Welcome to the Kramer Forum

Was looking for a strat round last Christmas but didnt want to spend too much - so had this imported from the far east - took 6 weeks to get here and cleared customs ok.
Its a solid 1 piece alder body with quite a nice if slightly fat 2 piece maple neck ie it has separate maple board. The electrics have been totally replaced and a set of fat 50s pickups installed and it now sounds A1.
A luthier called Steve Preston did all the work for me including a new bone nut and set up - his work has been excellent including a recent fret dress on my Liberty which is now playing like butter.
The end cost - well including a good quality case which came with it was a bit more than i would have paid for a Mexican Fender Strat - but people who have played it tell me they think its much /much nicer.

Looks great Is that a Japan model?

no - its one of the chinese made guitars - to be honest i didnt know what to expect - you pays your money and takes your chance.In all honesty i am really pleased with the final outcome now that all the necessary work has been done.
I currently have a custom build Strat guitar in the making with a Kramer strat headstock - i will post when that is complete.

I've heard more than once that if you change out the cheap bits & proper tweaking, you can end up with a very nice guitar.
Looks good.

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But let's face it, someone buys a Kramer b/c it has a Floyd.

yes i think its true - when the guitar arrived it was only just playable - the volume pots were all minis/ pickups werent good/ the 3rd string fretted out and the trem was hopeless - but after some work and switching out the electronics/ replacing the nut/ truss rod adjustment/trem adjustment its turned out a really nice guitar to play and sounds particularly nice in the out of phase positions.
If i were to look for a one piece alder strat body anywhere else and with the flame in the neck i dread to think what it may have cost me.
It might be interesting to report on this guitar in a few years time (if im still here !!) cos there are a lot of people saying these guitars wont last and will split and crack cos the timbers arent seasoned properly - i have an open mind - so lets wait and see .

The difference in the wood quality is most strongly related to the basic tone, cheap woods sound less focused and will usually be more "flabby" with less mids and harmonics. Not always bad as such, but mostly you can never turn it into a high-end guitar. For example my Focus/Pacer mutt sounds crappy due to the sub-par neck wood, a real Pacer kills it easily both unplugged and through the amp. Same goes for most Strat mutts I had when compared to a US Deluxe - worlds of difference.

It will never be equal in tonal quality but the purchaser already knows that going in. If they expect anything else, they are in for a surprise.

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But let's face it, someone buys a Kramer b/c it has a Floyd.

Actually just wanted to say that it probably won't split or fall apart, but got distracted with the tone issue