New project guitar: Jet JS300
Jet Guitars is a newish brand originating in Slovenia, a sister brand to the well-regarded Flight Ukeleles line.
Designed in Europe and manufactured in Asia, their line offers tremendous value for money. Their entry-level Strat-style, the JS-300, retails for about $210 USD and has been getting enthusiastic reviews - many calling it better than comparable Squiers. I recently sold my Fender Japan short-scale Strat and decided to take a plunge on one.
What you get at this price is really nice - way better than the heavy, plywood budget guitars of my youth.
Central to the JS300’s value proposition is its roasted maple neck, which comes with well-dressed frets and slightly rolled fingerboard edges. Finished in a clear satin, it’s fast and comfortable, with a bone nut, modern C profile and 9.5” radius. There’s a dual-action truss rod with access at the nut. (What would put it over the top for me would be a truss rod adjuster wheel at the heel of the neck instead.)
Roasted maple is treated with heat in a low-oxygen environment to drive moisture out of the wood and crystallize its resins, creating greater resonance and stability, and reducing the propensity of the wood to twist or shrink with seasonal temperature and humidity changes. Getting this on a guitar in the sub-$500 price range is phenomenal.
The body is basswood (common at this price point) which is not too heavy, and it has a shaped carve on the lower rear horn to facilitate upper fret access - a feature you usually see on guitars like the $999 Charvel Pro-Mod DK24.
The pickups are single-coil ceramics, and the electronics setup is a standard Strat-style 5-way switch with Volume-Tone-Tone controls. The pickups and knobs are cream-colored and set in an aged-white, not-quite mint green pickguard.
The gold metallic finish is gorgeous - I couldn’t see any flaws.
The hardware is ok at this price range, but you’ll probably want to upgrade the tuners and restring it; out of the box I had a lot of problems getting it to stay in tune. Most of the reviews mention the tuners being an issue; they’re generic Gotoh clones. The string tree is a cheap bent-metal kind prone to binding, so that’s another item to improve.
The bridge is a generic chrome vintage 6-screw Strat type with bent steel saddles; it’s fine.
That said, it’s zingy and resonant, even unplugged, and it feels really easy to play.
Here’s a review video from Trail of Sound:
The Upgrades
I’m going to upgrade it with:
Gotoh staggered locking tuners
Two roller string trees to further improve the string break angle
Gotoh-Wilkinson VSVG bridge - this is a six-screw drop-in replacement for vintage Fender-style bridges with a modern take on bent-steel saddles.
Dunlop Super Pots - sealed, lifetime warranty potentiometers. Using a 250k master volume pot with a treble bleed to maintain brightness at lower volume settings, and a 500k master tone pot with an 0.47µf Sprague Orange Drop capacitor - this will make it darker sounding when fully rolled off, but still maintain brightness when fully open.
An SPDT (single pole, double throw) toggle switch in place of the second tone knob, to enable the ‘Gilmour mod’ - being able to add the neck pickup to the 2nd and 1st switch positions to get all three pickups together, and the bridge & neck pickups together (Tele style).
A new white pearl pickguard and knobs
Finally, Zexcoil Z-Core Vintage Hot pickups - these are hum-cancelling with one coil per string, and the best I’ve heard for that glassy / quacky Strat tone.