Fender Highway Series Dreadnought Acoustic-electric Guitar - Natural Reviews
The Highway Series Dreadnought acoustic-electric guitar is fuel for onstage freedom — and like a good road trip, it brings new perspectives that inspire creativity. The Highway Series Dreadnought is a stalwart traveler with a solid Sitka spruce top, a chambered mahogany body, and custom Fishman Fluence electronics tailored for onstage use. The body features a true X-braced acoustic sound chamber, and extra details such as a bolt-on mahogany neck and sealed tuners help you reach destinations safely and in record time. The Highway Series Dreadnought is certainly playable unplugged, but it truly shines on the stage. Guitarists at Sweetwater find the thinline body naturally suppresses feedback for a plugged-in sound that’s professional and pristine. Furthermore, unlike most acoustic-electric guitars, Highway Series instruments work well with pedals! Who isn’t hungry for an acoustic-electric that puts yesterday’s performance hassles in the rearview mirror?
Customer Reviews
Customer Added Media
This product doesn't have any review media yet!
Share Your Thoughts
Help other music gear aficionados by sharing your opinions of gear you've purchased.
Questions about the HSDreadRWNat?
Or call us at (800) 222-4700
Sweetwater's Sales Engineers are regarded as the most experienced and knowledgeable professionals in the music industry, with extensive music backgrounds and intense training on the latest products and technologies. They are available to offer you personalized product advice any time you need it.
Highest Rated Reviews
This is a different experience.
The looks of an acoustic, the feel of an electric. Love the neck on this guitar. The modern C shape is very comfortable and the 9.5" radius feels natural to my hand. I added a pickguard to mine. I think it completes the look.
Fender Highway Series Dreadnought
This is one of the smoothest guitars I have ever played. I got rid of my Taylor for this model. It is a little less unplugged, but it has plenty of volume. When plugged into an amp. it sounds awesome. The feel is fantastic. After my Taylor I purchased a Fender Acoutasonic. The Highway series in my opinion is a much better sounding guitar. It is not neck heavy like the Acoustasonic. Definitely recommend this guitar.
the guitar for noodling
I am using this guitar for a solo gig where I now no longer have to switch alternately from electric to acoustic. The magnetic pickup on this allows me to use overdrive and other pedals without getting annoying feedback that I would otherwise get using my other electro-acoustic guitars. The thin electric neck is very playable even past the 14th fret. The solid spruce X-braced soundboard on top of the scratch-proof satin-finished routed and body-contoured mahogany body produces a useful loud enough acoustic sound for practicing although without that boomy resonance you would get from a true acoustic dreadnought. The tone control on this guitar doesn't seem to do much, so I just leave it turned up all the way for a bit of extra high end presence. The overall plugged-in sound is mellow so for soloing I stomp on an overdrive for more treble edge. I plan to use this guitar for open mics and jams and leave my $3K Gibson dreadnoughts at home.
4 stars to match the price
I wondered why it was half the price of the acoustisonic strat. Fender really skimped on the fishman guts and sacrificed sound quality but let me give more detail and be fair.
Out of the case, I fell in love with the feel, playability, and overall setup straight from Sweetwater. I didn't want to set the guitar down. I could play this all day. In fact, it will replace my acoustisonic strat for these reasons alone. Sound can be altered with pedals and in the mix, but you just can't replicate a good feeling guitar.
The bad, it sounds pretty bad acoustically. Volume is no where near a true acoustic and the acoustic quality sounds cheap. Plugged into a dry preamp, still sounds like a acoustic/electric. I ordered the Fishman Aura pedal to sweeten it up because the dry signal definitely needs help but as I said, nothing that can't be tweaked to perfection.
For $ or less, this is my new player.
I give it four stars because the Fishman guts are soundhole pickup quality. The acoustisonic strat is definitely 5 star sound into a dry preamp. I think it's priced well at $ or less.
