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There is a reason that the Texas Tea Strats, Teles and P-basses are so hard to find. They are one of the most beautiful colors ever put on a Fender guitar. In the pics they look black. They also look black from the back of the room. They are not. When the spotlight hits them, there is a tiny gold flake in them, and they flash with a brilliant dark green-gold color. They've yellowed the neck, used a gold anodized aluminum pickguard, and cream on the plastics. Its a perfect match. Believe it or not, I am not about buying a guitar for looks. I have some of the ugliest Custom Shop models you'll ever see. But this is an exception. It is gorgeous. As for everything else, this guitar is perfect in fit and finish. The playability was perfect right out of the box. The Ultra Noiseless pickups sound traditional, in a muted sort of way; they are not high output. The Humbucker is plenty for a good solid distortion. But if you want that real sparkly traditional Strat sound or hi-gain, you'll swap these pickups. I sort of like them muted; I'm leaving them as they are. The Ultra Tele pickups are much more traditional, bright and strong. Huge difference between the Ultra Strat and Ultra Tele pickups, including the output. Every other feature is exactly as described above. S1 switch does nothing but add the neck pickup. Nothing exciting. Now the warning. This is my second Texas Tea Strat. The first one I bought in Tennessee, not from zZounds and I returned it. It had a host of problems. To name a few, the fit and finish were lousy. You could see the laminations under the paint. It played poorly and could not be adjusted. The nut was off and the guitar poorly, poorly intonated across the neck. It buzzed at random strings and frets and obviously needed a PLEK machine. All right out of the box. I hated it. I knew it didn't feel right the minute I picked it up, but I was hoping my luthier could do some magic with it. He really couldn't without at least a full fret job and a new nut. Brand new! So fly-spec this thing. Strange, as my current one I loved the minute I picked it up. The Telecaster too. Guess the other Strat was a "Friday Guitar." I'll just rate the new Strat.

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