I've loved watching the evolution of the sock test. The photo negative is the perfect illustration.

@jazzsounds8159

Жыл бұрын

Could you please review the new Sire H7V for a thicker neck? P90's. Thanks.

I think you’re one of the few reviewer on KZread that I can trust. Thanks for doing these honest reviews!

Going with unpotted pickups gets a tip of the hat from me...that's some real attention to detail (if the goal is to get as close to vintage spec as possible).

You set the standard for guitar reviews. The detail is truly top notch. Well done!

I’ve had a H7 in Red finish for nearly 9 months from Andertons in Guildford UK and am blown away by everything about it. Is a great all round guitar for most styles, Great job Sire.

Was at guitar center the other day. Picked one of these off the rack and plugged it. Fell in love with it immediately. Bought it on the spot. Awesome guitar for the price.

Low output humbuckers are such a dream in a 335 style guitar.... or any guitar for that matter. They will hit the front of a pushed amp just fine. Much more articulate and just better overall than higher output pickups. Great demo.

@jfar3340

2 жыл бұрын

Articulate for some is bright city for others.

@AAllinsonNN

2 жыл бұрын

Couldn’t agree more. As someone that grew up playing metal, I’ve found that low output pickups can give you everything you want, if the rest of the rig is tuned in well. High output pick ups push everything too much, and by the time it hits the amp, it’s just a mess. && dang - if only there was something you could put between a guitar and an amp that tuned the EQ…. 😮‍💨

@rickc2102

2 жыл бұрын

And if you really need it, just use a boost.

@jfar3340

2 жыл бұрын

@@rickc2102 boost color everything and tend to make things muddy. Outside of a mix or band situation, I avoid boosts. Once my pickups were so low output that I could hear anything even with the amp on 10.

@StayHomeEatGreat

Жыл бұрын

Good observation. Yes this is one of the very few humbuckers that I like. All the other I've tried have been Duncan's and just too muddy.

My exact guitar. It's great, powerful pick ups...louder than my PRS on same amp volume. Neck is defo narrow...Great for lead playing. It bites, it sings, it cries...love it.

@barondavis5692

3 ай бұрын

Do you like the Sire more than the PRS? Which has better “playability?” Thanks

I bought one. I love it. If it gets stolen I'll buy another one. I don't want to change the pickups, they sound great on their own & they play nicely with my Strat biased pedal-board. It looks exactly as presented in Phil's excellent review. If the 3 way switch broke I'd replace it with a switchcraft but as the soldering's so good I won't. My hobby is building partscasters. This is a great buy for the price.

I played a sunburst Sire H7 two days ago at a big box store. I really liked it. Great sounding and easy to play with my smaller hands. I plan to purchase one later this year.

That seems extremely high quality! Great deep dive, Phil, and well done, Sire!

It is the best guitar review I have watched ever. Very very informative & professional. Chapeau.

Excellent review. No dilly-dallying, just awesome information, sensibly chosen playing to reveal the tones - much appreciated! Sire sounding like a great brand!

I appreciate you touching on the string spacing and all that. Im a big guy with very big hands (can easily palm a basketball) and had kind of been considering trying one of these to see how it stacks up to my Epiphone. But now knowing it is a narrower one makes it easier to keep the GAS at bay, or really just means maybe I'll have to try out a different Sire instead lol. Thanks Phil!

@garrettmundy4914

2 жыл бұрын

Yeah I'm one of those that likes a chunkier neck also. I would have to really see if this one felt comfortable. Sure is a nice instrument though.

@bradwebber3211

2 жыл бұрын

All the Larry Carlton models have the narrow nut, he prefers it as he can play some really stretchy chords easier. It's the same size as his 1968 Gibson.

@Andrew_182

2 жыл бұрын

@Brad Webber Well, shoot. Thanks for the heads up.

@StayHomeEatGreat

Жыл бұрын

Super comfortable neck. True to Larry it's a soloists dream.

Love the sound of these pickups, very sweet on cleans and creamy on overdrive, sounds so good. Great guitar.

Wow...what a great review and very nice enjoyable playing! I bought the same guitar last year, but mine had string buzz, many dead spots and the frets were uneven like a mogul field. I had to invest some money and now it is perfect....no buzz, no dead spots and a perfect intonation! The guitar looks beautiful and sounds great!

Super detailed review. This helped a lot and filled the gaps in the manufacturers info 👍

Those are some of the sweetest sounding pickups I've ever heard. Like a less angry P90

Just bought one, and what impressed me is that they made a lefty version for the same price, which isn't always the case. It's a good guitar.

