NGD: Affinity Strat - (With a pickup question on the side).

[Artie]

Squier Affinity Strat. This is the "upscale", HSS version. Tuners seem better than most. My luthier friend says he thinks they're the same ones on the MIM Fender. I don't know, but they turn smoothly. I wouldn't normally ever buy one of these, but this one was given to me, (brand new), by a customer, in lieu of payment for a wiring job.

But this things begs the question: Are newer "cheap" pickups better than they used to be? When I got it, I said "cool". This will be fun to mod. But as I listen to it, I'm not sure I can justify changing these pups. They sound great. Exactly what a Strat should sound like. Maybe, and I mean maybe, change the bridge humbucker. It's the weak link, but still, not terrible. And I only say that because I have a Distortion and an Invader sitting on the shelf. The Invader is white, and might be sweet in this thing. :scratchch

P.S. Apparently, the tremolo bar is hanging out somewhere with all those socks that disappear out of the dryer. Where do those tremolo bars go? :eek5:

Artie

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: NGD: Affinity Strat - (With a pickup question on the side).

I obtained a Squier Affinity for a blog that I never submitted. The electronics are the weak point of these instruments. Right now, my example sports a white Fender Tex-Mex humbucker in a H-x-x pickguard.

 

[Artie]

Re: NGD: Affinity Strat - (With a pickup question on the side).

Yeah, electronics aren't great. But I think even the pots and switch may be serviceable with a quick shot of Deoxit. The output jack is the one part that is going away for sure. I'll replace it with a genuine Switchcraft. I hate those cheap Chinese jacks.

 

[Lake Placid Blues]

Re: NGD: Affinity Strat - (With a pickup question on the side).

I was given a Telecaster Squire recently. It still had the stickers and the literature and it is stated that the pickups are alnico 5. It sounds good and looks great with a very nice Fender dark brown sunburst. The fret work was not very good, so I did some filing myself. Its a decent playing guitar now, although I'm not really much of a tele user.

 

[DTrane]

Re: NGD: Affinity Strat - (With a pickup question on the side).

at least its not a lefty. Most lefty strats fs have a rh whammy bars

 

[RorySquier]

Re: NGD: Affinity Strat - (With a pickup question on the side).

I think Squier Affinity guitars are great! I own a couple of them and I do admit the pickups in them sound sweet. I'm in the process of installing Fender Vintage Noiseless pups in my one Squier, but I plan on saving the stock pickups. I measured the impedance of the stock pickups which hovered around the 4 k ohm mark. Most Fender stock pups are around 5 k to 6 k. The bridge pickup on my '98 American Standard is over 7 k ohms. The Affinity pickups have a slightly lower output but they have lots of headroom. They have a very glassy bell-like tones that are similar to Hendrix's clean tones. I've read reviews on this in the past and many people say the Affinity pickups capture that classic Strat tone. A few things you could change are the pots. They usually come with stock 500 k pots which is a bit too high for lower-impedance pickups. A set a 250 k pots should solve this problem. The stock 5-way switch I find sketchy so replacing that with a better quality switch is a move in the right direction. Since the thickness of an Affinity body is 1 1/2 " compared to U.S. Strats whose bodies are under 1 3/4", make sure the switch is able to fit the thinner body. The wiring in these guitars can be pretty good, but it all depends and it's wise to visually check to make sure.