The Mexican-made Fender Player Plus Stratocaster looks like a LOT of guitar for the money, but is it worth the upgrade, and should you buy one?
First, let’s look at what you get for your money, compared to the basic Fender Player Stratocaster.
Player Plus Noiseless Stratocaster pickups.
Comes fitted stock with Player Plus Noiseless Stratocaster pickups. You’d pay around £200 for a set of USA noiseless pickups, and although these aren’t USA-made, they’ve been fitted for you by Fender and will solve one of the biggest issues with a Strat: Single coil hum. Adding a set of Noiseless pickups to the basic Fender Player Strat would therefore cost around the same as the Player Plus, but you’d still not gain all the other benefits of the plus model. Sounds like a great deal so far?
Wider nut.(42.8 mm) vs (42 mm)
The Fender Player Plus Stratocaster’s nut is 0.8mm wider than the Player. That’s a minute mount visually, so this is probably more of a (very slight) benefit to the way the guitar feels. I prefer more room at the nut for less cramped chording, so even 0.8mm is better than nothing.
12” radius fingerboard with rolled edges.
Another key upgrade that’s impossible to achieve without a new neck and difficult to put a cost to. A flatter radius fingerboard cures another common Strat issue with 9.5″ and lower radius boards, and that’s choking under string bending. The 12″ board on this Player Plus will get you a lower, faster action with no choking. Fact.
Block steel saddles.
As documented on these pages. I much prefer the blocks to the bent steel saddles which come with the Player series, it’s a long story, but I detail it here.
Push-pull tone control adds neck to switch positions 1 and 2.
The upgrades just keep mounting up don’t they? and this one adds a couple of extra tones to the Strat’s arsenal. More is better, right?
The Fender Player Plus Stratocaster has locking tuners.
And back to another common Fender Stratocaster issue: String slippage at the tuner posts under heavy trem use. These would cost you around £70 for the upgrade but are included and fitted for you on the Fender Player Plus Stratocaster. Locking tuners, besides solving the problem with string wraps around the post (the cause of slippage), also make string changes a lot quicker, easier, and less messy. Great upgrade, and don’t forget, those pickups alone almost justified the price uplift, so you could say the tuners come for free.
Deluxe gig bag.
You could say the same for the Deluxe gig bag which, because it’s Fender brand, could cost you at least £50 normally.
The Fender Player Plus Stratocaster has a Treble Bleed circuit.
When rolling back the guitar volume, usually the first thing that happens is you lose the high frequencies from your signal as well as volume. If you’re backing off the volume to go from lead back to rhythm, for example, this is an issue if your tone turns to mud. A treble bleed circuit preserves those highs as you reduce the volume, making those rhythm and lower volume tones more useable by maintaining clarity.
This is a bit of a boutique upgrade, one that you’d only expect to find only on instruments way up the food chain. But here it is. Well done Fender!
Rolled fingerboard edges.
We’re getting into the finer details now, those quality touches that have a huge impact on the playing experience. Nobody wants sharp fingerboard edges, they want the played-in feel of a well-loved instrument. We’d want bespoke over off-the-shelf any day of the week, and that’s the feeling you get with rolled fingerboard edges. Is that the final convincer for you?
American (not butterfly style) string tree.
Not quite. One final nicety. The American-style string tree that you don’t get any more on even the American Pro II series, let alone the Player Series. They look better than the butterfly-style, and have less contact with the strings, so, in theory, they function better too.
But before you rush out and get one consider this? Is it worth the upgrade from a Player Strat? Is it worth the money, period? Let’s try and break it down.
The Fender Player Plus Stratocaster has awful colour options.
Guitars are tactile objects of desire and looks really mean a lot, to me at least. That’s a big reason why I love my Player Stratocaster in Polar White with the Pau Ferro fingerboard (pictured). A beautiful-looking guitar, I’m sure you’ll agree. The bad news is….. There’s nothing in the Player Plus colour options that comes close. In fact, some of the colour options (I’m looking at you, weird horizontal bursts or whatever you are) are downright offensively bad. Just look at the feature image at the top of the article. Tequila Sunrise? Ew.
I’m being nice. The Player Plus Stratocaster colour options are terrible, and there are far, far nicer-looking Strats in the Player series and below. What happened, Fender?
Do you need or want a Treble Bleed circuit on a Strat?
No, you don’t is the answer. Not on a Strat. And that’s because the Fender Stratocaster is a naturally bright guitar, especially compared to a Gibson Les Paul, where I definitely would have found a use for one. Also, the Strat reacts a lot better to volume and tone manipulation than lesser guitars, and in my opinion, does maintain more treble, but the main point I’m trying to make here is that on a Strat at least, that subtle treble drop is a good, expected, consistent thing, that can be used to subtly take the edge off rather than going for the tone control. You can back off the volume to get rhythm tones on a Strat, no problem.
