After counting and recounting my money, I decided to buy a Classic Player Jag. Found a 'Scratch 'n Dent' from Musician's Friend. I would have bought locally, and paid more, but I simply couldn't find one, and didn't want to wait for a special order.

I've never owned a Jag, so keep that in mind as you read. I'm 52, been playing since high school, worked off and on in music stores, and currently teach guitar for a living. Also done some studio producing/playing on local projects here in West Michigan.

The Jag came very poorly set up from the factory, and in fact I'm betting this is the reason it was returned to MF. The neck was seriously underbowed, the G string consistently hung up badly in the nut (making it impossible to keep in tune), and the D string buzzed badly in the nut also. However, these are all easily solved. I took it to my friend Del Langejans, who's a well-known Luthier, and he talked me into 12-53 roundwounds, as well as adding a second string tree for the 3rd and 4th strings.

Once the set up was done, I plugged it into a Blues Deluxe, and the thing barked like a dog. Rockabilly heaven.

When I A/B'd the Classic against an AVRI about a month ago (in a store two hours away), I thought the neck pickup in particular was murky and undefined, even after adjusting the amp to allow for the difference in pickup output (the CP pickups are much hotter). But without the AVRI in the room with me, I really liked the CP neck pickup.

Back at my studio I plugged it into a '66 Super Reverb, as well as my Fender reverb tank, and it was great all around: all the characteristic Jag sounds were there, to my ear.

Del's opinion was: he liked the new tune-o-matic style bridge, and the improved neck radius.

I'm pretty happy with the guitar, with one tiny blip. If any of you can shine some light on this, I'd much appreciate it...

The strings dip unevenly with the trem. This took me a week to recognize. The high E dips noticeably less than the G string, and the rest are uneven as well. So for instance as I bend an open Emi down just a hair, maybe a quarter step, the high E goes a quarter step, but the B string goes an entire half step. I compared this to the strat style trem on my Jagmaster, and the Jagmaster dipped evenly across all the strings.

Any thoughts?

Other than this, I'm very happy with the guitar.

Thanks for the review, it was very helpful.

I'm looking into getting a Jaguar soon, or a Jazzmaster.

Edventure
The strings dip unevenly with the trem.

I noticed this too. The tremolo has a single fixed point, see photos on this topic:
http://surfguitar101.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=3821&highlight=mascis
If you hold the arm perpendicular to the strings the trem will tend to
rotate on an axis parallel to the strings. If you hold the arm parallel to the
strings the trem will tend to rotate on an axis parallel to the bridge.
Somewhere in between there is twisting.
It's like the difference between a guitar with Bigsby B5 and a
guitar with a Bigsby B6. The B5 is screwed to the body and doesn't twist
while the B6 twists at the hinge, the only point connected to the guitar.
They sound different. I'm sure this "twisting" adds to the different tremolo
sounds between these two.

Edventure
Hmm...another possibility: The bridge moves a little with the trem arm, sort of like the Bigsby bridge. It rocks slightly forward. Since the intonation adjustments for the strings are set at different points forward and backward, maybe they have different distances to travel?

That's true but a Stratocaster bridge rocks back and forth too, it's attached to
the tremolo and rocks with the tremolo.
When I got my Jaguar (an AVRI) I had two other problems that affected
the tremolo action. One was that both bridge posts were not centered in
the cups. One post would hit the side of the cup and that side stopped
rocking. This tends to even its self up as the strings slip on the bridge
barrels and you need to retune. In that way it's self centering.
I'm not sure how easily the string slip on a tune-o-matic bridge.
The other was that the knife plate was not set parallel with the
fulcrum, which is attached to the baseplate. The gap between the
knife plate and the baseplate was not even. On one side the ball ends
of the strings would hit the baseplate.
I'm still sticking with my tremolo twisting theory.
I understand that the tremolo on a classic players is closer to the bridge
than on a AVRI. I wonder how that affects the twisting effect.
image

I was prepared to send away for the AVRI style collet to get the trem arm to stay in place on my CP jag. I assumed (you know what happens when you assume :oops:) the threaded nature of the beast would mean the bottom would be open. Turns out the standard strat "trem arm securing spring" actually works in the CP trem Actually a shorter spring would be better on mine, but I don't have the factory original arm so I can't speak to that. I don't like the tip of the arm being over the neck pickup and neck. I like the tip to be about where I pick, so I have a strat length arm on mine.