Burlap and Blues, The Blues Blog

Well, this past week I have been reviewing the AXL SRO Marquee series guitar. This guitar can be purchased from many outlets for $169, which is cheaper than it's better selling competitor the Squier Stratocaster.

Features: 4 guitars out of 5.
This guitar is pretty straight forward with the configuration H-S-S. Nothing different than any other H-S-S. Better than average bridge saddles, and tuning stability.

Sound: 4 guitars out of 5.
This guitar has a better than average sound, especially at it's price range. For a guitar under $200, you will be VERY hard pressed to find something that sounds this good that is new. There is an expectation with single coil pickups that there will be noise when going with a single coil selection, but usually with lower end guitars, there is noise in all switch selections, and this is not true with the AXL guitar that I reviewed. Again, much better than would be expected for a guitar of this price range!

Action, Fit, & Finish: 3 guitars out of 5.
Again, a well produced guitar, about average for the price range. The truss rod, action were easily tweaked as should be with any guitar. It felt good to play, not as easy as my Fender, or any other high end guitar that I own, but it was not uncomfortable like other guitars that I have owned.

Reliability/Durability: 2 guitars out of 5.
This guitar gets a low rating due to the cheapness of the trem bar. I would expect that this guitar otherwise would do well over it's live. That being said this guitar was designed with a trem and should have had been built with a trem. The ONLY flaw in the design of this guitar.

Value: 5 guitars out of 5.
At under $200 a great deal. I would rate this guitar midway between high end Sqiuer and MIM Strat. You would be pretty hard pressed to find a guitar at this value. With this said, this is an overseas production guitar, and you should expect that you should have some set up work that needs to be done with this guitar.

Overall Rating: 4 guitars out of 5.

This guitar is definitely was designed to be in a class of guitars to compete with starter guitars, but good enough to be a guitar that could be played for some time. This guitar is better than almost all new guitars in this price range, including models from Squier, Epiphone and Ibanez. As with any lower priced guitar, expect that there will be minor tweaks that need to be done out of the box as care that is given higher end models will not be standard practice.

Don't be fooled by the price tag, I might just have to say it again before the end of this review, the build quality generally is pretty solid. The guitar is well balanced and not what I ever expected. I actually had a chance to play the badwater series, which is significantly lighter, but the pickup configuration is the same. The badwater series is a series of road worn guitars that are priced under $200. I would assume that the sound quality would be very similar to the SRO series with a little more mojo with looks.

I will not be keeping this AXL guitar, but I do not have a problem giving this guitar to someone I know who is a serious or maybe not even a serious player. It looks pretty good and has a decent sound for a lower priced guitar. If I ever saw one in a pawn shop for under $100 it would be a no brainier. Although I do not believe that this guitar sounds better than a Fender as some reviews have stated, it certainly sounds better than the Squier model.

For more information about AXL guitars, check out their website regarding this specific guitar http://www.axlguitars.com/as800sn_shape.html. AXL guitars has many other guitars in some very odd shapes. This weeks review was based on 1 sample of a guitar produced by AXL guitars and may not be representative of all guitars produced by AXL guitars. As with all guitars, each individual guitar should be carefully inspected before buying, and when buying on-line be sure that you can return a guitar with defects.

A guitar can only be as good as its weakest part. A solidly built guitar with poor pickups will not sound well, nor will the top of the line pickups on a guitar that is out of tune

I did a recording of the AXL SRO Marquee series guitar with the EMG designed pickups. There is very little on the AXL site to discuss what other than the EMG design is meant by the pickups or what pickups they were trying to do with the pickups.

I challenged the members of Burlap and blues to see if they could correctly identify the guitar based on some quick clips. As of 9 PM last night, no one had identified the AXL and Strat correctly. That is VERY interesting. . . . .

The first track is the AXL SRO in 4 parts. Neck pickup, Neck and Middle, Middle and Bridge and then Bridge. It is clear that the bridge pickup is different than the rest. Overall the tone is very much like a strat.

