch with the right amp settings. I'll try to get clips up later. -Kit Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members cbh5150 Posted July 25, 2013 Members Share Posted July 25, 2013 Awesome! Only $500? Holy carp!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members billybilly Posted July 25, 2013 Members Share Posted July 25, 2013 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rog951 Posted July 26, 2013 Members Share Posted July 26, 2013 Sweeeeet! That color looks great and is almost making me regret my color choice. I was originally thinking green but when I heard they were going with metallic I decided to switch to white. Now I'm not so sure... Anyway, some questions: did they send you tracking info or did it just show up? Did you pop the rear cover yet to see the quality of the pots (mini or bigguns?) and switch? You say the neck is slightly chunky...do you mean front-to-back or across the shoulders? Any neck shape you'd compare it to? Thanks for posting the pix/vid man. Happy NGD! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members kit_strong Posted July 26, 2013 Author Members Share Posted July 26, 2013 rog951 wrote:Sweeeeet! That color looks great and is almost making me regret my color choice. I was originally thinking green but when I heard they were going with metallic I decided to switch to white. Now I'm not so sure... Anyway, some questions: did they send you tracking info or did it just show up? Did you pop the rear cover yet to see the quality of the pots (mini or bigguns?) and switch? You say the neck is slightly chunky...do you mean front-to-back or across the shoulders? Any neck shape you'd compare it to? Thanks for posting the pix/vid man. Happy NGD! First I got an e-mail to confirm the shipping address and then I got a tracking number. As for the neck I guess mainly it shoulder to shoulder. The profile seems similar to that of my CP 60s Strat but a bit thicker overall. Not quite as thick as my Mighty Mite neck, perhaps on parr with my Reverend Flatroc. Overall a really nice feeling neck though. At least for me.I got too caught up in playing it to bother popping the back off even though I intended to. So I'm not sure yet if they are mini or full sized but they feel good and have a nice taper so that's good enough for me. A lot of people like to assume that mini pots are all junk but that's not the case at all. There are quality mini pots and crappy mini pots just like with full-sized. I do think a comprable full-sized will last a bit longer but until then I'll stick with whatever is in there regardless. I'm about to hit the sack so tomorrow I'll hit Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members *BLEEP* Posted July 26, 2013 Members Share Posted July 26, 2013 kit_strong wrote:The Pickups, Dracowire Humbuckers, are a big surprise and they sound fantastic. Like the guitar they are manufactured in Korea to Bruce Bennet's specs and I think the plan is to make them availalbe as aftermarket pickups. Draco is Latin for DragonWire.... Fire? Dragonfire??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members wankdeplank Posted July 26, 2013 Members Share Posted July 26, 2013 Holy George Jetson Batman, is that ever bichen. Big congrats. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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