Perhaps it's just a over active imagination on my behalf

Listening to my Deluxe, I don't notice it, on my 57 Hotrod I do. It's glaring.
Perhaps I've assumed too much, I never use more than 2 winds round the post, because I always use my trem. I can guarantee it's not the nut slot.
Sorry to waste your time lads.

_________________
No no and no

I think if any of us were worried about wasting time, we wouldn't be here.

I have absolutely no doubt your guitar sounds different.

Over the 30+ years I've been playing guitar (50 years old), I've never played 2 that sounded the same. Plenty that were close, but each one is a tempermental beast all unto itself.

90%+ of my playing is with acoustics and they are really tempermental beasts. To the point, I think all acoustic guitars are women or at least designed by women.

The electrics I've owned (and mostly sold) over the years are less tempermental but they have all been highly opinionated and, therefore, are most likely female too.

Niki - no waste of time at this end for darn sure. I've enjoyed the discussion.

Jeff

It's not a stupid question.Fender's quality suffered big time after '67 or so,'til recently(to my old a.s anyway).Some headstocks pull up(they are weak)and most are just made wrong.Actually they are made wrong on purpose as a good headstock requires a lot more higher quality quartersawn wood(money).'Bout 50/50.A properly carved headstock with great wood will never need string trees period!I just finished 2 custom strats and neither needed trees(lots of pressure on nut).I added a tree to each for cosmetic reasons.They look funny without trees(eg. Bob Ross).Not enough pressure on nut you get string rattle.Too much pressure ruins tone and the strings stick in nut and trees.The Eric Johnson quartersawn neck has no string trees!Do not be taken aback by Fender's claim that slanted tuners are the no string tree reason(I use 'em anyway).I can put 7 turns on my short(slanted)G string tuner or 15 turns on my normal high one.As long as the tuner is filled with string(bottomed out)I'll get maximum breakover(the bottom out is the same as the bottom of the tuner is in same place on each).The wood and heavy dip carve are the reason no trees needed.I hate it when people or companies think we are stupid!The other beauty of a quartersawn neck is that it hardly ever needs a neck adjust as it doesn't react to humidity change.What's the difference between a chicken?There's no difference as it's the same distance between both legs!

My 04 MIM has two trees. I like the looks of them.

My US Strat is a year 2000 (I'm the 3rd owner and not all parts are original, pickguard replaced, Seymour Duncan SSL-1 pups, standard kind of swaps). As far as I know, it had the 2 string trees from the factory, but one of the other owenrs may well have put the second one on as well. Seems to work though.

My MIM is a 1998. I have no idea how many owners before me. She's been around the block a few times but sounds great. I swapped out the pick guard, pups, switches, pots, jack, tuners, pretty much everything that was on the guitar.

it had 2 string trees but I have no idea if it came from Mexico that way or if one of the long line of prior owners did it.

They don't seem to be hurting anything and it has amazing tone (both when plugged in and when played acoustically) so I'm happy with it as it sits.

Jeff