Fender Highway One Strat VS Fender American Special Strat

Hi everybody. I have been playing guitar for about 15 years and I am looking to buy my first Stratocaster soon and am trying to decided between these 2 models. They both have a lot in common, and are closely priced, but which is the better deal?

I don't care about color options or anything aesthetic, just looking for a solid, great sounding, great playing Fender guitar. Thanks!

IMHO....except for the addition of Texas Specials on the Am. Sp. ........they are essentially the SAME guitar.
The Am. Sp. is just a lot shinier due to the addition of the poly (?) coating.
The necks, frets, and neck radius are the same!

Much like the Highway One...it is a GREAT platform for building your dream guitar!
I have 7 Highway One Stratocaster HSS's that I have totally re-built to my specs (pickups, tuners, saddles) and now I adore them!! They are PERFECT!!

So...it's just a matter of...if you want the shine or not!

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I refuse to have a battle of the wits with an unarmed man!

Play them both and take home what presses your buttons.

Since you said you don't really care about the aesthetics, I can only tell you to try the two and juxtaposition.

If you did care about the aesthetics atleast somewhat, I would recommend the Special because the finish is much nicer. Atleast IMO.

Thanks everyone for weighing in.
So the only difference between the two are the finish and the Texas Special pick ups?
Out of the box, on either guitar, what have you liked and disliked? Any sharp edges on the frets, unwanted noise on the pick ups? Trouble staying in tune?
Thanks again for all your help.

As previously mentioned in my last post....one of the 1st things I did on my Highway One's (I imagine I'd HAVE to do the same to the Amer. Specials also!) was change the cheesy pickups. IMHO they were weak and toneless. And of course, as with all standard single coils had 60 cycle hum !
2nd...I changed the crappy Ping tuners to Fender/Schaller locking tuners. Add to that a set of Graph Tech saddles....and 'viola....a GREAT guitar!!
I replaced ALL the single coil pups with a combination of Fender Vintage Noiseless and several types of the DiMarzio Area series pickups. I NEED noiseless performance. I can't speak highly enough of the DiMarzio Area series....they rank among the best noiseless Strat replacement pups!
But that's just me.

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I refuse to have a battle of the wits with an unarmed man!

I recently bought an American Special Stratocaster HSS in sunburst color and noticed a few days ago as the light hit it in a different way that the body appears to be made of four pieses of wood laminated together. I thought American Strats were supposed to be made of one piece of wood! The guitar looks nice, but I wonder how four pieces of wood sounds compared to one piece? I'm an amateur, so I really don't know.

I checked out several versions of the American Special's and found the pups on all of them to be quite generic.
I have owned a Highway 1 since late 2006 (after the upgrade) and I like the pups, but the Greasebucket circuit has to go. The Body, Neck, and pups are the only original parts left on my Highway 1.

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Chet Feathers

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I didn't Lose my mind, I traded it for this guitar.

I have always wondered about this question myself. My guitar playing is a hobby, but my profession deals with sound and radio propogation. The engineer in my knows that the seam where wood is glued together is stronger then the wood itself so a glue joint would not cause a degradation in sound because of strength and it has a denser molecular structure than wood also.

Sound propgates through material of different densities at differen speeds of course and "bounces" off of boundry layers like a a glue layer would be. So four pieces of wood bonded together on an electric should not have much if any impact on tone I wouldn't think....but I hae been wrong before, at least according to my wife.

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2012 American Standard Strat Charcoal Froast
2009 Standard Strat Sunburst Brown
Blues Junior Tweed NOS
2007 Line6 Spider Jam

If these are generic I will have to try some "real" ones someday but I think these aren't that bad.

For sure.Maybe its the greasebucket wiring thats making them sound bad,but I have 2 different guitars (a SRV and a MIA Texas Special) and they sound anything but generic.I dont believe they are suited for every guitar though.They sound different on my SRV than they do on my MIA TS .

I have the same guitar. And the body is one peace. A beautiful peace of wood.

I seriously doubt your strat is one piece. Post a pic, it is probably a 2-3 pc body with a well hidden joint.Strats are very rarely made of 1pc bodies except for custom orders.

After close inspection on both sides. It is with out doubt one peace. I'll try to get a pic.

I have been holding off on commenting on this thread until I could say this...I own both of them. They are both great guitars. I like them both for the different tones I get from them. Honestly, I can only say play them both. I mean really play them, like you would play them at home, on the stage, in church, ect...see which one you like best. I know I cannot choose between them as to which is my favorite.

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RK

2007 Fender Highway 1
2012 American Deluxe
2015 MIM Dave Murray HHH
2010 Fender Blacktop
1987 Fender Avalon Acoustic
2012 Marshall DSL 15 watt head