Squier Contemporary Stratocaster Special HT - Pearl White Reviews
The Squier Contemporary Stratocaster Special HT puts a new twist on a Sweetwater favorite with several novel, unique upgrades. Starting with eye-catching black hardware and a painted headstock with sharp chrome logos, the Contemporary Stratocaster Special HT makes it known that this isn’t your ordinary Strat. But where things get really interesting is in the unique pickup configuration, which puts all three single-coil pickups on a slant and shifts the middle pickup closer to the bridge, for a totally new Strat sound. On top of that, the Contemporary Stratocaster Special HT boasts an eminently playable roasted maple neck with a speed-promoting 12-inch radius fingerboard. Surely made for adventurous guitar players, the Contemporary Stratocaster Special HT is a bold addition to the Strat lineage!
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Highest Rated Reviews
Very impressed for the price
I prefer hardtail bridges and flatter radiused fretboard Strat style guitars, but the off the shelf options are often limited when looking for a guitar with those specs or the guitar will cost a small fortune having to go the custom build route. When I stumbled upon this Squier Contemporary Stratocaster Special HT model I was intrigued by the specs and the interesting pickup layout. For an under $500 guitar, I figured it would make for a great project guitar and I would have the Squier SQR Alnico single coil pickups and non-traditional 5-way switch configuration replaced with DiMarzio or Seymour Duncan mini humbuckers and a 3-way selector switch. However, after playing the guitar for an entire day, I really came to like the sounds from the existing pickups and switch configurations. It's a rather unique sounding guitar, it's not "just another Strat". The roasted maple neck feels great and plays wonderfully. This is my first guitar with a laurel fretboard, my other guitars have rosewood or ebony (not a fan of maple fretboards), and I'm really liking the laurel, it sounds & feels somewhere in between rosewood and ebony, so another pleasant surprise. I'm so impressed with the guitar, especially for the price, that I decided I'm going to leave this guitar just as it is.
Excellant Guitar
This is the first Squier I've bought, and the first guitar with single coil pickups. I focused on this one because of the unique pickup configuration. The build quality is excellent, the feel is great, and the tone capabilities are good to my ears - a bit more subtle than I was expecting, but definitely different between positions. And no noise even with a lot of gain, which was a real surprise. I am very pleased with this guitar.
Fun to play
This guitar sounds really good and plays good, tuning keys are average, but overall a great buy.
Great concept, inferior craftsmanship
The old saying "You get what you pay for" applies to this guitar.
First, the good:
Pickup configuration gives you some good, unique tone options, and they sound really good for a Squire. I prefer the fixed bridge and definitely love the string-through-body design. After 6 months, the guitar feels solid and sounds great.
Now the bad.
Squire did a VERY poor job of smoothing out the frets on this guitar. Moving up and down the neck, it feels like tiny little razors catching your fingers on the edges. Expect to spend around 200 dollars extra getting that deficiency taken care of, unless you are capable of smoothing those edges yourself. I'm a bit surprised and disappointed that such a glaring deficiency made it through Sweetwater's 57-point inspection.
Also, the volume and tone pots are rather cheapy. But I guess that's what you expect from a Squire-branded guitar that costs less than $.
As the saying goes, you get what you pay for.
Would love to see Fender do a more professional version of this guitar. I'd definitely spend the money for it.
Not so great after owning for a couple of weeks
After initially writing a 5 star review after playing the guitar for an entire day, almost two weeks into ownership I have found the guitar's neck to be extremely sensitive to minor atmospheric climate changes in pressure and humidity. One day the 5th and 6th strings are buzzing when fretted at the the top end of the fretboard, the next day the 3rd string is buzzing when fretted towards the middle of the fretboard. I have several other guitars that I have owned for years and they don't have this issue. I guess it was just wishful thinking initially on my part that a guitar in this price range would pass the muster.
