I've been playing a few different Hagstroms lately, and I've decided I want to make my next guitar a hag (swede or viking). I really like the tone, feel and pricetag. But more than once ive fallen for a guitar, bought it, played it for months then grew out of it, or realized it sucked. Any of you who own (or have owned) a Hagstrom, what do you like/dislike about them?
New ones or old ones? My brother picked up a early 70's Swede and it is a pretty nice guitar. The only issues were the almost fretless wonder sized frets and the pickups are on the weak side, maybe sounding a little more like a Filtertron than a PAF.
new ones. yeah, i was thinking of swapping the p-ups for something beefier. Im curious though if they fall apart after 5 years or something
I doubt they would fall apart. A friend of mine is a new Hagstrom dealer, I've tried a bunch and they seem pretty nice. He has a sawed in half new Hagstrom neck to show the truss rod, they use the same style rod as the originals.
I have a new Hag Viking Dlx. I the pickups don't sound like Gibson's but they have a cool tone of their own. I feel no need to swap them out. The neck is the best part. It plays fast and feels great. I don't know what the big deal is about the H-expander truss rod and would be thankful if someone would fill me in. I looks great too for a guitar in it's price range. This pic kind of sucks but I don't have a camera right now to take a better one.
i think its called an "H expander" because the profile looks like an H laying on its side, which makes it more stable. I did like the tone of the p-ups, but i ABed a swede with a les paul and thought the LP had more growl, which i like. though if i go with a viking i may decide to leave it stock.
"But more than once ive fallen for a guitar, bought it, played it for months then grew out of it, or realized it sucked." I think we can all relate to that one!
I played a Viking but I never plugged it in. I found that it played very well and resonated better than some of the other 335-style guitars that I played. Overall, I found the Ibanez AS73 to play just as well, and was a lot less expensive. Ultimately I bought an Xaviere XV-900. The fretwork on the XV-900 sucks (they need to be recrowned), but the XV-900 is highly resonant and has great pickups.
