Originally Posted by: AndyPThanks for all the advice guys. When it came down to it I went with what felt right, which wasn't what i thought I was going to get. I tried just about every guitar in my price range including les pauls, SGs, Teles, Jags, PRSs, a variax, Yamahas etc.. I tried hard to convince myself that i liked the les pauls cause they had a good deal on but it just didn't grab me. Some of the finishing was more sloppy than i'd accept from a guitar half the price. Made me wonder whether the poor workmanship was cosmetic or if it went right through.

But anyway, I got a (drum roll please) deluxe stat (with the new S1 switching system) and a fender DeVille amp. I had not intended on getting a strat but the deluxe version got round so many of my reservations about strats and it just felt and sounded great, esp through a fender amp. ...

[font=trebuchet ms]Good on yer! I'm glad to see that you did your hands-on research and arrived at the best combination for [u]you[/u]. And that Gibson experience sounds very familiar. Twenty years later, they're still inconsistent.

I'm concerned about that fuse, though. Did you try out that particular amp in the shop?[/font]