The Fender 70th Anniversary Stratocaster Is Awesome!

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[RobertBakerGuitar]

Do you prefer vintage specs or more modern?

[jim_andrianakos]

While I love Gibsons and have been on a Gibson for decades, got my first Fender Telecaster and have never been more happy.

[Visions_in_Toyko]

I bought the anniversary Strat you have in this video. I’m not the best player by a long stretch but wanted to get something to keep forever and pass down to my kids. My god!! This guitar is stunning. The neck feels amazing, the tone is wonderful. It’s the best guitar I have played without a doubt

[wulfbak]

I have one of the old American Vintage Strats from 2011. I put some boutique pickups in it (Klein Epic 55s), but the biggest improvement was putting medium jumbo frets on.

[leonborden]

I prefer more modern. In particular, the 5-way switch, the tone control for the bridge pickup, and treble bleed circuitry. I have an '83 Strat, and I did the mods for bridge tone control and treble bleed. The noise of single coils is usually not that bad although you might have to find the right place to stand! Up til now, the noiseless pickups have not been as good sounding, but recent videos on the Ultra II suggest maybe they finally figured it out? I also have a Player Strat from Mexico that is well-made, set up almost perfectly, and I just had to lower the pickups to get the right chime. Not sure why they ship them out with the pickups too high!

[Stratisfied]

The Fender Strat has been my favorite guitar from the start but I've had issues with every one I've owned each one with terrible fret jobs, neck pockets that are too wide, and neck angle problems. Eventually I made them the guitars they should be but I shouldn't have to do that for what they charge.

[joeltunnah]

I stripped my American Vintage ii ‘57 Strat body, and I can confirm that the finish is a VERY thick super hard poly finish underneath an overspray of “nitro”. The “nitro” they now use has plasticizers added to it so it will *never* age or crack/chip like a vintage guitar.
To me this is false advertising, period. I highly recommend people save their money and get an American Professional instead. They’re fantastic guitars, feel and play better than the AVii series, IMO, and cost $1000 less.

[jasonodeller]

Picked one up today. Playing up the think ive ever played a more perfect playing strat. It was weird.. so lush and effortless. It sings.

[Dalegribble]

I have 3 vintage ii series guitars, they are superb but only paid 1600 for the highest cost one new. There are deals out there people just look

[CornedWalls]

I forget how tasteful your playing is man. Wonderful intro.

[kurtniederstadt]

Just bought a Vintage II 1961 Fiesta Red Strat, OMG! This looks awesome and feels even better, the tone is classic quack or Texas Blue Steel, I love it! AND it weighs 7.8 lbs, just amazing! Putting a LSR nut on it cause this one screams and dive bombs like an A-10 Thunderbolt

[scottmacphee]

That's beautiful phrasing on your intro song, Robert.

[Turboy]

They've made hundreds of variations on the stratocaster but you can barely tell the difference when hearing the recordings of them. To me a strat is a strat is a strat, with some variations that may make them a bit better or worse but I'm not about to buy the latest flavor strat, it's just another variation on vanilla.

The only variations that matter to me are rosewood or maple fingerboard (rosewood always for me), 3 or 5 way switch, (5 way), hardtail or trem, (hardtail, I never use the trem), plain or 3 layer pickguard. (3 layer just because I like the looks.) And tuners that work well.

[Monahan_TP]

Excellent video, and beautiful guitar! BUT WAIT--!! Is that a Fender Super Reverb Tone Master in the background? Would LOVE to know more about that one ;)

[williamdistasio]

I get that you are giving a plug to Sweetwater, but I haven't had a very great experience the last 3 or 4 times dealing with them. It seems to me that about 2 years ago, they just went downhill. I have had to return a guitar because you could see the wood grain under the paint, and it was supposed to be a solid color.
I also waited for a pickup for months and months and when it finally arrived, I don't know what happened but somebody at Sweetwater had opened up the box I guess to make sure everything was in there, and it came missing some Hardware.
I just ordered a beautiful Ibanez Prestige and had to wait for more to come from Japan.
They told me I would get to choose once they arrived.
Well they arrived the other day and they just sent one to me.
They didn't give me notice, didn't let me choose, they just picked one on their own and sent it, and it wasn't one of have chosen .
They actually stopped it mid route and had FedEx turn it around. So now they have the one that I actually chose in the queue ready to send out to me once they get the other one back. which, by the way, never even arrived at my house.

Why they can't just send me out the one that I already paid for and chose before they get the other one back is beyond me. That was their bad. Anyway, yeah, I guess that's my rant.
Sweetwater has gone downhill over the last couple of years.

[benpowersguitar]

Love my American Vintage II '61 strat.

[newgunguy]

My '99 Strat is pretty much perfect. The only thing I had to improve was the high E to close to the edge. I fixed it like Erlewine shows in his nut making video.

[timothyweesner]

I’m more than happy with my Lonestar, Deluxe Roadhouse, and HM Strat! They all sound similar enough, thanks to the Texas special pickups ( neck and middle on all 3, Bridge on the roadhouse) and Dimarzio super distortion, and Super 3 ( Lonestar, and HM respectively). I still play my other guitars, ( various epiphone, esp Ltd, PRs Se, and music man) . I don’t really need another Fender. I’ve already got, in my opinion, the 3 best versions available! For right around $759 each.

[timmotel]

I have a "69th Anniversary" American Ultra HSS Strat that I bought New in 2022. IMO, the best that Fender has ever made.

[Roy_Gaber]

Nice video Robert, yes I also give kudos to Fender for recreating a guitar which was played by many of our ancestors, it is like a time machine of sorts. I have trouble selecting some of my other guitars, I think they may be a bit jealous. To answer the question you posed, I would have to say vintage, my reason is mainly that I usually mod the modern ones with vintage parts, like that makes a lot of sense. Anyway, thanks for another cool video.