Went the whole 9 yards: bridge set up to spec with it floating and the 2 outside screws down with the middle 4 on a vintage style 1/16" or so up...

Have learned like others that the secret is not going crazy with vibrato but taking care of the nut...

and that for most Strats...a floating bridge is still probably the best Strat option...

Yeah, I do get the "fatter" thing with the trem blocked/sort of hardtail...

But at least for me the "Stratter or Stratier thing" is a floating bridge...

Fender got it right the first time...with a Strat.

I agree..

With one exception, all of my Strats have the vibrato system working and carefully setup to float. For me, it's a major part of what Strats are - perhaps their most defining feature. I would certainly buy your assertion that it is the nut that is the key (or one of them anyway). If I can't get the trem working reliably with excellent return to pitch, then the guitar gets a new nut - usually always Tusque which is slippier than teflon. A very fine tech in my home town makes them up for me at a very reasonable cost. The guitar always sounds better with them than the stock nut. The strings really ring out, and you realise how poorly cut many nuts are on new guitars, and how much they can stifle the natural resonance of the string.

By having the trems floating, the vibrato is more authentic sounding to these ears than merely dropping the pitch down then back to where you started. Any residual return to pitch friction problems are also alleviated by a little upward pitch flick on the arm at the end of a wobble or even a dramatic pitch movement. I can get pretty wild with my standard Strat trems and they always come back true. I don't even bother with the raised end bridge screws - it's never been necessary.

The other key to great trem performance costs nothing. Learning how to properly secure the string to the tuning peg is a trick every guitar player should learn regardless of playing ability. And a quick smear of vaseline/lip salve on the underside of the string trees too..

Either by accident, good engineering design or both, Leo and his Team defined a superb piece of trem hardware. I'm always amazed that some great Strat players - like Clapton for one - doesn't use them.

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Fender Highway & Classic 60s Strats, Fender Toronado, Telecaster, Gretsch Projet, Charvel 3, PRS SE Soapbar II & Custom 24, Burns Batwing and many others!

What also helped was really taking the time to tweak my pickup heights STARTING with the bridge, moving to the middle, then the neck...balance between and within each pickups...

The 2007 MIM Standard I have with stock pu's, floating trem sounds fine and expressive through a Roland JC Clean (Roland 60 Cube) and of course a Princeton Reverb RI...

With respect to Clapton, I think his guitar is great for what he does and what it does...but not looking for that midboost thing really.

Wouldn't mind an Eric Johnson Strat at all...understatement...

Double post, sorry.

The one artist that made me go crazy to learn how to play for me was Hendrix. When I heard Voodoo Chile (Slight Return), I had to learn electric guitar. It was a few years after High School before had the money to buy a real guitar. My parents were practical and religious folks and electric guitars weren't happening under their roof. It was 1983 before I got up the money to buy my first premium guitar but unfortunately there were very few Strats available in Hawaii at that time and none in white like Hendix's Woodstock Guitar so I bought a Yamaha T-300 which was close.

I'm glad that I a few genuine Fender Stratocasters. The biggest part of the charm of the Strat for me has always been the vibato and the sound of sc pups. I agree that Leo got it right. He took in a lot of input artists to develop the design.

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"If I don't see you no more in this world I'll meet you on the next one and don't be late... don't be late." -Jimi Hendrix