<a href="http://l.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mig/playlistbadge/25.swf?autoload=0&amp;autoplay=0&amp;playlist_url=http://burlapandblues.com/uploads/axl-1.mp3" target="_blank">http://l.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mig/playlistbadge/25.swf?autoload=0&amp;autoplay=0&amp;playlist_url=http://burlapandblues.com/uploads/axl-1.mp3</a>

Source http://burlapandblues.com/uploads/axl-1.mp3

As you can see, until the humbucker is selected, the tone sounds fairly good. Compare that to the Fender Deluxe Stratocaster in the same pattern. Neck pickup, Neck and Middle, Middle and Bridge and then Bridge.

<a href="http://l.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mig/playlistbadge/25.swf?autoload=0&amp;autoplay=0&amp;playlist_url=http://burlapandblues.com/uploads/axl-2.mp3" target="_blank">http://l.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mig/playlistbadge/25.swf?autoload=0&amp;autoplay=0&amp;playlist_url=http://burlapandblues.com/uploads/axl-2.mp3</a>

Source http://burlapandblues.com/uploads/axl-2.mp3

There is a clear difference between the selection of 2 guitars. The Fender has a street value about 10 times the AXL, but the AXL guitar still has many useful sounds. My opinion is that the single coil pickups in combination (position 2 and position 4) are very usefull strat style sounds for this guitar. You listen, you decide.

Tomorrow, how does the AXL handle a hot over-driven amp.

Both clips were done using a fender 1950's bassman virtual amp software with no noise reduction software.

When I first picked up this example of the AXL guitars, SRO Marquee series guitar, I was told that the Tremolo bar had broken off. This was the first thing I critiqued in the hardware review.

After manipulating the tremolo bar a few times, I realized that the trem bar was very soft and was easily malleable. My youngest daughter did inform me that that is a property of all metals, but not necessarily a good thing with a trem bar. I would easily worry that the trem bard would snap again if left in, so I decided to screw the trem springs in hard, take off the trem bar and make the guitar an effective trem-less guitar.

After opening the back cavity, I noted a very nicely routed body. I have taken apart several Squier strats and some look like the local grade school was given lessons on routing on the bodies. This was nice and clean without any dust. The hardware under the back plate was solid and in good order. The trem came with three springs and it was easily screwed down.

Further evaluation of the bridge showed some nice saddle pieces similar to the 'break resistant' saddles that are on my Fender. The saddles were easy to move to get the guitar intonated.

The next piece of hardware I looked at were the tuning pegs. A set of no-name pegs seemed to be installed nicely. During my review I did not see a loss of tuning during playing the guitar.

The truss rod needed a little tweaking and was easily accessed. There seemed to be plenty of room for adjustment in the truss rod. It did not seem to be anything of concern there.

Overall the hardware on this AXL SRO Marquee series guitar seemed pretty good, a noticeable level better than the Squier guitars that I have owned and worked on over the years. The only thing that was odd is the total failure of the trem bar to function properly.

Tomorrow, clean tone clips of the AXL SRO Marquee Series Guitar

Yes, it is time for another guitar review series. The AXL guitar is a guitar I have been wanting to review for some time. I have read other reviews about the AXL guitar and thought that it might be worth while to invest in an AXL guitar to see how good they really are.

I have had a change to do a pretty comprehensive evaluation of the guitar with a new set of strings and a set up and have a great deal of interesting things to say about it.

I first read about AXL guitars at their website. AXL Guitars had several very interesting headstock shapes and their "badwater" series of guitars had a neat distressed looking strat-style guitar for under $200. When I heard that EMac, BAB's newest member was looking for a trade for an AXL, I thought there was no better time than the present to do a review of the AXL SRO Marquee series guitar.

The first thing that I noticed about this guitar is the finish is pretty solid. This is not a guitar that would be easily dinged. It seems to polish out easy and has a pretty red glowing finish. The serial number is on a sticker which I thought was kind of weird. If someone wanted to change the serial number all they would need is a clear sticker and a printer and they could serialize it with any number that they wanted.

I played a few tunes on it the first night I got it and it played pretty well for a budget guitar ($169, which is $10 less than a comparable Squier Stratocaster H-S-S). I am not sure if the previous owner had ever done a setup on this guitar, but it seemed better set up than any Squier that I have played that had come right from the box.

I will be discussing the hardware on the guitar tommorow, and the rest of the week there will be recording clips comparing the AXL SRO Marquee to my Fender Strat.