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Fender American Standard Stratocaster HSS

Fender expands their popular US-made electric guitar line with the new American Standard Stratocaster HSS.

Fender American Standard Stratocaster HSS

This beefed-up version is part of the expansion of the American Standard series, which debuted in 1986 and considered to be the core guitar line of the Fender brand.

The new American Standard Stratocaster HSS doesn’t stray too far from the design of its predecessor, but it does have some updated features. Most notable of which is the use of aged plastic parts, which now also come standard with other American Standard instruments. This means that owners of new guitars won’t have to artificially age the plastic parts to achieve a broken-in look.

Another important change introduced in this updated model is the use of Custom Shop Fat ’50s single coil pickups for the neck and middle position. These are the same pickups found on more premium Custom Shop built instruments, but are now equipped in this mid-priced line.

Fender equipped the bridge position with a Diamondback humbucking pickup, described as having a moderate output ideal for HSS configurations. The pickups are wired to the usual 5-way pickup selector and three knobs setup. The first knob lets you adjust the master volume, while the other two is dedicated for tone adjustments – Tone 1 knob for the neck and middle Pickups, and Tone 2 knob for the Bridge Pickup and Bridge/Middle Pickup Combination.

As expected, the body of the guitar is made of alder and is paired with a maple neck which is joined to the body via a four-screw Micro-Tilt neck plate. It has a modern C neck profile with a 1.685″ nutwidth, 9.5″ fretboard radius and 22 medium jumbo frets. Depending on the finish, the guitar can come with either maple or rosewood for the fretboard material.

Other features include vintage-style stamped steel saddles, 2-point synchronized tremolo bridge, three-ply parchment pickguard and Bi-flex truss rods.

The American Standard HSS Strat is available in a variety of finishes, most recent additions include Bordeaux Metallic and Ocean Blue Metallic. Note that the guitar comes with a Hard-shell case.

The MSRP for the American Standard Stratocaster HSS is $1299.99. You can head over to Fender for more information.

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