Anyone try a Kiesel Osiris guitar?

I don’t have an Osiris, but I’ve bought two similar models over the last two or so years and they are both really great guitars. Build quality, finish and playability are top end. Not quite as nice as the Suhr’s I’ve owned, but pretty close. Definitely better than the American Deluxe Strat and Les Paul Standard.

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OrganicZed said:
Yes, I am familiar with them as well as Johnny Hiland, Jason Becker, and Greg Howe.
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There you go. Personally, I don't care which artist promotes which brand of gear. I care about sound and ergonomics, build quality and "bang for the buck." For example, I like John Mayer, but I don't care for the Silver Sky. TEHO
 
Yeah, "close to but not quite Suhr" is how I'd rank the quality on my Kiesels also. I still have two of them, the Holdsworth Fatboy HF2 and the Holdsworth Headless, both are excellent instruments.
 
I ordered a Lee McKinney signature last month: Kiesel LM7X. It's a mixture of the Osiris and the Zeus. It has piazo saddles as well as a Hipshot tremolo. Very excited about the piezo sound - bus still have to wait for another 2 month... ETA is March 2024.
It's the most expensive instrument I've ever bought... but if it plays at least as well as my Ibanez 6 string headless bass (EHB-1506 BIF) , I'll be happy ;)
 
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I've got two Vaders (7 and 8 string). They're headless like the Osiris and Zeus. They are great guitars. No complaints. I've been wanting a 6-string version as well. I do have a 6-string Strandberg which is also great, but the Endurneck has been hurting my old-man knuckles, so it will be sold soon.
 

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Nice. So can you tell me something about the quality of the Strandberg?

I had to choose between Kiesel LM7x and Strandberg Boden NX7 Progressive. But as I've read someone got pain playing it, I tended to the Kiesel.
Also Kiesel offered piezo pickups (aka acoustic saddles). I always wanted to have piezo pickups - so Strandberg was out of the game.

Also Ormsby has some nice axes. The Goliath 7 Black Friday looks interesting as well, also they do offer fanfret (which the LM7x has not). But the Ormsvy Goliath's fanfret is about 2",so thay cannot offer a tremolo system for the moment.
 
I have an Osiris 7. The build quality, fretwork, and setup are impeccable. It's the best playing guitar I own even though I dislike the neck profile (too round). If I had it to do over again though, I'd probably buy an Ares because the headless hardware and design aren't good. Tuning is awkward because there isn't enough space between the tuners and the body. Seating ball ends into saddles is finicky. The headpiece is attached with screws driven into the neck's end grain!! and it's nigh impossible to cut strings flush with it, so there's always sharp little nubs sticking out. But overall it's a very well built guitar and plays like butter, or a million bucks, or whatever metaphor you like for "really quite playable".
 
fuzzyoctaves said:
I wanted one, but the Hipshot trem is super heavy so I couldn't count on getting a 5lb guitar. I ended up going with a Strandberg. What I learned is that trems and headless just aren't a good combo because when you turn the tuners it is really hard to not move the bridge. This, coupled with the fact that bridge tuners are inherently fiddly, makes tuning a pain. Now I am thinking of selling the Strandberg and buying a hard tail Osiris - which for me, relegates this guitar to being my second instead of my main.

Next time I'm in LA I'll go to their showroom and play one.
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Might want to call first! it's not always open to the public, pretty sure you have to make an appointment now.
 
AmpHero said:
Nice. So can you tell me something about the quality of the Strandberg?

I had to choose between Kiesel LM7x and Strandberg Boden NX7 Progressive. But as I've read someone got pain playing it, I tended to the Kiesel.
Also Kiesel offered piezo pickups (aka acoustic saddles). I always wanted to have piezo pickups - so Strandberg was out of the game.

Also Ormsby has some nice axes. The Goliath 7 Black Friday looks interesting as well, also they do offer fanfret (which the LM7x has not). But the Ormsvy Goliath's fanfret is about 2",so thay cannot offer a tremolo system for the moment.
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I've got a Strandberg Standard. I bought it 2nd hand from Reverb. The guitar, from a factory-finish perspective is flawless. It is on-par with all of my USA guitars. This was my first Indonesian-made guitar, and it proved (to me) that they can build guitars just as well as anyone else, and what matters the most is that you buy from a company that has good customer service and a return policy if there are things that got past QC. If not for the Endurneck's hard edges, It would be my number one. They really need to come up with an alternative neck with smoother edges for people who have arthritis or issues with hard edges against knuckles. The weight and size are an absolute dream. Even my 7 year old son prefers picking up this guitar and goofing around with it vs. his mini-Squier (which is much heavier).