@pdlawson-venusloon359

6 ай бұрын

Yeh, I recently got a lefty H7 too and I absolutely love it.

You do great, short, concise reviews. Thanks for posting.

So concentrated qualifiyng stuff, man that is really professional. Great videos here, so much info in short time, thanx !

Excellent review, Phil. Very thorough and useful for anyone considering a 335 style guitar. Fantabulous bit of Van Morrison you slipped in there.

Thanks Phillip, I always like your videos... I've purchased items you have reviewed, and always been very pleased...

Watching this again, this guitar sounds *magnificent* Phil!

Thanks for doing this. I bought an L7 partly due to your review and I love it. (Only my second guitar ). I’ve been thinking of getting one of those semi hollows too. It’s Larry Carlton after all! So great timing for this review.

First time watching your channel, and I find…. the perfect review! You really do set the standard (not just detail but style).

I have one just like this and honestly I LOVE the look of it. I also really enjoy the tones coming straight out of the guitar, I can get a nice jazz tone just by DI'ing and turning the tone knob down.

Wow what a very thorough honest review , well done.

I love your reviews. This one is a topper. I once had a vintage '60 ES-335 but, sadly, let it go several years ago. As you played the Sire H7 clean, I heard what (to me) was the classic sound I grew to love from my old Gibson ES. That's a pretty amazing guitar.

Very thorough reviews, I'm enjoying your attention to detail!

Well rounded review. Nice playing on that neck pickup demo, too! Sounds nice. Thx

What a great resource you provide. Much appreciated. SUBSCRIBED!

With all of his inside knowledge of build quality it’s safe to say ‘this dude is a guitar’ Great vid per usual.

Phil this level of information is like a dream for me! Love this format!

I have the S7 fantastic in the Blue flame, such a brilliant guitar for the money, leaves the Epiphone and Squire standing, these will become collectable, such a user friendly guitar, your model was so nice had a great finish

Loving the Deep Dive format!

Have one. You’re spot on. Loved it out of the box. I have options. This one is right at the top. Would definitely buy again. My hands a pretty good sized and usually I don’t like smaller necks. This one’s a keeper.

So much more thorough than anyone else who reviews guitars. Sounds like that guitar was created with jazz solos in mind. Thanks again.

@jfar3340

2 жыл бұрын

Really? It doesnt sound like jazz at all (or maybe very very modern jazz)

@AAllinsonNN

2 жыл бұрын

@@jfar3340 you don’t think that had more to do with Phil’s amp choice? Gibson ‘57s should be really nice for jazz w/ the right amp.

@jfar3340

2 жыл бұрын

@@AAllinsonNN Funny that you mention that because blackpanel type amps are ideal for jazz, and he's playing on a stock deluxe reverb. What tube amp would you have been ''the right amp''? Unless you are referring to solid state henricksen polytone etc.

Phil is a great reviewer. I have one of these in red. It has a great looking top and very good fretwork. The nut is slightly more narrow than most guitars but after a few minutes of playing you adjust to it. No guitar is perfect and you manage to find work-arounds to their imperfections. That is all guitars.

I just bought one, ,trusted Phillp and am not disappointed at all, wonderful guitar

Adding a few notes what is already a great in-depth review, that smaller neck profile-shape is modelled directly from LC's guitar, and matches the typical 33x-series necks circa '67 through '70. For the mahogany necks, my H7 is a 1-piece completely including the heel. Sire has made a point of these being 1-piece mahogany neck as per LC's, and any other review I've seen so far have 1-piece mahogany necks as well. Looking at the grain on yours in the posting I'd suggest that what you might be looking at is simply the natural curve of the mahogany's grain lines? Also, the ebony fretboard is more appropriate in hardness and density to the brazilian rosewood boards used at the time as well - modern rosewood in-use today is a different species and is not as hard or dense. Last note, according to Elantric on the vguitar forum, who worked at Valley Arts and on Larry's guitar, LC's pickups were/are neck= 7.32 ohms, and the bridge= 7.03 ohms. Sire then, has done a stellar job! I've got quite a few G's myself, but after playing the Sire H7, bought it on the spot! I added Schaller tuners, M4/M8 bridge post converters and a Nashville bridge with titanium saddles, a TP-6 tailpiece, light-gold top-hat knobs, lowered the switch by removing the washer and using two underneath, and added a 60-degree bevelled 60's-style 335 pickguard with the 1' foot, and ... WOW I love my H7!

It's been my main guitar for like a year now. It's a lovely guitar!

great review thanks Phil. I have been looking for a while. when I find one I will probably pick it up. thanks again

Very helpful information! I haven't found any Sire guitars near me to play... I think the guitar is beatiful and am impressed with the build quality, but the darn neck is much thinner than I like or want. This is where you shine with this grat info! Thank you!

