Fender Player Stratocaster: A Third Opinion.

I’ve been back and forward on the idea of a Fender Player Stratocaster for well over a year now. Is it finally time to purchase one?

The Fender Player Stratocaster has been mentioned many times on these pages over the last few months, from Falling in love with the Fender Stratocaster (again) to Gibson Les Paul Tribute: The Holy Grail of Guitars for under a Grand?. I’d almost discounted it after a quick A/B test against a CV Series Strat revealed the Player to be rather plain, and maybe a little overpriced.

But the Strat will always be my first love, I’ll always give it another chance. Why?

• I’ve only ever experienced moments of the guitar playing itself on a Fender Stratocaster.
• No other guitar is as versatile.
• …or gets those beautiful clean and/or out-of-phase quack tones, as well as being renowned for handling gain for soloing.
• …or is as comfortable to play.

So, there I was in the guitar shop yet again. Round 2. Squier Classic Vibe Series vs Fender Player Series. Both current models, with 9.5-inch radius pau ferro boards (my preference), with the loser being discarded forever.

Fender Player Stratocaster

First up was the Player, polar white, with a very dry fingerboard and huge action. Ouch! But wait, I kept telling myself, a bit of lemon oil? five minutes with an Allen key? Probably a different story. So I dug a little deeper, and to be honest I couldn’t find any issues at all. The bridge is perfect (American in all but name I hear), smooth, 2-point, with really nice brass inserts into the body. The fingerboard dimensions are perfect, as is the finishing, the nut, the machine heads, and the (again American pro-level) electrics. It’s solid, it’s clean, it’s reassuringly familiar.

Every playing need seems to have been catered for. Comfort with the body and neck, including the non-stick satin neck, tuning stability with the updated bridge, and tone with the upgraded pickups and electrics. It’s the classic strat recipe, with a few clever modern concessions to help us along.

Stepping back a little and admiring it. This is the embodiment of perfection for me in form and function. I mean, just look at it!

Squier Classic Vibe Stratocaster

And then onto the Squier CV Strat. What initially grabs you is that the neck and fingerboard look classier. There’s a dark, gloss tint to the neck, we have those lovely vintage-style tuners that load neatly from the top and avoid dangling strings, a bone nut (vs plastic on the Player), and a nicely darkened and better-prepped fingerboard.

Hmmm… Another win for the CV then? Not this time.

I began to delve deeper. The bridge is awful in comparison, cheap, heavy, clunky, and noisy. The pots and other controls seem like toys compared to the Player. These aren’t things that can simply be remedied for nothing in 5 minutes, these need replacing.

The frets are also smaller and not as nicely done as the Player.

After a good fifteen minutes on each. The CV looks and feels a lot cheaper…. because it is! By around £200. Sure you could upgrade the parts, the electrics, and the pickups, but would it net you a better guitar than the Player? I doubt it, and you would have lost the synergy and general sorted nature that the Player exudes.

The Big Picture.

To the casual onlooker, as I was a few months back, the CV is an instant, put your hand in your pocket and go hit. And that’s where the time has been spent, on the fluff. But it doesn’t have anything of substance or lasting, quality hardware, it’s throwaway.

I’ve mentioned before that I want my next guitar purchase to be a really meaningful one, to carry me through the next 5 or 10 years even, and the CV is definitely not that.

On the other hand, I don’t want to be dropping £1000 on something as trivial as a guitar either. I want to go on holiday with the family and get the house renovated, so that’s one reason to discount the Gibson Tribute Les Paul Series, the other one being it’s a compromise, while the Player isn’t.

I’ve been debating my next guitar purchase for ages now, simply put, I want the right guitar at the right price. I think the Fender Player Stratocaster is the right guitar, probably about £100 overpriced, but I think I can live with that, especially when the next model down (the CV) is a toy by comparison.

What sweetens the price uplift is that the Player is a definite upgrade on the old Mexican Standard Series. Better hardware and electronics, 22 frets (one more than the CV too), nicer alnico vs ceramic pickups, and a much prettier headstock.

The old Mexican was a mile away from the USA line. The Player isn’t, and more importantly, makes me not want to bother with the upgrade across the border, yet. One day, when money is no object, I’ll be after a 7.5-inch radius, 22-fret rosewood board Strat in the same colour, which I know doesn’t exist outside the Fender USA Custom Shop, unless I’m missing something?

No sound comparison?

This is going to sound very arrogant, but when I test out guitars nowadays, I tend not to bother sound-checking them until I’m about to buy them. I kind of know how a guitar, particularly a Strat, is going to sound. so the main thing for me is always feel and quality.

There’s YouTube of course, and to my ears, the CV is a brighter instrument vs the Player which also has the higher output, more modern-sounding Alnico V pickups, which again is a plus for me. Of course, if vintage-era Strat tones are your preference, the CV at least sounds closer to that, even though it’s the inferior guitar overall by some margin.

So yeah, that’s it. I think the decision has been made.

Fender Player Series Stratocaster in Polar White with the Pau Ferro fretboard…

… unless I change my mind again.

Full Review here:

Fender Player Stratocaster Review