# Any reason why I should not get this Solar guitar?



## DarkCide (Mar 20, 2021)

It checks all the boxes including SS frets. Priced right.

Any reason not to get it?

https://www.solar-guitars.com/product/a1-6frb-black-gloss/


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## sleewell (Mar 20, 2021)

looks sweet!


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## mlp187 (Mar 20, 2021)

Wow dude, it’s not satin!!! I can’t remember the last time I was this excited about a gloss black guitar. That looks killer and has nice specs.


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## aesthyrian (Mar 20, 2021)

Ebony fretboard.


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## Tuned (Mar 20, 2021)

If you like it, there's no reason for not getting one. But better try one out in peson before bying, and here's why.

Just last week I went into a local Solar 'Partner shop' looking for a 24-fret 7 string with a good higher fret access and a fixed bridge, fender scale to accompany my E-II MR7-FR. The Solar A style 6- and 7-strings 'checked the boxes' although none of them had the Evertune that I wanted to try out. My overall impressions were:
- pros: nice shape, quite comfortable, surprisingly light, including the mahogany body ones.
- so-so: the overall quality doesn't look so great in person. The frets access looks more comfortable than it actually is. I guess this is what you get with a set-thru neck. Tuners weren't particularly easy to tune in, I missed the notes several times when tuning in. I had had a reversed headstock ESP Edwards with in-line tuners before and was totally fine with it , but this one was somewhy uncomfortable to use the tuners. The pickups sounded mediocre, the shop employee that was trying to sell me on it said they were Seymour Duncans custom made for Solar, but later I googled they actually were Duncan Designeds. I can't remember which was which, but I only liked one pickup in the humbucker mode and the other in the coil-tapped mode.
- cons: from the vids I'd seen there was an impression Solars were perfect out of the box; that's an ugly lie. The setup was bad on some and awful on others. I haven't seen in my life saddles raised that high to accomodate the fretboard level. The guitars wouldn't stay in tune after simple 1-step bends, and the graphite nut and tuners just couldn't help that by any stretch. I guess a FR or an Evertune would work better, but that's the result I got with a fixed bridge. The pickup switch is very noisy whenever you switch to another position, although the guitar isn't noisy by itself.

My resume was: not a bad guitar, but by no means a wonder child, just a hype item. Didn't get that wow factor and can't imagine myself spending that much on one, when there are tons of used MIJ guitars for the money.


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## DarkCide (Mar 21, 2021)

The issue with the necks cracking is concerning. Overall I'm getting conflicting opinions on Solars.


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## Metropolis (Mar 21, 2021)

Stock pickups aren't that bad in Solars, but I tend to adjust them quite close to the strings to have more output. There has not been noisy pickup switches in my guitars.

Three Solars I've had were generally setup for very allround setup to function as an electric guitar. You should setup own guitars anyway for specific relief, action etc., and that is the case with most brands that aren't very high-end.

They had recently lots of issues with ebony fretboards which you might consider a flaw.


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## Viginez (Mar 21, 2021)

dunno about the issues (people tend to exaggerate), but i like the stealthy look alot


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## NoodleFace (Mar 21, 2021)

I'd wait until they figure out what's going on with the fretboards


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## Stuck_in_a_dream (Mar 21, 2021)

Well, I could think of a few reasons:
1. it's only 6-strings.
2. You can't play jazz on it.
3. Gloss finish, ewww. 

Joking aside, I love my Solar. I got a SD alpha-omega set to replace the stock pickups, but as someone mentioned, they are good (plus I'm lazy ) so haven't got around to do this upgrade.


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## Stuck_in_a_dream (Mar 21, 2021)

NoodleFace said:


> I'd wait until they figure out what's going on with the fretboards



Is it just ebony or across the board (pun not intended )? Is weather too dry or more of a manufacturing reason? 
Anyhow, I thought that ebony fretboards are some of the easiest to fix, ebony dust + glue + sanding, no?


