•  Bell Like ringing tone when played clean
•  A really good tone unplugged (usually a good sign of great things to come)
•  A great crunch sound
•  A lead sound that while overdriving the amp, remains articulate and clear
•  A unique lead tone which would give me a unique identity as a lead guitarist

As you see it was a tall order but in my view I achieved exactly the goals with this strat. Checkout the sounds below, I have chosen a few sample sounds so that you can get an idea of the sound. The strat does sound brilliant live, and be aware that I have not spent long recording these samples - just a few minutes so they are sometimes not the best musically, but who cares - hey, this is rock n roll.....

Sounds

•  Super clean click here
   
•  Rhythm guitar low breakup click here
   
•  Rhythm guitar medium break up click here
   
•  Rhythm guitar heavy click here
   
•  Lead guitar singing clean click here
   
•  Lead guitar heavy click here
   
•  Lead guitar all out click here

Check out my other guitars on www.tonymckenzie.com and you will see that I have a reasonable mix of brands and models. This is the best strat I've ever played and compared to a real 62 (featured on my other sites) then this guitar runs rings around the original in my view.

There is a lot of hype about these old guitars and more often than not I think that's exactly what it is - HYPE! Don't be fooled in to buying some old piece of crap that has been played in the ground and modified to hell. Even if your 62 is kept as brand new (really) then it will buzz and fart all day long with current amps so what's the point.

I suppose if you really want to be a museum then great, but I prefer to play my guitars. I guess the only one I would put my money behind is a strat from around 68 which had been modified and kicked around a bit, it had cigarette burns on the peg head and was generally (for the time) an average strat - but then again Jimi seemed to like it and it sounds awesome on the woodstock footage.