I was looking for a cheap surf style guitar for making surf and garage rock music. I wanted something to contrast with my Wilson Bros. VM-65 for home recordings. Also wanted to avoid getting another strat as I seem to get 7-year itch with them and have to lock them away for a long time and then rediscover them.

I narrowed my choice down to the reissued Danelectro Dead-On 67 (originally Hornet) and the reissued Aria (originally 1532T). The only resource available for my research was videos on youtube and reviews of the Dano on Harmony Central. There is absolutely nothing on the Aria and in the end I decided to take a chance buy one sight unseen, I already have a Danelectro U-2 '56.

First thing that struck me on it's arrival was the quality of the Alder wood used for the body. 3-piece flame with a fairly subtle 3 tone sunburst not too shabby for a $300 guitar. Bridge and vibrato unit are pretty much a dead-on copy of the Fender Jaguar equipment even down to the trem-lock facility on the tailpiece.

The bridge placement was a little off necessitating the saddles' adjustment right on the limit of travel. If one decided to shim the neck I think it would run out of adjustment. It didn't look too good either so I ordered a Fender Jag bridge cover to improve the appearance and it was a straight fit. The nut is good hard material like Delrin but I had to file down the slots they were way too high. One fret was a little high on the high E string caused a buzz but that was easily taken care of.

Overall the the fit and finish is superb apart from the above issues, the neck is a nice tight fit. Mine came without string trees as they are basically redundant with the headstock angled back like a Gibson. Switch and wiring are OK, I think it sounds too bright overall maybe a change of pots or a cap might tame the ice-pick treble. The pickups are ceramic P94 style single-coil and I actually think they are OK even though they are probably the cheapest available. I like it now I've tweaked it a little. I will be putting up a video demo on my youtube channel shortly to give folks a better idea of it.

Hey and congrats, looks cool. Please post some soundclips.

Nils

"If it hadn’t been for Link Wray and 'Rumble,' I would have never picked up a guitar." - Pete Townshend, The Who

The Twang-O-Matics - Facebook
The Twang-O-Matics - homepage

Playing-wise, I don't rate it as the best. I suppose I use my Rickenbacker 620 as the exemplary benchmark for playability. The frets are wide and medium height and I think they would benefit from a good polish. Action is fine after I adjusted the nut. Neck profile is comfortable, more like the generic Asian shallow C.

As far as the trem goes, I would say it's similar to the Jaguar (I've played one but not owned one). So I suppose it has all the baggage of the Jaguar bridge faults, yes it sometimes creaks. Down bend is a semitone and up bend is the same. I'm probably not the best person to rate the trem as I've never even played a Bigsby. My motivation to buy this guitar was to try and get something like the old Hofner stratalikes from the 60's that I grew up learning on. I imagined something like the Yamaha SG-2 that Link Wray used to play and I'm pretty happy on that score

I would say the Aria neck is noticeably wider that the Dano and also a bit shallower, Really I think it sounds better than it plays, but then it takes me an awful long time to get used to new guitars. Took me 2 years to fully bond with my Rickenbacker yet funnily enough I liked the Wilson Bros. from the start, there's something good about Korean neck profiles (my Dano is Korean also).

Nilstempo wrote:

It`s wider then the Dano?! Anyway, soundclips would be
nice

I just measured both guitars with a Mitutoyo vernier gauge...
Aria is 43mm at the nut and 54mm at the 12th fret
Dano is 41mm at the nut and 53mm at the 12th fret

soundclips to follow probably by the end of the week

Love the look of the rascal. It looks like an axe I'd grab first at a pawn shop, only to be let down by some cheezy flaw consistent with old Japanese guitars. The fact that it's lacking most of those issues (not unlike my Yamaha SG-2's) intrigues me more.

--Crispy

Sounds great! Reminds me a little of a Danelectro, but I don't know why that should be.

http://www.reverbnation.com/thedeadranchhands

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZEW74mHjQk

I think I might have just seen the next addition to my arsenal.

THE KBK ... This is the last known signal. We offer Sanctuary.

www.thekbk.com
http://www.deepeddy.net/artists/thekbk/
www.reverbnation.com/thekbk
www.facebook.com/thekbkal

They seem to be in short supply ever since they were introduced last year. I had problems getting hold of one in England. There were basically 3 online dealers in the whole country advertising it for sale but after making further enquiries it was apparent that none of them had one in stock. There was a dealer in Ireland selling one on ebay/uk but his price was too high.

I managed to get one of the UK dealers to call the Aria European distributor and they only had 2 in stock.

Looks like this is the only place in USA that has them
AriaGuitarsPlus

good luck

I was just browsing ebay and found a used (but near mint) one of these that was ending in a minute and the current price was around $100. I sniped a bid in and just picked it up for around $150.

I dont really need another guitar, but I love the way it looks and for $150 you cant beat it. Besides, having a backup is always handy (especially since my Gretsch is in the shop right now)

Searching for aria 1532 and aria retro, theres a couple more on ebay in the mid 200-300 range if anyone else was thinking of picking one up.

I'm no guitar expert, but I'll post a pic and some thoughts on the guitar when I get it.

Cheers!

Last edited: Mar 18, 2012 09:32:08