KXK "Superstrat" Prototype...

...You've all seen the pics, you've all heard the hype, now here's the scoop:

Construction: Maple neck-thru block, mahogany body wings, thick slab ebony board. Single hum (DiMarzio X2N), vol/tone, TonePros tune-o-matic, Sperzel tuners, 27" scale. The heel's so out of the way it's almost ridiculous, the neck is thin and flat, the cutaways are deep and the back of the treble side is scalloped on the back - it's virtually impossible to hit this cutaway with your hand unless you try. The frets are huge, and nicely done. The top is nicely carved, not too steep, and the bridge is partially sunk into the body.

Appearance: Flip/flop metallic black/green paint, oiled neck back, blank unbound ebony board, black hardware. Simple and to the point. The finish is a new process KXK is using, and it came out looking nice, but the clear coat is not up to snuff. He's changing techniques on the production models.

Fit & Finish: Excellent, other than the clear coat issue already mentioned. The fret slots do not run to the edge of the board, so it gives a bound feel while being unbound. The paint feathering around the oiled neck is very nicely done. All of the carves and routs are very nicely done.

Sound: Acoustically, it's loud and bright, but the mahogany wings add a nice roundness to the bottom end, and the long scale rounds out the harmonics. Plug it in, and the X2N quickly shows itself to not be to my liking - it's too bight for a guitar that's pretty bright on it's own. It's still a quite usable tone, just lacking bottom end grind. Something with a stronger bottom end like a Duncan Custom would be outright brutal in this guitar.

Overall: A steal for his "special" price. It plays smooth and liquid, and the big frets helped overcome the string tension being higher than I'm used to. The low B rings out nicely, the high strings sing - really, unless you've played a guitar with this quality of build and wood, it's hard to describe the difference, but it's palpable. The access to everything is clean and easy, the neck is almost TOO thin for me - the Ibby guys will love it - and the 16" radius makes bending nice and easy. Really the only negatives were the pickup choice and the lack of a neck pickup - and the fact that he put the front strap bitton on the back of the horn, which I'm sure he'll correct. The tone control actually tamed the X2Ns brightness well, and I dialed up a pretty reasonable "grit" tone by rolling off the volume and tone. That alone tells a lot about how the wood sounds, since it was a quite useable tone.

Basically, anyone looking for a 7 that smokes anything in the 1K price range should be on the phone to Rob before the end of the month. This is a major piece for a minor price, and it'll smoke ANY current production 7 I've played (which is all of the major players - Ibby, Schecter, Jackson, etc.). It's really that good.