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Höfner Club Solid £419
LTD Phoenix 200 £499
Italia Maranello Speedster1 £449
Jackson Mark Morton Dominion D2 £429
Reverend Jetstream 390 £449
Blade Delta Standard £429
Fender Standard Telecaster £469
Ampeg AMG100 £489
LTD EC-256 AVB £449
Fret-King Eclat 2 £499
PRS SE Soapbar £499
Jackson DXMG Dinky £429
LTD MH-250 £499
LAG Arkane A200ST £425
Epiphone Prophecy Les Paul EX £469
Hagstrom Super Swede £419
PRS SE Singlecut £499
Cort VX-4X £449
Gretsch Electromatic Corvette £499
Dean Cadillac 1980 £499
Hamer XT SATQ £499
BC Rich Assassin FX6 £495
Washburn WI200 PRO-E £499
Spear Tomcat Golden Tiger £429
Dean Razorback DB £495
Mahogany body with flame maple top; set maple neck; rosewood fingerboard; 22 medium frets; 25.5" scale; 2 x Höfner mini humbuckers; 2 x volume, tone, three-way pickup selector; chrome hardware; Honey Burst, Black Cherry or Black finish
We’ve seen kick-ass electrics under £200, the very finest under £300 (plus a cool 17 more) and badass models under £400, so - for those not quite ready to make the jump to £1000 - here’s the last in our series of ‘affordable’ axes: 22 smokin’ electric guitars under £500.
Hand-picked from the pages of Total Guitar, there’s a shape and style to suit every type of guitarist. As you’d expect from forking out the extra £100, the upgrades in materials, pickups and finishes are noticeable and, in our opinion, well worth it. You can even afford a PRS! First up: Höfner Club Solid...
The new Höfner Club Solid is based on the hollowbody Club model John Lennon played in the early days of The Beatles. While Lennon’s guitar would have been super-lightweight, the new Solid version utilises the classic Les Paul style construction of a mahogany body topped with maple, resulting in a much heavier guitar.
If you’ll allow us to get a bit superficial, we have to say that the Höfner Club Solid is a beautiful looking guitar. The inlayed headstock, trapeze tailpiece and those stunning vintage Höfner stripe fingerboard inlays made us gasp when we took the Club out of its box.
Plugging into an amp had the same effect. The bridge mini-humbucker sparkles on clean and shimmers with some overdrive. The neck ’bucker has a clarity that only found its match in the Super Swede’s neck P90. The little Club also showcases an impressive level of sustain that makes blues noodling a joy.
The Höfner Club Solid is a cracking piece of eye candy, bursting with tone. If we have one complaint, it’s aimed at the generic slim neck profile. We reckon the Club would be a stone killer if it had a chubbier neck, but some of you may well disagree. Anyway, as it stands, this is one Club we’d definitely be interested in joining - especially given just how affordable the membership fee is.
4 Stars
Pros: Great pickups, serious eye candy.
Cons: We’d like a meatier neck.
