ampage Tube Amps / Music Electronics	For current discussions, please visit Music Electronics Forum.

ampage archive

Vintage threads from the first ten years

Guild Starfire III

2/7/2004 12:15 PM
Brad	Guild Starfire III Excitement turns to dissapointment. Spotted a mint-looking Guild in a pawnshop that had a price of $629. Always been able to get this particular place to go down 15-20%, which would have put it in the $500-520 range. Asked them to let me check it out. Horribly out of tune. Tried to do a quick tune. Wouldn't do it. E and A strings buzzed, so I tried to do a quick tweak on the floating bridge, which was probably not positioned properly, but I figured that could be taken care of. Sighted the neck, wasn't twisted, but had no relief. Figured that could have been taken care of (maybe...unless the truss rod was broken). Man, that thing just would not go ANYwhere near in tune. Always seemed to flatten the strings that had been tweaked as you went. The Bigsby-style trem seemed strong enough, I worked the heck out of it, just to see if it would settle. That thing was utterly untunable no matter how I tried. Figured a $1600 guitar should perform better than that. Anyway, was it a good thing to pass up? Or could it have maybe been repaired for a price/cost/value ratio, assuming it could have been had for around $500. Personally, I don't need any more "project" gear, but a friend is considering it, and my advice to him was to let it go. Whaddya all think? Thanks, Brad

2/7/2004 12:15 PM

Brad

Guild Starfire III

Excitement turns to dissapointment. Spotted a mint-looking Guild in a pawnshop that had a price of $629. Always been able to get this particular place to go down 15-20%, which would have put it in the $500-520 range. Asked them to let me check it out. Horribly out of tune. Tried to do a quick tune. Wouldn't do it. E and A strings buzzed, so I tried to do a quick tweak on the floating bridge, which was probably not positioned properly, but I figured that could be taken care of. Sighted the neck, wasn't twisted, but had no relief. Figured that could have been taken care of (maybe...unless the truss rod was broken). Man, that thing just would not go ANYwhere near in tune. Always seemed to flatten the strings that had been tweaked as you went. The Bigsby-style trem seemed strong enough, I worked the heck out of it, just to see if it would settle. That thing was utterly untunable no matter how I tried. Figured a $1600 guitar should perform better than that.
Anyway, was it a good thing to pass up? Or could it have maybe been repaired for a price/cost/value ratio, assuming it could have been had for around $500. Personally, I don't need any more "project" gear, but a friend is considering it, and my advice to him was to let it go. Whaddya all think?
Thanks,
Brad

Replies:

Gilles C I have a DeArmond Starfire Special ... -- 2/9/2004 4:17 AM