Great quality. Believe the hype with the HBs. I liked it so much I bought it in blue as well. It sounded really good out of the box. No issues. Everything was perfect. Neck feels great, etc.
I did these mods, and it is now heavenly. The overall sound was good, but I wanted to get it sounding a bit more JazzMaster-ish.
It came with A250k pots for volume and tone. Replaced with A500k (audio) pots. The volume should have a B500k (linear), but I didn't have one at the time. I also didn't go with a 1M like old Fenders because I didn't want it too sound too ice picky. For treble bleed I added 1000 pF capacitor and 100k Ohm resistor (Kinman). It basically rolls off very similar (not exact) to a linear pot believe it or not. I am fine with it as is. Though I will use a B500k next time for volume. I used a .022uF capacitor for the tone pot.
Added a Duesenberg Trem II.... a must for this guitar. As well as a roller bridge.
Foiled the inside and back of pick guard. 95% of hum is completely gone now. Even in a room with lots of EF from LED lighting.
Oiled the neck, re-stringed and setup. Tuners and nut seem good, so I didn't change them. Going to add a kill switch just for fun, and change the knobs.
Since the mods, I can get nice chime-y tones. With the tone all the way on 10, it is bright to point of maybe a tad too much for some people. Simply roll it to 8 or 9 and it takes the edge off. Rolling the tone down to 5 or 6 gets you back to the stock tone.
The pickups sound great. I would not bother changing them. If you are handy, I would recommend changing the pots at the very least. You won't be disappointed.
