Brand New Member with question

Collingsguy

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Mar 1, 2014
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My question is should one go for the S2 Starla or wait for a regular Starla. Checking today, there was not a single regular Starla on eBay. In addition, how does everyone feel about the s2 pickups in the Starla S2l thank you in advance for your responses!
 
If you can wait, some great deals for regular Starlas show up. A near mint one with Bigsby went yesterday on The Gear Page for around $900, which was an absolute steal. If I didn't have nearly the exact same one, I would have bought it.

I don't know if the S2 pickups differ, but the regular ones are stellar….clear and so sweet.

Good luck on your search.
 
Don't forget to check out GC's used website. They have 5 or 6 currently for great deals. I've bought a lot of guitars from them over the years.
 
I thought the S2 Starlas were pretty good too. They have a really clean voice that gives a singlecoil-y vibe, even with some nice crunch. The dealbreaker or dealmaker here would be the Bigsby I guess. Some people wanted stoptails and some wanted the Bigsby. The original Starla had stoptails and Bigsby option but the S2 comes with a Bigsby only. But keep in mind that the S2s are half the price of a Core Starla (more than half if you're looking at used ones).
 
I thought the S2 Starlas were pretty good too. They have a really clean voice that gives a singlecoil-y vibe, even with some nice crunch. The dealbreaker or dealmaker here would be the Bigsby I guess. Some people wanted stoptails and some wanted the Bigsby. The original Starla had stoptails and Bigsby option but the S2 comes with a Bigsby only. But keep in mind that the S2s are half the price of a Core Starla (more than half if you're looking at used ones).

Actually the Starla Stoptail was a somewhat limited run. The Bigsby was a standard feature in most cases - you are more likely to see used ones with Bigsbys than without. In the past few years in this part of the world I have only seen one stoptail come up secondhand on eBay, for example, and I have seen many of the Bigsby versions.

The Core Starla had a B5 tailpiece, the S2 has a B50 (so a made-overseas-under-license model).

The scale length and neck carve are different as well (Core = 24.5, W/F then Pattern depending on year, S2 = 25 and Pattern Regular), so there will be feel differences between the two. How severe depends on how sensitive one is to those things.

As a massive fan of the Core Starla I'd hunt down one of those - as has been mentioned, they go for less than they should! There are at least a couple on eBay in the UK at the moment, so they pop up.

That said, the S2 version is arguably the nicest of the S2 models and it still manages to sound pretty good even if it doesn't quite capture that FilterTron-y vibe of the original.
 
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