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## NoodleFace (Mar 21, 2021)

I don't know honestly. But the cracks are substantial, not something I'd really be interested in just filling with an ebony slurry


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## mbardu (Mar 21, 2021)

Main reason would be that I think you can do better for the price, but I'm sure it would still be a fine guitar that you can setup to play perfect.


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## Reinholderx (Mar 22, 2021)

Stuck_in_a_dream said:


> Is it just ebony or across the board (pun not intended )? Is weather too dry or more of a manufacturing reason?
> Anyhow, I thought that ebony fretboards are some of the easiest to fix, ebony dust + glue + sanding, no?



The ones I've seen on the facebook group have been ebony, and looked a little concerning. I'm interested to know if it's an environmental/temperature thing or a manufacturing issue too. And how widespread it is. It's hard to tell sometimes online.


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## jdecaire (Mar 22, 2021)

Everyone has their own opinion, but I think for specs and playability the Solar I bought was hard to beat for the price. It is a pretty big risk buying a guitar sight unseen, but it turned out that the neck is the exact profile I like and I can't put it down. The pickups are not what I'm used to (lower output) but I think they are good. I have the AB1.6HTPB with the dual rail single coil and it's probably my favourite neck pickup I've had. The bridge is good for what it is (Custom 5 clone), just not sure if it is my preference but it is pretty versatile.

The ebony fretboard issues have been worrisome but I'm wondering if there has been some changes in their QC. Looking at their "outlet" on the website there are 194 B-stock guitars for sale, some with minimal cosmetic issues that might happen in the first week of ownership anyways (https://www.solar-guitars.com/categorie-produit/stock-b/)


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## VGK17 (Mar 22, 2021)

No reason not to get it. I saw most of the posts on the Facebook group and for every one where there was a "crack" in the fretboard (some of the cracks were just the wood grain) there were something like five to 10 posts of people with no problems. However there may be some legitimacy to 2020 models having more problems than earlier ones. I live in the desert and have three guitars with ebony fretboards, two of the Solars and no problems with any of the wood. My Solars are from 2018 and 2019 though. As far as the B stock models one of my Solars is a B stock and it's flawless, I think it was just a demo model. The cool thing about buying the B stock from the Solar site is that they now post pictures of the guitars so you can see exactly what you are getting before you buy.


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## mbardu (Mar 22, 2021)

jdecaire said:


> Everyone has their own opinion, but I think for specs and playability the Solar I bought was hard to beat for the price. It is a pretty big risk buying a guitar sight unseen, but it turned out that the neck is the exact profile I like and I can't put it down. The pickups are not what I'm used to (lower output) but I think they are good. I have the AB1.6HTPB with the dual rail single coil and it's probably my favourite neck pickup I've had. The bridge is good for what it is (Custom 5 clone), just not sure if it is my preference but it is pretty versatile.
> 
> The ebony fretboard issues have been worrisome but I'm wondering if there has been some changes in their QC. Looking at their "outlet" on the website *there are 194 B-stock guitars for sale*, some with minimal cosmetic issues that might happen in the first week of ownership anyways (https://www.solar-guitars.com/categorie-produit/stock-b/)



You're not kidding, they have tons, tons of guitars in B-stock at the moment.
Have they ever had this many- or even close before?
Some things such as "darker fretboard" doesn't sound too bad, but the number of them with notes like just "bad fretwork" is surprising.


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## Thomas Mims (Mar 22, 2021)

VGK17 said:


> No reason not to get it. I saw most of the posts on the Facebook group and for every one where there was a "crack" in the fretboard (some of the cracks were just the wood grain) there were something like five to 10 posts of people with no problems. However there may be some legitimacy to 2020 models having more problems than earlier ones. I live in the desert and have three guitars with ebony fretboards, two of the Solars and no problems with any of the wood. My Solars are from 2018 and 2019 though. As far as the B stock models one of my Solars is a B stock and it's flawless, I think it was just a demo model. The cool thing about buying the B stock from the Solar site is that they now post pictures of the guitars so you can see exactly what you are getting before you buy.



hey man I have bought a used Schecter km7 artist mkiii and was thinking of returning it to guitar center to buy a solar 1 series guitar probably with an Evertune. I already have two km7s so I feel happy with one but kinda GASing for a solar simply cause they look badass. Would you say that the Solar A1.7s (any of em) are on par with a Km7 in terms of build? I like the fact Solar has passives because he me a pickup nerd that likes to swap them out a lot and I actually am not crazy about having Fishmans in my Km7.


