Steinberger

Here is an interesting conversation I came across:

I just bought a Synapse Transcale on ebay, which was advertised as mintand arrived looking that way. However, there was some significant buzzso I decided to get it professionally setup. I took it to Paul Schwartzat Peekamoose Guitars, who seems to be an absolute top Steinbergertech. He said that the guitar would need a refret (at a cost of over$700), further explaining that "this Synapse is by no means a lemon. Itis exhibiting the normal board compression and characteristics that anysimilar-aged Synapse would be likely to have. The fret job is what'sneeded to make it play great. With the frets as is, we would have tocompensate for alignment problems that affect intonation, clarity ofnotes, touch sensitivity, and general ease of play. Considering that aSynapse does not allow for individual intonation adjustment on eachstring, we need to pull as much accuracy out of the fretwork as theinstrument will allow."

My questions to the forum are:

[] Does this seem normal? Do all synapses end up needing this kind of work in a few years to sound great / have a decent setup?

[] Should I go through with this repair, and essentially end up with a$1350 instrument that I coould buy new for $1050? That may seem crazy,or maybe a refretted and Pleked instrument by Peekamoose is going to bemuch superior to a new instrument, which would need work eventuallyanyway. My alternative is to try to return the instrument to the seller(UsedInstrumentWare house), which seems like a reasonable place thatsells a lot of gear and offers a repair warranty, although I'm not surethis qualifies as a defect.

Answers:

I think a guitar with a refreted board and pleck would probably play asgood if not better than a new guitar. I suggest stainless wire. Butsince the Synapse guitars are not like the classics as far as holdingvalue yet. You probably would never get the value out of it if you soldit. If you are planning on keeping the guitar for good do the work ifnot get the new guitar. A new Synapse if taken care should not requireany fret work for sometime. Just a opinion.

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highly recommend the work at peekamoose, I would say that in my opinionyou will have a better than new instrument if the work is done!