Ja nisam, ali drugari na EBMM forumu jesu
Lm, iskopao sam nesto od jednog od vlasnika Sabre-a, evo sta on kaze:
"I own two. One is a Cream colored model made in 1977, the other is a sunburst made in 1976.
The play and sound fabulous. Both are made of ask. They have mure sustain and are beefier than the common strat, due in part the dense ash bodies, active electronics and high output humbuckers.
They are also very powerful guitars. I also have a Les Paul (1981) and compared to the Paul it is equally powerful, maybe even a bit more. Brighter as well, but not nearly as bright as my 1983 Smith-designed Stratocaster.
There is a bright switch which can makes it sound very bright with tremendous presence that really cuts through.
Unlike most guitars, they have active electronics which takes a bit of getting used to. The normal position for the Volume, Bass and Treble knobs is half way. From their you can alter the tone or volume in either direction. If you just peak out the knobs, like you might on a strat, it will surely sound too bright with an overly powerful low end.
With a fresh battery in the guitar (it takes a 9v battery to run the active preamp) a full setting on the volume control will push most amps into ovedrive.
As far as these not being well received, I'm not so sure of that. They were ahead of their time in a era when most everyone wanted to play either a strat, tele, Paul or ES335.
The Stingray also have some other interesting features.
First, their were two versions, the model II and the model II. They were identical except for the fretboard radius. The Model I has a flatter fretboard more prefered by slide players. The Model II has a rounder fretboard very simliar to a stratocaster.
The bridge is a heavy heavy chromed covered brass piece. Sometime in 1977, Music Man started making them with machined brass nuts, instead of bone. My earlier Stingray has the bone nut.
Where they messed up was in the pickup control switch. The Stingray had a 4-position rotary knob. The position selected either pickup alone, both pickups in phase or both out of phase. Their was also a rocker switch used for the brightness control. This was not very popular.
The Sabre was introduced circa 1977, correcting these mistakes. The 4-position rotary switch was changed to a conventional 3-position selection switch. There was also a separate phase/out of phase switch and brightness switch.
I find this instrument is ideal for any blues setting as I can get a thin sound of approaching a tele, a more powerful strat sound, or fatten it up to a more SG or even a Paul sound, albeit a little brighter than the Gibsons.
I have also used it in a more traditional country and rock settings without any problems.
Hearing one through a 1970's Musicman amp is a real treat.
The ash body is heavy, more like a Les Paul, although I have heard about some made in alder which would be lighter.
I like to think of this as a transition guitar between the Telecaster/Stratocatser and the Gibson solid bodies.
Leo Fender said at one time, that the Stingray was where he thought the Stratocaster should have evolved to. I'm not sure I agree with his analysis, but I think he has a point as the Stingray is definitely a stratocaster moved up the technology ladder. In the Stingray, Leo tried to incorporate many new features not around when he designed the Strat in the ealy 1950's.
It is a wonderful piece of Leo Fender history."