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## Metropolis (Mar 22, 2021)

mbardu said:


> You're not kidding, they have tons, tons of guitars in B-stock at the moment.
> Have they ever had this many- or even close before?
> Some things such as "darker fretboard" doesn't sound too bad, but the number of them with notes like just "bad fretwork" is surprising.



Probably not this many ever, because they do all the quality control now in Spain at their warehouse. Damage in some guitars seem like it came when shipping the product. I don't know what to think about Solar selling them... some of issues are quite rough, they should have just ditched them into garbage like Gibson does  Or any other big manufacturer.


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## VGK17 (Mar 22, 2021)

Thomas Mims said:


> hey man I have bought a used Schecter km7 artist mkiii and was thinking of returning it to guitar center to buy a solar 1 series guitar probably with an Evertune. I already have two km7s so I feel happy with one but kinda GASing for a solar simply cause they look badass. Would you say that the Solar A1.7s (any of em) are on par with a Km7 in terms of build? I like the fact Solar has passives because he me a pickup nerd that likes to swap them out a lot and I actually am not crazy about having Fishmans in my Km7.


I have an E1.6 and an E2.6 and don't have a Schecter (yet, I have an 8 string on order) so unfortunately I can't really give you a good comparison. I have a couple of 1000 series LTD though and the Solar's are just as good, neck is super comfortable.


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## Reinholderx (Mar 22, 2021)

If you're considering a Solar I'd probably suggest joining the Solar Guitars User Community on Facebook and having a scroll through there.


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## soul_lip_mike (Mar 22, 2021)

VGK17 said:


> No reason not to get it. I saw most of the posts on the Facebook group and for every one where there was a "crack" in the fretboard (some of the cracks were just the wood grain) there were something like five to 10 posts of people with no problems. However there may be some legitimacy to 2020 models having more problems than earlier ones. I live in the desert and have three guitars with ebony fretboards, two of the Solars and no problems with any of the wood. My Solars are from 2018 and 2019 though. As far as the B stock models one of my Solars is a B stock and it's flawless, I think it was just a demo model. The cool thing about buying the B stock from the Solar site is that they now post pictures of the guitars so you can see exactly what you are getting before you buy.



anyone who likes solar enough to join a group dedicated to it will likely be a bit biased.


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## Thomas Mims (Mar 23, 2021)

VGK17 said:


> I have an E1.6 and an E2.6 and don't have a Schecter (yet, I have an 8 string on order) so unfortunately I can't really give you a good comparison. I have a couple of 1000 series LTD though and the Solar's are just as good, neck is super comfortable.


Okay sweet that’s actually a great reference for me, I think that’s just as good as anything else them IMO before getting into like boutique and custom stuff


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## Thomas Mims (Mar 23, 2021)

Reinholderx said:


> If you're considering a Solar I'd probably suggest joining the Solar Guitars User Community on Facebook and having a scroll through there.


I’ve had two Solar’s and they were great but that was over a year ago and they were two series. I hate Facebook and I have heard the group but I have also heard how Solar is now compensating those woods that weren’t properly dried out by literally replacing them you just have to pay shipping which sucks but idk I’d pay it lol better than having a cracked board a stick in the ass about it


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## Thorsday (Mar 23, 2021)

That new 8 string V is super duper tempting...


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## Reinholderx (Mar 23, 2021)

soul_lip_mike said:


> anyone who likes solar enough to join a group dedicated to it will likely be a bit biased.



True that's what I'd have thought as well but there appears to be quite a few people posting their issues and pictures there. Probably worth looking at if you're seriously considering one. It was definitely not positively skewed the last time I looked - which I'd think unusual for an owners group like that.


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## John (Mar 29, 2021)

I'd be hesitant on getting a Solar at this time on account of some more QC gaffes popping up as of late.


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