Definitely a smooth sounding axe for jazz playing. Very nice, great review Phil!

I have the white one and like it a lot. It plays good and the pickups sound great. The stock tuners & hardware are fine and do need to be changed. I like the neck and while having a narrower nut width, the neck carve is nice and full and fills your hand. It took me 9 months before I found a white one in stock to buy.

impressed upon me your use of closed cell foam to protect the finish from scratches.

Great review Phil. I love your format of going through 'specs', 'geeky stuff', etc. Sub'd.

Thank you for a deep and interesting dive. Great guitar. Acceptable price. Made well. Apparently at the Cort factory. Although they do not produce semi-acoustic models under their own brand. Larry is a great musician. And if he made an effort to create this brand, you can hope that there will be no disappointments. Moreover, he himself played on the Gibson 335 model and may have made some adjustments based on his experience. Good luck.

thanks Phil, insightful detailed review as always..you're the best good sir

Thank you Phil, exemplary as always. You'll have to do the Sire S7 next, personally I'm blown away. :)

Very good look at the Sire! These guitars have caught my eye. Very nice guitar at that price point. I sincerely appreciate and value your opinion...well done!

I bought this model in February of this year 2022 at the Hollywood California Guitar Center. I'm a sucker for ES type and yes as you point out Phil. It has a thin neck. I didn't like it at first but I got use to it. Great for that clean sound! Good affordable guitar. I bought the case at Sweetwater. Perfect fit!

Very knowledgeable review! Enjoyed the full breakdown before playing. Particularly the neck description emphasis as this neck would be right for me, based on your detailed commentary.

Great review. Very in-depth, which we need to make an informed decision.

Have this in red and absolutely love it

Sweet presentation and compared to other presentations of this very model, it would even rate as a deep dive where I'm concerned. The thin, smaller neck wasn't even mentioned in the other demos I watched. Great, thanks, I've entered the give away somewhere already, so I'm good there. 😇

Nice review. I think I'll keep an eye out for one of these once they become available. I have a couple Sire bass guitars and they've been great.

Damn cool demo vid. Thanks for your work.

I have one in red and love it. The is narrow and open chords need more precision than say on a tele, but get past fret 5 and the magic starts. It looks great, it feels quality.

@hlyangel1

2 жыл бұрын

Hi Barry how is the nut height? Mine is a bit high and I’m hoping lowering it a bit will make those first frets a bit easier to negotiate

Thanks for this review . Just recently heard that these have a really narrow neck and many other reviews had never mentioned this but glad you’ve pointed this out too . I was lucky to play 66 Gibson 335 but it too had a really narrow neck and I believe they only made them like this for a year . Hard for bends as you clunk really quickly into the other strings . There’s a lot of competition at this price point eg Epiphone but it’s difficult to find a store which stocks both .

Damn. I’m not even in the market for this but it looks and sounds amazing. I think I would enjoy that smaller neck too. Great review/demo!

Hey there it is. I asked, you did with the L-7. thank you!! they are making some nice guitars. I'm so tempted. Back to work now. Live entertainment workers really suffered. time to buy now!! I have small hands and am not into shredding.

i tried one of the sire strats and it was very easy playing and looked great

GREAT REVIEW AS USUAL PHIL, BEEN LOOKING FOR A LEFTY L7 👍

Your guitar reviews are in a class by themselves!!!

Nice to hear a bit of Van Morrison there Phil! Awesome video as always!

Good honest review . I've played other " Indo " built guitars they were very good instruments . They were very light in weight and the fit and finish was spot on .

Best review ever of this instrument, i just pulled the trigger on a black one and will be delievered 1 week from now.

@lazvt8469

Жыл бұрын

...how did you like the guitar????

Larry made his name on a 1966 es335, that era was known for narrow nut width. I have a MIJ tokai es with block inlays and it too is narrow, like 42 mm. No problems except the first 3 frets are tight. You get used to it.

Really nice guitar! Digging that Vans t shirt, too 👍

Fantastic review, Philip, as usual. The point you make about the neck width at the nut is interesting. Other reviewers have also commented about that. For some it's an advantage, but for me it would probably be a deal killer. I have broad fingers with broad tips and pads and need that extra space that a 43mm nut provides. As a lefty, it's almost impossible to find one of these H7s in a shop to try out the neck, so reviews really help. This guitar has many excellent features, it seems.

