Every time I see an opinion that Strandberg is a great engineering, I am (as an owner of Boden Metal) clueless what it is about. Just a few examples of absolutely no thought put in the design:
- no body contour for the right hand, it is not comfortable for long periods of playing, quite sharp edge, you can't rest your hand on it
- volume knob and pickup selector so close to strings you can't really funk, and even strumming causes you hand touch the knob and/or switch pickups when you didn't want to. I moved the volume into tone position, removed the tone knob, and had to reverse the switch cause I use neck more often
- the worst heel design ever - not better than my old Gibson or Strat. No comparison to Ibanez heels, not even close. So hard to reach high frets! Why even put 24 frets? My RG1550 eats it for breakfast. Probably my bad - should've gone with neck-through, but they didn't have Fishman in those
- can't play sitting while strap-locks are on - it is literally painful because typical Shaller strap-lock will drill a hole in your chest
- first string jumps OUT of the bridge saddle if you do a big bend after 12 fret - happened few times even during performances, which is plain unacceptable
- jack hole has a slight angle to it which makes it impossible to get a guitar lying on its back without twisting a cable. WHY?!
And so much more details like that. Nobody ever hurts left hand by occasionally touching the lock on the neck, where you cut the strings, because sharp edges are still outside (I use tape on those)? Or right hand, because of how sharp those little screwes are?
And I don't even want to go discussing QC - I don't think they do it at all given in which shape my new guitar was after the delivery (pickups not working, sharp edges of frets, etc.)
While I agree that it's a great great thing that neck forces you to put left hand in a proper position, everything else about this guitar screams "I was built by an amateur". I am sorry if this comment gets under someone's skin but damn, good engineering? Not Strandberg.
The reason(s) pretty much every modern musician close to shredding plays Abasi or Ibanez or something else these days, except for Plini.