I really believe you have to reach into that 2k territory to see any meaningful gains over this guitar's level of build quality and I use the word meaningful liberally there. I had a $2k music man in the room the same day I got this, notoriously perfect guitars, and the fret work and overall finish was similarly beautiful across both guitars. The only meaningful benefit to having the music man was the eye candy flame maple neck and the smaller frets on the music man. The frets on this guitar are pretty far on the big side, but even though I like smaller frets they're so well dressed I don't mind. Almost no adjustments needed for me out of the box, immediately put new 10-46s on it and lowered the saddles a truly tiny amount and it was perfect. The pickups are going to be a point of contention for people here, some people will find these pickups dark, but imo if you tailor a pedal to it to help match it to whatever else you're playing you can get an awesome suite of very different usable fendery tones across the 5 pickup options. In the end I like the pickups, but they didn't wow me the same way the rest of the guitar did, gonna knock half a point for that because I'm not totally certain I will keep all the stock pickups. Hardware is all as nice as it needs to be, all seems very sturdy and well made, pots have a nice amount of tension to them, the switch is beefy, and the overall guitar is lighter than I expected, probably sub 7 lbs.This guitar was my first time giving schecter… read more a real shot, I'm not a pure metal player and I've never bonded with any of their fastback or similar "vintage" leaning models, but after spending time with this I'm definitely a fan and will probably look into a Nick Johnston in the future. Worth mentioning that it went on sale for 599, if there are any left this is a madman steal.

Musical Background:
Full time guitarist

Musical Style:
Rock, metal, indie, shoegaze, alternative, funk, r&b read less