Fender USA Elite Strat

For 2016, Fender’s American Deluxe range is no more; they are now Elite.

Name aside, the range is trimmed to just four guitars: the Strat and Tele, an HSS Shawbucker Strat and a thinline Tele. So, what’s new?

Along with cosmetic additions in the form of new colours, a refreshed headstock logo and ‘soft touch’ rubber control knobs, there’s a new neck shape, a new wheel-style truss-rod adjustment (we lose the Micro-Tilt adjustment) and slightly altered-shaped heel geometry.

Then we have the latest (fourth) generation of Noiseless pickups controlled, as before, by the S-1 switching, activated by a push/push switch within the top of the volume control’s knob that expands the sounds from the five-way or three-way pickup selector switches.

The hardware stays the same: the excellent twin-post vibrato, with its six block saddles and pop-in arm, and the sealed, chromed rear-lock tuners (although instead of the previous dual-height string posts, they all have the lower height posts, which subtly increase the back angle behind the nut on the bass strings). A new-design string tree increases that back angle further on the top two strings; another change is the bone nut

The Strat is set up low with 0.009s, creating a pretty mainstream feel, but, of course, there’s no ‘right’ way to set up your Fender. The important thing here is that the new truss-rod adjuster – as any Music Man owner will attest to – means neck-relief adjustments are now dead simple.

There’s a lighter, brighter tonality to the Elite and raising the action and increasing the treble-to-bass stagger on the pickup heights narrows the gap a little, as does pulling back the No-Load tone control. There’s obviously a big difference in the pickups – our Roadworn has retro-fitted Custom Shop Texas Specials – and the Elite sounds more classic.

But despite a less-pronounced magnet stagger, to our ears, the second-string response is a little ‘soft’. The Elite does sound more refined, not quite as ‘dirty’ or as raw as our Roadworn, but with a touch more output.

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