B.C. Rich ST NJ (USA) Reviews 3

$299 used at Dirt Cheep Music in Atlanta, GA. It was mostly an impulse purchase since it was cheap and B.C. Rich had a high profile with the 80's glam bands whose music I still like.

Overall, you get what you pay for. Strat style body with two single coils and one humbucker. Sounds pretty good cranked through a hot tube amp. I like the individual toggles for each pup. I still don't understand why Fender and others insist on continuing to use the 3/5 way blade switches??? Floyd Rose Trem with locking nut is beautiful, haven't had a bit of trouble staying in tune. Love the thin neck - any Les Paul players out there would feel right at home here. Action is very fast. Tone is pretty sweet though pups could use a bit more gain.

Single volume and tone controls pretty much sucked. Stock controls sounded like rice crispies (snap, crackle, pop). Switched them out for new and they work fine now. Overall the tone is good, but there could be a tad more response from the tone control - would like more difference between tone at 1 and at 10. Pups need more gain, might consider switching the 'bucker out at some point.

What can I say, it's an NJ. Hey, that rhymes! For $300 bucks I wasn't surprised that there were a few "blemishes", but overall I'd say this is a pretty good value. Only major problem occurred when it fell face first onto a tile floor and the headstock snapped clean off - watch it there. Fortunately, I build guitars as a hobby so I was able to repair the break and have not had any problem with the construction since. There a couple of cosmetic issues where the paint had a run and there was a crack in the finish where the neck joined the body, but you don't really notice either.

Like I said, good value for your dollar. Won't blow your socks off, but if you're just a weekend warrior or hacker like me, it's quite satisfactory. Run it through a wah, a distortion pedal, maybe a chorus, and tube amp and you're C.C. DeVille (or whatever). Seriously, the pluses outweighed the minuses for me and I'd do the deal again. Too bad they don't have halves, I'd give it a 3.5.

Spandex Rob rated this unit 3 on 2004-10-14.

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