My only other complaint, where the Vader wins, is you can't set it down anywhere because of the body shape. The vader, you can lean on almost anything, and it's 100% stable, even if you don't have a stand. But even then, the Strandberg is so light, you can just keep it on your body with a strap and e.g. cook dinner or use a computer, etc.

Conclusion: if you get a properly built Strandberg and you're fine with the Endurneck, it's likely going to be the perfect guitar for practice, gigging, travel, and your kids, etc.
 
Kamil Kisiel said:
Yeah, "close to but not quite Suhr" is how I'd rank the quality on my Kiesels also. I still have two of them, the Holdsworth Fatboy HF2 and the Holdsworth Headless, both are excellent instruments.
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Do you have the good Holdsworth HH or the one with a hipshot bridge ?
 
fuzzyoctaves said:
What I learned is that trems and headless just aren't a good combo because when you turn the tuners it is really hard to not move the bridge.
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the steinberger trems have a locking lever at the back, so you lock, tune, unlock and then master adjust with the spring wheel. do the kiesel and strandy trems not have a locking lever? seems daft not to, for the exact reasons you outline. (ned is a genius, no doubt)
 
AZG said:
I don’t have an Osiris, but I’ve bought two similar models over the last two or so years
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the delos and the leia are my two favourite kiesel headless models. i'd have one of each if i could. those both look lovely.
 
makecamera said:
If not for the Endurneck's hard edges, It would be my number one. They really need to come up with an alternative neck with smoother edges for people who have arthritis or issues with hard edges against knuckles. The weight and size are an absolute dream. Even my 7 year old son prefers picking up this guitar and goofing around with it vs. his mini-Squier (which is much heavier).
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I also have a Strandberg and this is my only real complaint. The hard square edges get uncomfortable for me. I've even considered getting out a sander and rounding off all the sharp edges myself. But instead I just play it less than my Kiesel's.
 
simeon said:
the delos and the leia are my two favourite kiesel headless models. i'd have one of each if i could. those both look lovely.
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Thanks, really enjoy both. If I could go back and change one thing on the Delos, I would have stuck with the standard medium jumbo SS frets. I got jumbos instead and find them a little less smooth to play. The Leia with short scale neck is butter to play.
 
Wow. Fedex totally messed up with my guitar order. It's about 100km away from me (near cologne) and should have been delivered two days ago (I took a day off from work to receive my Order, but the delivery ETA was changed twice that day. 7:50-12am to "until 18 o'clock" to "until the end of the day".

So I opened a case on paypal (which usually takes about 10 days to be judged - which should be enough time to sort things out).
Fedex seems to send it back by today - customer service is complete useless on that company here in Germany...have been sending them mails, calling them and even trying their strange support-chat, which didn't help.
I never got a chance to see the LM7X nor play it.
If Kiesel can't make Fedex deliver it properly, I'm done with Kiesel.
After paying it full in December and waiting for three month right now.

Opening a case on paypal is NO chargeback. It's like "Hey, my guitar should have been arrived, but it hasn't. Please investigate so I either get my guitar or my money". But Kiesel takes it as chargeback and banns customers:

"However, because you did a chargeback there is little else we can do to speak with FedEx other than telling them to send the guitar back to us because you forced a return. When a customer does a chargeback they are automatically banned from purchasing any instruments from us so we would have preferred you let us try and speak with FedEx and sort this out before such drastic actions were taken."

At NO point Kiesel told me "if something went wrong, do nothing or you will be banned".

I can't see any 'drastic actions' when opening a case for an undelivered item on paypal. The whole Kiesel order gets a bad taste since two days. So probably if they can't deal with their delivery company, it might be best to start over with another custom guitar company.
If I get my money back, I'll order an Ormsby or Strandberg, which might fit my requirements as close as possible as the Kiesel might have done.
Worst delivery experience ever!

So before you order a Kiesel, be aware of this behavior. You can't do nothing, if your guitar doesn't arrive. If you do anything, you're banned.
 
Now I got another two mails from Fedex.

One asking me to confirm to have the customs in cash right here, so they can go on with delivery.

The other one wanted me to bank transfer the customs.

If I'd have personal contacts from those workers at Fedex I'd like to have them sort it out by themselvef before eskalating and telling me to transfer money or they will send it back after 10 days not ofering their bank account...

I asked Kiesel for an appologize for banning me and to undo the ban, since IT IS clearly Fedex' fault as the last two mails made clear.
They ask for banktransfer and they ask for cash. And that two days after the package should have been arrived.
Also they forced me to do anything, since they were about to send the guitar back.
 
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