Is there any difference sound wise ??

Just to aswer the simple question : Why are HSS mostly Rosewood ??? .

I like maple neck , id like to shop for a highway one Hss , a power strat hss .. there all just rosewood.

Highway one hss = only rosewood
Deluxe series ( power strat ) hss = only rosewood
American Special HSS = only rosewood .
Lonestar = only rosewood .

the only one available in maple neck and hss are the standard ( both am & mexican ) & the american deluxe .

and whats with the sunburst color ??? Most hss are only 2 color , black or sunburst these years .

im kinda deceived by the fender line this year .

Marginal with either being made to compensate for the other with a minor tweak of the amp.



So a "grittier" sound is perceived when using the HB.



Acknowledged.



Sunburst and black are very popular colors.



I'll bet it won't stop you from buying one of the aforementioned if you really want it though.

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i am pretty sure there is a slight difference in sound but this can be changed by playing with the amp a little.

I am mostly a rosewood guy maple seems to have more of a grit to me and rosewood is usually smoother.

If you ever wanted to you could just buy Hss strat with a rosewood neck and then just swap out the necks with a maple one.

does the maple neck single coil loaded strat have the routing for a humbucker on any of the models you are looking at? or are they only routed for singles?

From what I've seen of late, unless it is some kind of 'vintage' or 'retro' type model, the bridge cutout has a HB rout and the other two cutouts have a P-90 rout. YMMV.

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Then the OP should be able to buy any Strat he'she wants and drop a humbucker in it

Only in the bridge position. A P-90 rout would have to be opened up in the area where the lower bobbin and frame of the HB would be and also the side areas where the legs from the HB go. Oftentimes, this leg area also requires a deeper rout opening as well.

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The wood on the fretboard has little or no effect on the tone of the guitar as it's the sum of all the components that determine the tone of a guitar.To say that the fretboard is responsible for tonal difference is as futile as saying colour affects the tone- there's just no way it can be proven conclusively.

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.

Well, my honeyburst Les Paul and my black Tele sound completely different...

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Black MIM Telecaster Standard with 3-saddle bridge
Vintage V100 Les Paul (flamed honeyburst)
Stagg A4006 electro-acoustic
Korg ToneWorks AX3000G effects
Marshall Valvestate 8080 amp

AFAIK, ALL Highway 1 Strats I've seen come with HSS routing under the hood. It includes my own and ALL online pictures.

Also,
Difference in tone - probably yes - but when you try a guitar it's the sum of parts that makes the difference so small details usually don't make a lot of difference.

There's a difference in the way they feel - and for some it matters a lot, for some (me included) it doesn't. I do like the way maple looks on Strats better.



I've read a review by someone who said he had to carve the humbucker slot a little wider on his older HW1 model (they've "upgraded" them in 2006) - but that's not as difficult as changing single coil rout to a humbucker... so I wouldn't worry about it too much.

You can change the pickup, and get something much better than the pickups that come stock.
BUT,
In my very humble opinion - SSS looks much better on Strats, using a single coil sized humbucker still look better than a full size humbucker (and sometimes work better as they are made for 250k pots) and a higher output single coil sounds much better in the bridge than any humbucker.

When I was starting out in the 70's, any kind of difference in tone betwen the two was NEVER even mentioned. The only reason I heard mentioned for getting one over the other was how it felt playing, the clear-coated maple was slicker, rosewood gave you a better grip. It's only in the last ten years or so it seems to me that tonal differences between the two has come up. If there is a difference, as others have said it's negligible, and how you set your EQ on your amp would totally negate that difference.

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'08 Fender Am. Std. Jazz bass, maple fretboard, charcoal frost metallic finish
'10 Squier VM Jazz bass, maple fretboard, natural finish
Ampeg BA115
'09 MIM standard Strat, maple fretboard, sunburst finish
Fender Super Champ XD

Maple and rosewood do resonate, absorb and reflect sound differently, You may have to be Eric Johnson to hear the difference but there will be one.

We do Acoustic sound reflection/absorption rate at my work and believe me there are major difference in how the woods react/add to a sound, obviously would be more noticeable on an acoustic type guitar, where as an electric guitar will be more leaned to the sum of all the parts for the overall sound, but it still will make a minor difference.

Huge difference to the look and the feel though.

Timber resonance plays no part on a electric instrument. How does a pickup see vibrating wood? It doesn't it only sees how a string vibrates within it's magenetic field. If wood affected how strings vibrate by somehow bouncing back the woods vibration to the string, through layers of different materials (nut/trem assembly/paint/) it would cause a distortion of the vibrating signal by compressing or expanding the soundwave passing through it. So when it got back to the string it would either add another note or distort the played note. Some offer that different woods cut frequencies. Thats just as easily dismissed idea though. If that were the case, guitars would all be different volumes when plugged in, despite having the same hardware and setup.

Also this imperfect test. Same hardware, different necks. Sadly the pickup height was not identical. You can attribute the very very minimal difference to that. Easily spotted by the volume difference between the two guitars.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emNlebBMdUw

They simply don't operate the same as acoustic guitars. Aside from how you play them, their very different instruments.

Hi Gcoudert,I imagine that you were speaking(posting)tongue in cheek when you were refering to 2 different types of guitar as I was talking about 2 of the same model and took it that was what was understood.

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.

Regret that you feel deceived. It's too bad that we can't immediately reference all the prior threads which treated this question, including somed pretty sophisticated physics, if I might say so. Your best bet is to get out there and audition as many guitars as you can and take home the one which blows in your ear and makes the hair on the back of your neck tingle. At that point, the nature of the woods won't make one helluva difference to you. That ain't work'in, that's the way ya do it!!

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"Another day in paradise!"