Maybe I’m wrong, but if it isn’t broken, as they say?
Noiseless Pickups don’t sound like a Stratocaster.
If you want a classic Strat tone, the worst thing to do is install a set of noiseless pickups. It just won’t have that glassy edge anymore. Enough said. Also, the pickups on the Player Plus series are branded Player Plus Noiseless pickups. Who knows what their value is, probably nowhere near the £200 USA variety.
No contoured heel?
The Fender Player Plus Stratocaster has the same blocky heel as every other Fender bar the very exotic models, and that is historically so cheap on Fender’s part. Your talking about another bridge plate and a small chunk taken out of the body, that’s all. Other manufacturers do it for far less money, so why doesn’t Fender on a near £1000 guitar?
Poor switching.
Not only do we not get the much nicer push-push S1 style switching, but also it’s the most boring switching upgrade of all. Adding the neck to positions 1 (Bridge) and 2 (Bridge and Middle). Where is the interesting and useful series/parallel/in-out-of-phase switching found on something like a Baja Tele (Also Mexican-made)? That would’ve been great. As it stands, I don’t know why Fender even bothered.
No compound radius.
So, pickups that don’t sound like a Stratocaster, a treble-bleed circuit and switching you don’t need, no neck contour, and probably more expected; No compound radius neck. The thing is, a 12″ inch board is great for curing the choke on high bends, but it’s not so great for chords or the general feel of the neck. Put it another way, if choking weren’t an issue, I’d much prefer a 9.5″ radius or even better 7,25″. I just don’t like flatter boards, I prefer something that’s going to sit better under the curve of my fingers, which I explain in more detail in Why the Fender Stratocaster is better than the Gibson Les Paul.
A compound radius neck is the best of both worlds. Larger radius towards the higher frets (to help with choking on bends), smaller radius towards the lower frets (to help with chords). In fairness, we aren’t expecting a compound radius neck, not on a £1000 guitar.
Fender Player Plus Stratocaster is still Mexican-built.
Despite the list of upgrades, £1000 is a lot of money for a Mexican-made instrument.
The Fender Player Plus Stratocaster is expensive.
Let’s look at the RRPs for Fender’s line-up:
Fender Player Stratocaster £719 – Fender Player Plus Stratocaster £939 – Fender Performer Stratocaster (USA) £1249 – Fender American Pro II Stratocaster £1799.
One way of looking at it is, the sum of the Player Plus’ parts equates to much more than the £230 uplift from the Player.
Look at it another way. But do you really need or want those upgrades? Myself? I bought some block saddles and an American-style string tree. Cost me £18. Massive improvement. The only other upgrade I would consider is the locking tuners for £60-70, but the guitar holds it’s tune fine, even under trem abuse. I don’t need or want any of the Player Plus’ features, so it’s beginning to look very expensive.
Then consider that, if you had £1000 to spend on a guitar, would you really want a Mexican-made instrument, or just save up a little more and go for the USA-made Performer, which will have nicer woods, greater attention to detail, and, be the perfect workhorse?
Also, consider the phenomenal amount of competition in that £1000 bracket from every manufacturer on the planet offering roasted maple, stainless-steel frets, contoured heels and all the rest the Fender can’t be bothered with.
The Player comes out at just the right price point for a gigable, relatively inexpensive, quality instrument, the Player Plus is pushing its luck.
Conclusion.
On the face of it, the Fender Player Stratocaster seems like a lot of guitar for the money, and if you’re a player who would find benefit and use from its list of upgrades,… it is! However, if like me some, or all, of those upgrades are superfluous and even a backward step, the Player series represents the best way to own a proper inexpensive Fender Stratocaster, particularly with its far superior range of finishes. Sorry to bang on about finishes, but the bottom line is, even if I wanted a Player Plus, there’s nothing in the range that I like.
Personally, I think the Player Plus attempts to solve a lot of issues with the Player series and Strat design that just aren’t there. You can absolutely get a low action with a 9.5″ radius fingerboard, you don’t need treble bleed. To cut a long story short, the Player series is just about perfect the way it is, and over £200 less expensive, from the same country of manufacture.
If you’re sold on the feature set and have managed to actually find a colour you like, that £1000 price tag puts the Fender Player Plus Stratocaster up against, I would say too stiff competition from the likes of Ibanez, PRS, and G&L. Take your pick really. The USA Performer series is far too close, as are fully fledged USA Standards on the used market.
Buying a Fender Player Plus Stratocaster?
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What’s your take on the Fender Player Plus Stratocaster? Worth the money? Better than the Player Series? Would you buy one? Let’s discuss in the comments below.
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