And another new toy....the Jet JT350 best budget T-style guitar

Could I say"Telecaster" without someone at the guitar company beginning with a capital F getting upset? After all, I've already got a few genuine "F" 'Teles'. Some might say my recent purchase is the best budget T-Style guitar out there at the moment.

My new Jet JT350

This post is a bit bittersweet as I bought this great budget guitar via Gumtree on a closing-down sale of a music shop in Hallesowen in the West Midlands. When I spoke with the gent selling the guitar and other remaining items from his music shop, he told me he'd been in business for many years and had been in his recent premises for just two years. After having invested in setting out his shop to a professional standard, out of the blue his landlord decided to give him notice that he was selling the building and that he'd have to move out and find another premises. This is how 'rentier capitalism' messes with honest hard-working peoples' lives. He looked at the costs of continuing elsewhere and decided it wasn't financially worthwhile. All because of one landlord's whims. In the EU and in the UK we've recently seen the demise of two big stores this year, BAX (Netherlands) and GAK (Brighton), big online retailers of musical instruments with established stores where you could go to try out your preferred potential purchase. Apparently it just didn't make business sense to keep on going. A common tale these days. Coincidentally, the price of decent second-hand guitars is continuing to rise.

So I was fortunate to come across an ad for a guitar I'd been looking at for some time; Jet's JT350, the refined version of their ubiquitous JT300 'Tele' model, which is a pretty good guitar given the price point. I've tried a few and liked them, especially the Canadian roasted Maple necks which I think it the major selling point of the brand. But I felt the JT300, with its ceramic pick-ups was slightly brash, especially on the bridge pick-up and lacked some depth on a clean sound. The less common JT350 is an upgrade on this model as it has Alnico single coil pick-ups which actually gives the guitar more of a genuine 'Telecaster' sound, a spanky, twangy sound on both pick-ups and with the tone pot rolled off to about half-way to dull down the treble a bit, the neck pick-up gives you a great classic blues tone. Being single coil pick-ups they do have a little of the 50 cycle hum, but not as much as it's cheaper sister, the JT300. It has a scooped body 'horn' to make the upper frets more comfortable to reach, otherwise the body it a typical Tele 'slab'. Mine has a bone nut as it's not a 2025 model but an earlier one, a rare feature on a budget guitar. New ones now come with a polymer nut, I guess to reduce the production cost. It would have been nice to have had a body belly cutaway for extra comfort but this only comes on Jet's premium models. But it does have a double-action truss rod as standard.

From what a luthier told me recently, roasting Canadian maple - that is bringing the wood up to a high temperature that won't make it combust - has the advantage of drying out the moisture and eliminating impurities in the wood which could potentially cause neck warping and fret dislocation in the future also has the disadvantage of making the wood stiffer, requiring more force from the truss rod to maintain straightness. The higher up the range you go with Jet Guitars, the darker the maple necks are, indicating the more time they've spent in treatment. I don't know if this makes any difference. Personally, I've never had any problems with the ones I have although I've been told to watch out for cracks appearing along the fingerboard. I've had more problems with my premium guitars' fingerboards taking on moisture or drying out and causing fret dislodging. But then generally, made with premium materials, they need more TLC and ideally they're worth a luthier set-up.

Another rare feature on this budget guitar is that it comes with locking tuners, not the best quality but they do the job and it makes re-stringing a more pleasant, quicker and less frustrating experience.

I was even more fortunate when I saved about 40% on the stock price for this example, brand new and boxed. The neck, like my Jet JS400 purchased a couple of years ago, is perfect.

Sound-wise it's more vintage than modern but it can really rock out too. Playing and owning a couple of Fender Tele's and a couple of Squier Teles too, I'd say this JT350 is up there in terms of sound with the Mexican made Teles and at least as good as the Squier Classic Vibe Tele models at a fraction of the price. Indeed, many YouTub-er expert guitarists are giving this model the thumbs-up.

The Jet guitars I now own are the only budget models I have now. I've had others in the past, particularly from a well-known German online store (if you're a musician you'll probably know who I mean) but there had been quality problems which necessitated me having to return the products.

Going by my experience with my JS400 'ST-style', I'm counting on this one being as good in terms of quality. I bought the JS400 because it was very good but very cheap, deciding to use it as a 'spare' guitar to be used in a gig when I'd broken a string on my main guitar. Then it became my main 'Strat' because it sounded great and was so easy to play and pretty forgiving. Will this JT350 become my main 'Tele'? Probably not as I have a couple of premium quality ones. But then sometimes you just want a change and this guitar punches above its weight.

It's an ideal Tele modification platform if you wanted to do some simple mods to define your own tone without a complete strip down. A bone nut (plastic on 2025 models) and brass saddles would improve the resonance and there's a whole host of after-market pick-ups which can be easily retrofitted if you wanted a specific tone. For me, the switch and the volume/tone pots are fine. A three-ply black/white/black or pearl pick guard would improve the overall look of the butterscotch body but then when you look at this, the cost of all the above mods would be close to the basic price of the guitar itself so unless you're married to the thing you really have to ask yourself if it's worth it. I won't be modding mine. It's fine as it is. But it would be a possible project for someone else, someone who's keen.

I've only ever 'modded' one guitar; my Samick 4-string Artist Series bass in which I replaced the stock pick-ups with a DiMarzio Split-P set which greatly improved the sound and sensitivity. It really need it. I don't intend to mod any more. My more prestigious models, I'll leave to a luthier!

If you have any experience with this or any Jet Guitar models, let me know - leave a comment.