EVH Striped vs. EVH Charvel !

[Shawn Lutz]

good comparison thread Shred! Thanks!

[daisp]

Cool grab...I want to try one

[shreddermon]

Thanks guys, glad the thread's been useful. A couple of quick updates...

So the guitar has been here the better part of a week now. As of today, I can barely feel the sharp fret ends any more. That issue has improved a lot over the past few days. The wood is breathing again, was most definitely too dried out when back in the dealer area's climate. If it keeps improving like it has so far, I may not need to have the fret ends taken care of after all.

I was also having some tuning issues. Decided to put a fresh set of strings on it, and that cleared it right up. In restringing the guitar, I remembered that - for a D-tuna to work as intended - the Floyd needs to be flush on top of the body. (I had originally done the set-up with a bit of float/pull-up above the body, which I prefer on non-recessed Floyds.) That's probably a "well duhhh" moment for many of you but, like I said, I'm not a frequent D-tuna user. LOL But then the revelation: when I redid the Floyd's set-up to sit on the body, the intonation issues pretty much disappeared! Amazing that such a small change in the set-up could produce a significant change in how the guitar sounds to one's ears.

I'm digging this guitar more and more with time. Although I love VH's music, I wouldn't consider myself an EVH fanboy by any means - although that iconic graphic was obviously part of the attraction. In the past couple of days, I realized that the bigger reason I'm digging this guitar more with time is that it is triggering some major 80s guitar nostalgia. Not the paintjob, I mean. It's the feel and sound. Even though it's new, it feels more like a broken-in SD-era Charvel or even one of my old 80s Kramers. I can't quite put my finger on why that is exactly, except to say it just feels like my mind remembers them from back in the day. Cool.