NGD: NS S-200 Thunderbird

Thanks, Admins, for fixing my thread name typo.

My black T-bird arrived this morning. It's light. Weighs about the same as my '71 S-100 and less than the '73. Well balanced too. Gave it a quick by-ear tuneup after unboxing and plugged it straight into my old Vox Pacemaker. Sounds very nice indeed: clear with mid oomph at the neck, jangly with some hollow twang in the middle (both pickup switches on) and bright & snappy at the bridge. The white bass-cut switch helps the neck pickup and middle config cut through better with the mid-rich Vox revved up, and gives the bridge p'up a useful faux electro-acoustic tonality with the amp running clean.

I have backed off the neck pickup height some. If the T-bird had individual vols for each p'up I would've left it a little higher, but this way I get a great tonal balance with both p'ups on. The bridge p'up is just a touch louder than the neck with this setup. BTW, my notion of swapping the p'ups around disappeared after a few minutes of play. Utterly unnecessary. To my ears anyway.

The alternate vol & tone setup, neck pickup only, sounds the same as the standard setup with the neck p'up selected. At least it does through the Pacemaker. This is different compared to the Jazzmaster & Jaguar, which use different pot and capacitor values in their alt circuits. I've rolled off the T-bird's alt tone knob a bit for a mellow sound, which I can see using as a preset chord comping, thumb strumming voice.

Once I put on a set of my preferred strings—GHS Burnished Nickel Rocker 11s—I'll tweak the polepiece heights and dial in the relief and bridge height & intonation. But the guitar is set up well right out of the gigbag so I shouldn't have to do much. Gotta remove the pickguard overlay too, now that I've memorized where the "Mode Switch" is.

Here are some pics taken with my phone.









Here's a pic showing the pickup heights as I've set them. Haven't touched the bridge p'up actually as it sounds fine as is volume- & tone-wise.



-Dave-

Very nice in black - that's a lot of switches to play with, too!

Congratulations!

walrus

Sweet!

nice! congrats!!

Good lookin' next gen Guild, congrats!

Nice
Is it worth the price of admission?

Very nice. Thanks for the review. Congrats !

2nevets said:

Nice
Is it worth the price of admission?

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Yeah, I think so. Now that I've put on my preferred strings and given it a longer workout—spent most of the evening noodling on it while watching baseball on TV, sound muted, and occasionally heading outside to see the moon & Jupiter nearby each other in the evening sky—I can hear better what its voice is. With the Nickel Rocker 11s, fresh as they are, the tone is less steely and noticeably richer. The bridge pickup in particular has some nice beef to it now. It's not an HB-1—these p'ups don't have the same girth as their larger siblings—but still it sounds great. The neck p'up is darker now but still very clear. Both p'ups are definitely in the same tonal ballpark as the "anti-hums" in my Bluesbird.

Feel-wise the T-bird is a lot like my '71 S-100. Similar neck profile, same medium jumbo frets (the '71 has been refretted). Acoustically it has the same bright, ringy tone too. Good sustain and resonance.

Time will tell, but right now I'd say it's a keeper!

-Dave-

Quantum Strummer said:

Feel-wise the T-bird is a lot like my '71 S-100. Similar neck profile, same medium jumbo frets (the '71 has been refretted).

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Is the neck wider than your '71? Is it 1 11/16" (43mm) like the specs say? Similar or wider than the NS M-75 Aristocrat?

Fixed the D. Nice score.

Wow! That's really sharp looking, congrats. I haven't really checked them out since they were announced, so I bounced over to the Guild site. I noticed that it comes in a gig bag, no hard case? That's too bad, these deserve a case! I might need to get one someday anyway. The price is insanely low.

I see they put labels on the pick guard to identify the switches. That would have saved me some time when I was trying to figure them out.

fronobulax said:

Fixed the D. Nice score.

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Thank you!

-Dave-

GAD said:

I see they put labels on the pick guard to identify the switches. That would have saved me some time when I was trying to figure them out.

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Hehe, yeah, the labels are on the clear overlay. I've removed it now. Also adjusted the main vol & tone knobs so their "9"s line up with the little indicator dots on the pickguard. Forgot to mention last night that I raised up the neck pickup by a small amount—I'd originally lowered it, and it's still lower than it was originally—after putting on the GHS strings. Bridge p'up height, ABR-1 height and neck relief were all perfect out of the gig bag. Same with nut slot depth and fret dressing. I did widen the G nut slot for my preferred .018 wound string.

-Dave-

Alan_M said:

I noticed that it comes in a gig bag, no hard case? That's too bad, these deserve a case! I might need to get on someday anyway. The price is insanely low.

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No hard case, which is a downside of the nice price point. My '71 S-100's case is a rectangular one, and the T-bird fits fine inside it. So I'll probably get an aftermarket SG case and keep the S-100 in that.

Edit: here's a phone pic of the T-bird inside the S-100's case. The boots are an added bonus. Contrast has been reduced a lot to show detail, and as a result the blue case interior has turned gray/green. Not a perfect fit for the guitar, but a snug one.



-Dave-

Zelja said:

Is the neck wider than your '71? Is it 1 11/16" (43mm) like the specs say? Similar or wider than the NS M-75 Aristocrat?

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It feels the same width-wise as the '71's neck. I'll have to measure the nut width to give you a proper answer.

Update edit: I've measured nut width & string spacing (at the nut) on the T-bird and S-100. String spacing defined as "from the outer edge of the low E string through the high E."

S-100: nut width 1 10/16"; string spacing 1 7/16".

NS S-200: nut width 1 23/32"; string spacing 1 7/16".

Playing the two guitars back-to-back, the neck profile is indeed a very similar slim C. I do notice the T-bird's extra width, but only for a moment before I auto-adjust.

My Aristocrat is currently on holiday at a friend's apartment. From memory the neck has a rounder profile than the T-bird's. I suspect string spacing is again the same.

-Dave-

That's a sharp looking guitar. If they make it in white, I'm definitely getting one.

Quantum Strummer said:

It feels the same width-wise as the '71's neck. I'll have to measure the nut width to give you a proper answer.

Update edit: I've measured nut width & string spacing (at the nut) on the T-bird and S-100. String spacing defined as "from the outer edge of the low E string through the high E."

S-100: nut width 1 10/16"; string spacing 1 7/16".

NS S-200: nut width 1 23/32"; string spacing 1 7/16".

Playing the two guitars back-to-back, the neck profile is indeed a very similar slim C. I do notice the T-bird's extra width, but only for a moment before I auto-adjust.

My Aristocrat is currently on holiday at a friend's apartment. From memory the neck has a rounder profile than the T-bird's. I suspect string spacing is again the same.

-Dave-

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Thanks, I appreciate that. I prefer the wider neck so that has me excited! I wonder if Grot's original (which was used as the basis for the model) has the the same size neck or if they have tried to standardize the neck width on the Newark Street series (as it appears to be from the quoted specs)? I know a lot of the 60s guitars have the 1 5/8' neck width, though I have managed to find wider ones for the ones I own.

S100 said:

That's a sharp looking guitar. If they make it in white, I'm definitely getting one.

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+ 1 & I think they have done a great job on the sunburst as well but I would probably prefer a white one of I had a choice. Which do you prefer black or white guard, arctic white or aged white? -

Black guard. I like it in the arctic white, but aged one looks pretty cool, too.