WESTONE SPECTRUM II

  • Two Westone Spectrum II Electric Guitars Red and Black
    Westone Spectrum II Electric Guitars

Overview

Brand name: 

Product: 

  • electric guitars

Series name: 

Dates of manufacture: 

1984 to 1990

The Westone Spectrum II had a solid alder body with a one piece maple neck and rosewood fingerboard. The nut was graphite. The scale length was 25.5 inches and it had 22 frets.
Pickups were two Westone (Matsumoku) made Hammer humbuckers. Controls were one master volume, two tone controls (with push-pull pots for coiltap and reverse phase) and a three way pickup selector. Hardware was black: a vintage style tremolo tailpiece and precise tuner 1 machineheads. Finish options were apple red or black.

Specifications

Prices (2)

DatePriceConditionNameComments
2014€125good
2016$600new

Reviews (1)

WESTONE SPECTRUM II reviewed by Dave Sharp

4
Average: 4 (1 vote)
In short a great guitar. I’ve bought, sold and swapped over four years looking for a guitar I could feel really at home with. The Spectrum Guitars covered a wide selection of models. Mine is the 1984 shape with the body based on the Thunder and concord. What surprised me was the overall quality. Neck is a beautiful shape. A slim shouldered C type shape but not sharp sided like some I have owned. Fretboard is that slim vintage style board. Not a huge ugly slab but perfectly balanced with the neck. Truss rod works better than my ESP and once set up, I felt no need to tinker. Playing response is light and springy. Frets aren’t high but very similar to older Gibsons and Fenders. Tuners are spot on and respond like a set of Sperzels. Bridge I blocked off as I don’t like Strat style vibratos. Hardware is working fine and on a 36 year old instrument, that is good going, pickups are clear with plenty of volume. I play with my controls eased back and use the volume and tone left for feedback and sustaining notes. I rarely play maxed out. There are. 3 knobs. Master volume, neck tone and bridge tone, the neck tone has a push pull to switch to parallel for lower output and the bridge tone has a phase reversal working in the same way. The out of phase is fab for funky cleans and Brian May style leads. Only downside is massive, they are cheap to buy and can be hard to find in the earlier Thunder shape. Other than that it’s my favourite guitar ever.

Gallery (1)

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