Fender Select Koa Top Telecaster Electric Guitar Sienna Edge BurstRosewood Fingerboard (Used)
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Elegantly crafted and sonically superior.
The Fender Select Carved Koa Top Telecaster is a finely crafted, artfully captivating and sonically potent take on Fender's first guitar model, with a stunning Sienna Edge Burst gloss-lacquer finish on a lightweight empress body with a carved koa top. Its modern “C” shaped flame maple neck has a Bi-Flex™ truss rod system for rock-solid stability, a satin lacquer back finish and rear-headstock “Fender Select” medallion. The smooth-playing compound radius rosewood fretboard (9.5”-14”) has 22 medium jumbo frets, stylish white pearloid position inlays and a gloss lacquer finish. Crisp, clear signature sound comes from Fender Select Telecaster single-coil neck and bridge pickups with three-way switching and a no-load tone control that delivers the natural uncolored sound of the bridge pickup when dimed.
Features
- Empress body with carved koa top
- 25.5" Scale flame maple neck
- 9.5" - 14" Compound radius rosewood fretboard
- Fender Select single coil bridge and neck pickups
- Master volume, master no-load tone circuit
- American Tele bridge, New American bent steel saddles
Select the Fender Select: a stunning new take on a legendary instrument.
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Comments about Fender Select Koa Top Telecaster Electric Guitar:
It's all good stuff here, really! If you've wanted a Koa Tele, you can either buy an equivalent Warmoth custom-made koa Tele, look for a used non-USA Fender koa Tele, OR you can get this one with the "Select" emblem on it. This one may eventually evaluate whereas the other two probably won't. For reference, I just made a Warmoth Koa Tele that has a MUCH more figured koa top than Fender uses, but it's not carved. I French polished it and am adding gold hardware and some amazing electronics. I spared NO expense.
I hope this helps.
Dean
Guitartec Repair, RI
This looksooks to be a typical Tele electronic configuration but with a no-load tone pot. These CTS no-load pots can be installed in any guitar and costs under $10. to buy.
The Compound Radius neck is nice for chording at the first few frets and soloing at the higher frets. This means strings are less likeley to choke (cancel) during hard bends on the higher frets like old vintage Tele necks with a 7-1/2" radius tend to do.
The locking tuners are great until they fail or a part hits the floor and goes rolling away. They are excellent for guitars with trems (to help limit string tension unevenness) but are unnecessary on a Tele. The old-style split post tuners that still come on some Teles are, and always have been, great. Thanks Leo!
Nitro lacquer allows the wood to age (breathe) and is fixable. Guitars with polyurathane and polyesther finishes are essentially "plastic" finishes. This guitar has a quality nitro finish... and for $2500. clams, it oughtta!
Medium Jumbo Nickel-Silver Frets? Hmmmmm, let's see here.... Giant-size frets, like Dunlop 6100's feel great and last longer than small frets, especially if you play hard-handed. Unfortunately, the bigger the fret, the more inaccurate it is, especially as it wears down. Little "vintage" frets, on the other hand, are a little harder to get under when bending strings, but gees louise, they are very accurate, so your intonation is much more likeley to be dead-on. If I had it my way, I'd have this axe with stainless steel vintage frets. Those, along with the compound radius neck would be killer! JMHO.
What can anyone say about Fender USA quality? It's pretty darn awesome, but the first thing I do whenever a guitar shows up at my door is turn the truss rod to see if it's effective. If it doesn't pass this basic test, adios amigos. That's why buying guitars through the mail sucks unless the freight is free.
The Bi-Flex truss rod in Fenders these days is better than most other companies, but I'd still check it.
Here's one thing that bugs me a tiny bit about this guitar. Koa is awesome, no doubt about it. Besdies being visually striking, it's also great as a tonal wood. It's even carved on the Select Tele which means it's arched in the middle like a LP. Here's the slightly disturbing part... the koa is mated to a Paulownia back which Fender calls it by it's tree name "Empress". Next to pine, Paulownia is what you find on the absolute cheapest guitar bodies (look at GuitarFetish $50 Strat and Tele bodies). I'm NOT saying this is bad wood. It's just an alternative tone wood that's in abundance and doesn't cost a lot. So for this money, why the F isn't it Alder or at least Basswood? I just think Fender should not hide behind "Empress" and just tell us what the thing is made out of, ya know?
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