Fender American Vintage II 1966 Jazzmaster Electric Guitar - Dakota Red Reviews

I've tried four different AV2 JM's and they were all fantastic. I found a light weight red one and it's as good as any guitar I've ever played. I'm glad they updated the headstock. The pickups are a huge step up from the American Originals.

I kind of bought this guitar on a spur of the moment decision. I had been eyeing it on and off but was actually thinking about a new telecaster more recently. But a jazzmaster was really the guitar I next wanted to add to my arsenal already having an American Pro II Strat and a FSR Deluxe Ash MIM Telecaster. When this guitar went on a $ discount and Sweetwater was offering $ Bonus Bucks, I had to hop on it.

I had done a fair amount of research on this particular JM, and a lot of accounts pointed out some major flaws in the QC. Most recent reviews I read seem to be positive, so I took a bit of a leap of faith and made the purchase hoping that those issues were addressed in subsequent runs since initial release (with the wrong headstock as well).

Anecdotally speaking, I am happy to say that this guitar is extremely well built and I have very few bad things to say about it. The QC seems to be great and I hope and expect that is the case for other AV II JM's. It really is everything I was hoping it would be and I do not regret the purchase at all.

Fit and finish is great. There are a few minor issues. 1. There is a tiny chip in the paint along the nut on the high e side. 2. There is a small chip in the pickguard below the knobs. 3. The rhythm circuit knob is a little grindy. 4. The witch hat knobs are oriented terribly. Not sure why they do them like that if that is intended, but maybe I am just used to the strat. 5. The trem arm is really tight, but I can probably adapt.

3 and 4 are simple fixes. 1 and 2 are extremely minor and you wouldn't notice it unless you studied it for more than a few minutes like I did. I am even hesitant to call them out in this review because it is so small.

As for the sound, I have to admit I am still figuring some of it out, but it is extremely fun. I like the darker and warmer sounds from it and it really drives well with a little OD. I have a lot to dig into, but am really excited to find some new sounds.

Overall, this is a fantastic guitar and I am very happy with it. I wanted to offer up this review to those people who had heard the early horror stories and maybe were put off of getting one as a result.

Give it a chance! It doesn't hurt that it is an absolutely beautiful guitar.

I have been wanting one of these for a long time. The only other Fender I have is the YJM strat. I absolutely love it too. I have quite a few guitars in my studio but I didn't have anything that could give me this sweet vintage P90 sound. This 1966 American Vintagell Jazzmaster is absolutely top notch. It came out of the box pretty much in tune and setup to perfection. I gave it a quick strum and tune, it was very well setup. It plays like your touching water droplets. The pick-ups are very dynamic. It really gives it a vintage edge of breakup tone that you can get few other places. I especially like how well the Jazz switch is wired. There is a crisp clean flip and the tone shifts to a superbly warm round Jazz tone from the 60's. When it's not engaged the tone and volume knobs are very responsive. I found it a breeze to get it exactly how I wanted. I will never part with this guitar. Fender really delivered on this reissue. Not a single imperfection anywhere. Sweetwater also knocked it out of the park. I ordered it Thursday night and it was here Saturday morning!!!

This guitar has the warm vintage sound of the time where the iron was worked by hand, it sounds great, if you like the old style this is yours, the Dakota red color gives it a striking touch and its various tone configurations make it versatile because you can color different nuances to the sound, I like that it has n10 strings to make the sound fatter

My new Fender American Vintage II 1966 Jazzmaster arrived today and... Wow! What a beauty! First, I must say that the staff at Sweetwater has been a delight to deal with. My assigned Personal Sales Engineer, Michael J. reached out and introduced himself to me right after shipment. By far, this was the best musical instrument sale that I have ever conducted online!

There are countless videos on YouTube describing the American Vintage II Series, so all that I will add here is that Fender certainly knocked this one out of the park! That Dakota Red will make you want a 1950's Cadillac. The contours of the Jazzmaster itself feels as if Marilyn Monroe herself is sitting in your lap! The tones are phenomenally diverse! It's one sexy guitar!

Bought this brand new one year ago and got it pleked to ensure it would be perfect, when I got the guitar it was unplayable, the intonation screws on the bridge were so long that they would touch the strings making it sound like a sitar. Looking at the vibrato made it go out of tune and stay out of tune. I ended up buying a mastery bridge and that fixed the tuning issues and Sweetwater did right by me by refunding the plek since the guitar arrived in disrepair. After the instrument got set up by a local luthier with the new bridge it became the guitar I was expecting from the begginng. Really lovely sound and playability, the fretwork was so nice my local luthier said he was able to get a extremly low action with no buzz, yay. One more note, 4-5 months in my rhythm circuit started cracking and making weird noises and eventually died, and my volume pot only works in one specific area so trying to use the volume control means I lose signal. I wish fender had put a little more attention into the actual function of the guitar and a little less on the form. Atleast this means I have future upgrades planned. All in all very disappointed for a guitar this expensive, I would have had less issues with a squier but atleast I have a playable guitar now.

First things first I just want to state that this is my first fender usa guitar and my first 2k plus guitar.
I won't lie my expectations were very high considering I had a squier cv 60s jazzmaster that was excellent, straight out of the box.
Imagine my horror when I get the guitar and it's unplayable.
Not fault to sweetwater, it's a usa fender so it should be immaculate.
Let me explain
First things first let's start with the worst of it, the neck, to be specific the neck angle.
A standard jazzmaster usually has a flush 0 degree neck angle and typically has to be shimmed to achieve a decent string tension and have a low action, typically .25 to .50 degrees on the high side.these bad boys come with a angled neck pocket to avoid doing that but fender seems to not have consistent way of doing that as the one I got has a whole 3 degrees of neck shim from the factory making it so that there is so much downward pressure on the bridge that using the vibrato guarantees you'll be out of tune.
Not just that since the bridge is maxed out on its height that means the intonation screws themselves are sitting really high and actually touching the strings so it's imposible to play the guitar buzz free because the strings are resting on the screws and not the bridge so you have 2 choices, swap out the bridge completely or cut the screws.
The issue with the swap is that common replacements like mastery or stay trem don't have enough height on the adjustment screws to work on this guitar.
There's a lot of finish issues on the guitar too, The fretboard has a ton of tool marks, so does the binding, and worst of all the neck pocket is janky and the guitars neck doesn't seat the same way every time, it's actually very loose and compared to the squier it's extremly disheartening to see a critical joint like that not be airtight.
I cannot recommend this guitar and fender should be ashamed for charging $ for this thing
My advice, get the Mexican version of this plek it and you'll be a lot happier as thing thing is going to need serious work before it's a decent instrument.
And all of this after having the instrument pleked before shipping as I was weary of how bad the user reviews for usa fender are right now on YouTube, check them out yourself.
Other than that the instrument is gorgeous, and very vintage
Smelled nice when I got it and it does sound extremely good through my champ, the playability is where the his guitar really lets you down, as well as if you scrutinize it for $ after taxes this thing should have been flawless.
I wanted to give a shout out to my sales engineer Jake for working with me so much and making sure things went smooth with getting the guitar and trouble shooting it, excellent guy!!!