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 Hamer XT Sunburst |
Hamer XT Sunburst Flametop
Summary: Modeled after the Hamer USA Studio, this Chinese-made axe is an affordable alternative to its American cousin. Featuring a solid mohagany body and neck with flame maple top and rosewood neck, the XT Sunburst has a naturally bright voice that’s both versatile and expressive. Very nice build quality. Pros: Sweet, gorgeous voice at mild breakup levels, but is quite comfortable doing high-gain, which is probably where it’s best applied. This would be a great starter electric guitar! Cons: Not much inherent sustain, especially in the upper registers where the guitar seems to lose gas. Hamer headstock is huge (that’s just a personal nit)! Price: $349-$399 street Specs: See web site Tone Bone Score: 4.0 – This is not a bad guitar, and it would definitely be something I’d consider as a starter instrument for one of my kids. It’s a nice-looking and with a little work, a nice playing guitar that would be perfect for which to start out a new guitarist. |
In addition to being an incredible amp builder, Jeff Aragaki of Aracom Amps is as much a gear slut as I am, probably more so with guitars. Recently, he made the purchase of a Hamer XT Sunburst that he let me test. I had only played USA Hamer’s in the past, so this was to be my first experience with one of Hamer’s Chinese-made guitars.
Fit and Finish
Taking the XT Sunburst out of its gig bag, I was struck by its looks. It is a very beautiful guitar, and the burst finish really accentuates the flame maple top. It is also extremely light in weight, which is a huge point in its favor. Hamer calls it an “archtop,” but it’s more of a carved top, with gorgeous lines. The body wood is made of two pieces mahogany that look like they came from different parts of the tree. It’s not bad, it’s just kind of funky looking. Overall though, the finish is quite nice.
The neck is an extremely shallow C-shape neck. It felt pretty good in my fretting hand, and made it easy to get around the neck with ease. I love the short neck butt of this guitar, which allows you to reach real high notes without first having to do hand-stretching exercises.
Playability
Here’s where the poor setup that I mentioned above came into play. The action was set pretty high, and lowering the action just a fraction immediately caused some string buzz which means that there’s a bit of a bow in the neck. I confirmed this with a quick spot check. It’s not my guitar so I didn’t want to adjust the truss rod. The high action made it difficult to move with speed across the strings. But mind you, it’s not so bad that the guitar is unplayable. I would suspect that with a good setup, this guitar has the potential to play very nicely.
Sound
Tonally, this is a very nice-sounding guitar. I just wish there was more of it. The thin body and neck don’t provide enough resonance to hold notes for very long, so if you’re looking for a guitar that will sustain for a long time, this ain’t it. The saving grace is the very beautiful voice it does have. Here’s a clip I quickly recorded:
The guitar was plugged straight into the drive channel of my Aracom VRX22. Volume was set at just the edge of breakup. The guitar was recorded dry, and I added just a touch of reverb after the fact.
Like I said, the XT Sunburst has a sweet, bright voice.
Overall Impressions
For a sub-$500 guitar, it’s not bad at all, and as a start guitar, it would be perfect. And as long as you keep your expectations aligned with what this guitar has to offer, it’ll serve you well. I did get a chance to plug it into my pedal board, and playing it through a compressor/sustainer or an overdrive pedal that adds some sustain will work wonders with this guitar. It does play nice with pedals, which is a saving grace.
Guitar Gear 
I purchased this same Hamer recently, and was also floored by the physical beauty of the thing. Indestinguishable from a $2100 model I saw in the local music shop last week. Mine also had very high action, the strings a full 1/4 inch above the frets where the neck meets the body. No wonder I couldn’t play a thing! Lowered the action to meet the levels of my other axes and will see what happens. The tone I was able to accomplish through my Marshal was impressive. Very happy with this guitar. The Hamer website lists serial number charts for their guitars so you can figure out what year your Hamer comes from. Don’t bother. This production/mass produced Hamer isn’t part of that structure….it has a different serial number that what’s listed. If you buy one used as I did, the guy at Hamer will tell you “it comes from the last 5 years or so”. Beautiful guitar, highly recommended.
I love mine. This is the first guitar i’ve had where I play the neck pickup more than the bridge. This guitar made me fall in love with the neck position of guitars.
sweet guitar. For the sustain i can help you with that. Try swapping out the bridge for something more heavy. I tonerited my guitar as well and it drastically improved the sustain. There, I hoped that helped 🙂
That’s great advice! Thanks!
I tried this guitar (the version with P90 pup’s) in a local music shop. Since I live on a small island we do not have any large music stores. It was a beautiful guitar, the finish was incredible, the tone on the P90 version is, imo, much, much better than the humbucker version which I also tried. The playability for me, is better than my MIM Strat.. but here is where that setup problem comes in, in my local music shop.. he will set up the guitar when you buy it, free of charge. That includes lowering the action etc.. so my advice is if your going to buy one (you should and I am going to tomorrow) then try and buy it from a smaller, local music shop, they will usually set up the guitar in their bid against the larger shops!
just got one used. very good sound and action low ,good play it clean and overdrive. both sounds great. would recommend to buy or a least try one out
just picked mine up used for cheap. this guitar won’t stay in tune for five minutes. I tightened the tuning pegs which didn’t help and seem to be cheaply built. has anybody swapped out tuning keys with grovers or something better? I put new strings on but still sounds and feels dead. anybody have any suggestions? maybe headstock was severed at one time? I bought this for a backup on stage but I don’t think i’ll put my ash body strat down unless i absolutely have to.
That’s the thing I found with cheap guitars. While there are gems to be found in each lot made, in general, most sound cheap, so you have to play several. Obviously, there are exceptions. One such exception is the “Classic Vibe” series of Squier guitars. I played several when I got my CV Tele, and each was really well-made and sounded great. You might consider checking out the CV Strat @ $349.
Thanks, I have 2001 ashe body new american standard now. I’m sure the CV couldn’t hold a candle to it. I’m looking for something different other than a strat tone if I invest that much in a guitar.
It’s a totally different sound. But you’d be surprised just how good that CV Tele sounds. https://guitargear.wordpress.com/files/2009/12/strutter.mp3
didn’t get on this blog to talk to sales man! still haven’t got an answer.
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2015 18:19:28 +0000 To: guitaron1959@live.com
Not trying to sell you a thing, Ronnie… Like I said in the article, the guitar wasn’t mine, but it did have a pretty nice voice. You could go for brighter strings to liven up the sound, or… you could take it to a good guitar tech. He or she would have a much better idea of what hardware you could install to give the guitar more “life.” Personally, I would first look to the nut and the bridge. But it also looks like you need some new tuners. As far as mentioning the CV Tele, I probably should’ve qualified that with the work that you’d have to do on the guitar, you could get another one for the price of the work.
in other words the guitar and the design are a piece of crap! thanks for your time,
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2015 05:11:08 +0000 To: guitaron1959@live.com
Actually, I’m not saying that at all. The guitar I played sounded great. The setup wasn’t all that good, but nothing that a couple of turns of an Allen wrench couldn’t fix. There are various videos demonstrating how great the guitar sounds and plays. Unfortunately, you may have gotten a lemon.
agreed. lemon! it was free so i think I’ll smash it at the end of a hendrix song! https://soundcloud.com/guitaron1959
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2015 21:11:32 +0000 To: guitaron1959@live.com