• Wow

  
  As reviewed by Ogsoger on 12/15/2008

  I researched the Super Swede because of the 25.5" scale since I have always played Fenders. I never bought a Gibson because they feel so little. My friend had a couple of original Hagstroms so I had a high opinion of them, they sound great and were built like tanks. For the quality, this guitar should cost 2-3 times as much. The craftsmanship and materials are perplexing at this price, this guitar is a pro guitar. It may look like a Les Paul, but this thing has its own feel, sound, and personality. The stock humbuckers are (surprisingly) great - similar to a PAF sound but richer, the wood and finish are great, the neck, frets, tuners and inlays are all pro quality. The coil tap is cool, but for a good single coil sound I will stick to an American Strat. The plastic parts are kind of cheap in quality. The sustain and warmth of the humbuckers on this thing is great for clean tones or fuzz/ hard rock/ metal. For dirty blues it sounds pretty good but not as dynamic as a Strat even with the coil tap. This is a very high quality guitar, if you like the PAF sound and LP sustain but not the short scale feel get the Super Swede. I give it 5 stars because of its extreme value.

  19 of 19 people found this review helpful.
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• Kickin'

  
  As reviewed by Dallas on 10/27/2008

  I purchased the super swede two weeks ago on a whim. I have been playing guitar for about ten years, and my current electric is a les Paul. I love the sound and feel of a solid slab of mahogony in my hands, and the swede deginately has that. I was looking for a mahogony bodied guitar that either had or I could add a coil split to. The swede fit that bill. The neck is awesome, and the fingerboard feels great. The guitar resonates well, and the stock pickups sound very good. Even if I hated the pickups I would give this guitar 4 stars because the tone of the woods used is excellent, and I can always change pickups. The long scale will take some getting used to, but open chords sound great on it. If you are looking for a les Paul clone this isn't it, but if you are looking for a very good guitar in a budget friendly pricerange with humbuckers and a coil split this is as good as it gets. I highly recommend this guitar.

  23 of 26 people found this review helpful.
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• Super sweet

  
  As reviewed by Nick on 2/16/2010

  I received the Hagstrom Super Swede a couple of weeks ago, and after playing it every day since then, I have concluded it is a pretty "swede" guitar. I got the vintage sunburst finish, which looks pretty snazzy. The finish is actually much lighter than the picture indicates - in very little light the guitar looks like the picture with the dark outline, but in direct light the outside is a reddish brown with a light orange in the middle. The finish is even and pretty well done, and from the looks of it I think it's airbrushed. The coating over the finish is not super thick, which I think is good for tone. This guitar is a beast, it's quite heavy and after playing a Mexican Strat for 10 years this thing feels pretty solid and hefty by comparison. With a leather strap that's about 2 inches wide, my shoulder aches after a while. I'm a young guy that should be able to handle the weight, but I think anyone with this guitar would benefit for a wider and/or padded strap. The tone of the guitar is fairly beefy and dark, especially in the neck position. The bridge position lends itself well to heavy distortion and rhythm playing, which is great. As for the coil tapping, it will never emulate a true strat sound, which is fine. The coil tap drops the middle and bottom out of the tone, along with some volume, which to me makes it not very useful. The guitar also came with corroded frets from sitting in the warehouse for a while, as well as a crackly tone nob for the bridge, which sometimes needs to be messed with in order to make the guitar not sound like it's under water. The corroded frets took a week or so to wear down, and now most of the frets are fairly shiny with little green-ness. The fret job is average, with some sharpness on the edges but nothing to get too upset about. The "self lubricating nut" needed to be lubricated by "myself" with lip balm, as some of the bigger strings were binding up in the nut when tuning or bending. This caused tuning problems, but after the lube job the tuning seems pretty solid. I've restrung it a couple times and the strings still continued to bind, so I may need to modify the nut. These few down sides are easily overlooked by the well crafted, well finished, well set up and fast playing Super Swede. The neck is comparable to a strat, but just a bit skinnier. The finish on the back is nice and smooth, and I don't find my hands sticking when playing quickly. The guitar was set up fairly well when I got it, well enough for someone who doesn't know how to set up a guitar to get by with good intonation and low action without modifying anything. The bottom E buzzes while fretted in lower positions no matter what I do, but doesn't come through the amp so it's fine for me. I would suggest getting a hard case to protect this guitar. I don't have one, and when I lay it down it rests on the body and the head, which makes me feel like a sudden force would snap the head off with little effort. I would also like to comment on Guitar Center's price match guarantee. I found this guitar for hundreds less on another site, and they beat it with no questions. A certain other music web site which goes without mentioning would not. They offered me an alternative product for less, which I didn't even want. Guitar Center probably made very little money off of me buying this price matched guitar, but they will make much more later on from me being their loyal customer from now on. Great service. Great guitar.

  9 of 11 people found this review helpful.
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