Fishbone Electric Guitar

3.0 2 customer reviews

As a fan of the SX line of guitars, I've come to know what $100 can buy. Given that metric, a guitar costing three times as much should at least match that quality.

But instead of solid tonewood, the Tokai uses laminated plywood; the tuning peg holes were cut unevenly; the nut -- while bone, surprisingly --was cut very poorly, resulting in high action; the rosewood fretboard had glue or something on much of it; and the frets buzzed and needed leveling. The strings were rubbish, but that's not a big deal.

What WAS a big deal though was the bridge, which even lowered to its full extent, still resulted in the action being way too high. This is because of the thickness of the bridge -- a poor choice when other intonation-equipped wraparounds are available.

Basically, without some serious work, this guitar is nothing more than something pretty to hang on your wall. It is fortunate that I enjoy working on guitars so I could do this work myself, but it still entailed shelling out more money for a decent bridge ($80.00) and some new tuners ($35.00).

It would be one thing if this guitar cost $100, but at $340 something the amount of work involved making this into something playable is a little nuts. Unless you're willing to do this work yourself or pay someone else, this is a product best avoided.

This is not a genuine Tokai guitar. Beware, others have been sold non genuine Tokai guitars by this dealer.