I liked the new pricing info part but as with the Epiphone Les Paul 59. IMO I do see the need in pointing out the joints . Love the channel

Unbelievable great review.. helpful. I am looking for clean sound ... and my first semi-hollow

I've had the H7 for about a year and I love most everything about it except the volume knob. Once you go past around 4 or 5, not a whole lot of volume change.

Saw one in guitar center a couple months ago. Was very impressed with quality and fretwork. Just wasn’t the guitar I was looking for I was actually looking for an L7.

wow this is a serious review. probably the only one this detailed on the net.

Recently purchases a H7V. Price was just under $750. Looks good and the tone is marvelous. Very good quality for the price.

Sounds great. Nice demo!

Nice guitar. The sounds it gave reminded me a lot of Randy Bachman's guitar sounds in The Guess Who.

Love my sire bass. More than any fender J bass I've played

Sire are making good quality guitars at sensible prices, and well below the big names ever increasing prices. I bought a Sire Larry Carlton S7 last year, and it realy is a great guitar that played well out of the box, with only a few tweaks required. The spec is way above most other brands, if than can keep the quality consistent, they will do well.

Ok now the real deal. I don’t have a youtube channel so nothing at stake here. I bought this at Guitar Center for over $700 but I had a 20% coupon so it was in the 550 range. I had a Quality Control issue where the qtr inch input collapsed and I had to fish it out. I didn’t want to screw it up so I had the GC tech put it back on for me. No big deal.. i do love this guitar and the highlights to me are the looks, playability and the pickups. They are not high output pickups but so what? I can push an amp just fine. The rolled edges on the neck are really nice! A+ for that. The bone nut is nice but as a player I can’t tell what its doing. The neck is small but not too bad. Basically Phil is spot on except for my two cents.. the pickups sound very professional. Don’t take my word for it. Many KZreadrs with killer sound playing the H7. Goes into your DAW really smooth!!

Phil's pickups in jars remind me of a mad scientist's laboratory - a very helpful mad scientist :)

One thing I have, Although mine is a lil older, is that it is a dyed ebony fret board. There's tiny bit of dye on the binding, and when you first get it your fingers go black at first. But after a bit of playing it goes away

My favorite style of guitar. This one was nice.

Excellent demo, Phil! 👍

What a beautiful guitar!

I bought one of these last November, and sold it this past April and bought a 2022 ES-335. You get way more then what you pay for, for the price of this guitar, but the nut width, and the potentiometers are the "Achilles heal" on this guitar.

I'm in Sydney, Australia and have my eye on one of these H7 in see through red. The Joe Bonamassa Epiphone es335 is $2800 where the Sire H7 is $1300. I can buy an amp with the change. Thanks for the great insight and I appreciate your neutral stance in the review. New subscriber.

beautiful guitar

I have a Spear RD Blues that is very similar to this. I enjoy it. I would enjoy this guitar.

Hey Phil, I really like the in depth look at the pickups of each guitar. One thing that would be cool, even though I don't know if it's possible, would be to let us know the quality of the components (magnets, pole pieces, wire, bobbins, etc) that are used in the pickups. I've noticed that higher quality pickups usually are more clear and seem to sing more than lower quality pickups, even when the pickup recipe is the same such as Gibson Burstbuckers vs Epiphone Probuckers and Seymour Duncan vs Seymour Duncan Designed. Also I can tell that certain Fender pickup models are of higher quality than others. The more affordable pickups definitely sound close to what they're emulating and they're good but most of the time they just aren't quite as good IMO. It would be cool to know the quality level of the pickups in these deep dives. If that's not something that's easy to do, maybe you could play the review guitar and then play a guitar that has the pickups that are being emulated. So for this guitar, you could play a guitar that has 57 Classics or Burstbucker 2 back to back with the review guitar.

Great looking semi hollow and sounds particularly nice through that Bad Cat.

Finally! I've been waiting for this review for months now! Of course I'm no longer in the market since I bought the CE24 I really wanted. NO REGERTS 😆

I pretty much default to Ibanez Artcore models for semi-hollows as I have had very good luck with them. But I appreciate the look at other options. Especially when they are well done at an accessible price point.

@herbertmcgowan3080

Жыл бұрын

Ibanez AS-153 is outstanding at 1,000 $ with hard case

Given Larry’s 335 is a 1968 it makes sense. I have a 68 ES175 and the neck is super narrow. The guitar sounds like a Gibson, it has that distinctive upper mid nasality! I think I’ll have to try one ….

This is the best review I have seen!

Reminds me of my Ibanez as83. These intermediate semi hollow guitars are so much bang for the buck

I've been watching Phil's channel for so long I can pretty much tell how soon he will sell/return the product off Lol!! Not a knock by any means, love all your videos!