Just scored a Reflex!

[MarkF786]

I saw Wild West Guitars had a sunburst Reflex in mint condition for $1500 (free shipping & new tax), and I couldn't resist.

I have an Axis, but I think the contours and large size of the Reflex will be a better fit for me. And from the pictures, it indeed looks to be in mint condition (and Wild West seems to have a good reputation).

I'm looking forward to it!

 

[beej]

Nice!

 

[JasonT]

Congrats! The Reflex is a great guitar! Enjoy!

 

[GWDavis28]

Congrats!!!!

Glenn |B)

 

[Sweat]

Nice snag, looks great, Wild West is cool but usually a bit high you got that at a great price

 

[V_S]

A real beauty.. like the sunburst!

 

[MarkF786]

Reading back on the forum discussions from the time, there was a lot more love for the 25th Anniversary model than the Reflex - but TBH, I like the look of the sunburst better than the red figured maple of the 25th. But if the 25th were also a burst, it might be a different story.

I'll be curious to hear the resonance of the guitar, with the chambered basswood, mahogany tone block, and maple top. For a long time, my #1 guitar has been a Hamer Talladega Pro, which has a chambered body that greatly improves the guitars resonance, plugged or unplugged - and I have a standard Talladega to compare it to, which is a bit dead in comparison. I see both the EBMM 25th and Tally Pro were released in 2009, so maybe chambering was more in vogue then.

 

[DrewH]

My great regret was selling the honey roasted reflex which was 1 of 2 on the planet. It actually came up for sale a few years after that from the same guy I sold it to but he had put some battle wounds on it. I even messaged him and he said he greatly enjoyed that guitar and it was just time to move on.

 

[banjoplayer]

congrats to you!
reflexes are great sounding machines and yours is exceptional beautiful too!

 

[MarkF786]

I received the Reflex last night and got to spend a lot of time with it today - and it's an amazing guitar!

Wild West Guitars did a great job - assuming they cleaned the guitar and did a setup - but as is my habit with any used guitar, I largely stripped it down to parts, cleaned everything pristinely, oiled the fretboard, polished the frets, etc. Then I reassembled the guitar and did a thorough setup to get everything to my preferred specs. The guitar is like brand new (except for one small scratch on the back) - which is great for a 16 year old guitar!

And damn, the guitar plays so well, and I love the versatility of the five way switch and series/parallel switch. I previously wired another dual humbucker guitar similarly, so I'm familiar with the sound of the different options, and especially like how I can almost get a Strat second position quack sound. And the guitar is very resonant, even when unplugged.

I can see this definitely becoming one of my favorites, and I certainly like it more than my Axis, in a large part because it's much more comfortable, but also I prefer the sound of it (despite them supposedly having the same pickups). The one thing better on the Axis is the neck, by a small margin, but the Reflex's neck is perfectly fine.

I think $1500 was a bargain for this. Sure, I can imagine the valuation of a Reflex might be lower, as it wasn't a popular model, and it's fairly old - but to me it's as good as as any current model today, and good luck finding a mint EMBB guitar for that price.

One minor tweak that would be cool: to put a white/mint pick guard on it! I'm not going to actually do it, but I have both a Tele and Strat in a similar, classic burst with the white/mint pick guard, so it would look natural to my eyes on the Reflex.

 

[jlf599]

I went the more extreme route and took the vintage-y burst to something I liked a little more.

To be fair, the burst on my Reflex was not great...looked worse in person than the pic here.