Rocket
I'm really surprised at your bad experience with Rondo.
Did you actually try to return the guitar and they refused to take it back?
That seems to be unlike the usual story that I read regarding Rondo's return policy.
I have three SX guitars and two are strats and one is a gibson lp special copy w set neck. They were all great right out of the box. I have no plans on getting rid of them and have been lucky.
It is unfortunate that you had that bad experience.
I always like to go to the store that does price matching and hand pick a nice guitar to my liking. There are a couple stores around here like that and I try to buy from them.
I got a great Classic Vibe '50s Squire there that was set up perfect and really felt and looked good. Also got a 199 dollar STD Squire Tele there, that now has a Fender Custom Shop Texas Special bridge pup in it. Hot at 10.5k ohms. Super improved sound over the Squire std tele bridge pup.
I have found that you can find some great inexpensive guitars that are way better values than some of the expensive name brands.
I really dislike a guitar that has a twisted neck or a buzz that you can't remove easily. I would return a guitar like that for a good replacement one.
In a lot of cases these hard to set up guitars can be fixed by pro techs that really know what they are doing. Often quite inexpensively.
Right now all of the guitars that I own are nice. Some are cheap and some are expensive. I play different ones all the time instead of staying with one and really getting into its groove. I like the differences among the guitars. All of them sound different.
I might buy from Rondo again.
I don't like the shape of headstock on the Xavier strat type guitars, that shows up on quite a few Xaviers. Otherwise I like the looks of the guitars and some of the colors are really nice. Some of those LP style ones look like good values.
There is nothing like a guitar that feels, plays, and sounds really good. It is really frustrating when you get one that looks bad or doesn't meet up to the expected standards and can't be easily tweaked into something real good.
GC by me had an item I rarely see there. Saw it just the other day but didn't try it out: an Epiphone black Explorer stop tail for a very reasonable price. Full size looking Explorer body. I've always wanted one of those and might go for one some day; new or used.
So how did the buzz problem finally turn out with the Xavier? Did it get fixed, returned, replaced with the same but quality item, or dropped by the wayside?
Personally I wouldn't ignore the buzz. I'd take it to a pro tech that knows what he is doing and get it evaluated and decide if the fix would make good sense or just be a means of making the guitar playable, but still significantly flawed; such as in a twisted neck, fixed by shimming, etc. I like low action with zero buzz, ideally.
All my guitars have low action. In fact I just had a knowledgeable tech set up a Peavey classic style tele of mine that had a little bit of a high action. He brought it down about
1.5mm and it now feels way better, but it was alright before, just not exactly like I would have preferred it to be. Now it is right on and it's a nice butterscotch body with a great maple neck and fretboard, set off byu a black pickguard. This Peavey tele classic type has a cool vibe. I'm going to play it now. Something about them tele style guitars that just grabs you. At one time not too long ago I never thought I'd own one and that they were only for cowboys; ignorance is no excuse.
I think if I was to check into guitar deals and do my homework I could find a better choice than an SX probably every time, but I'd likely spend fifty or so dollars more, at least; but I would have a way better playing and sounding and looking guitar, like those Peavey Generation EX telecaster style guitars uncleikes.com and others are selling for as low as 149 US. Thanks goes out to Spudman for turning me on to those gems. They originally were going for way way more money and look like they are being or have been discontinued, but possibly not. I'm not really sure if they are totally out of production. Possibly someone knows for sure.
Those are great value guitars right now. Vintage vibe items with vintage style tuners that are quite good, vintage wound single coil and humbucker pickups, and really classy looks. Really excellent build quality and quality body and neck woods. I really like the headstock, although I have heard some say they don't. It is sort of pointy in a really classy way. Peavey makes some really nice things and my teles are really nice in every way. Not in the same category at all, as the SX guitars. The Peavey Gen EX'es have class. A special type of class. Not to put down SX'es, they are nice in their own way and really inexpensive for what you get.
Duffy
