Musiclily Pro-SE ST-DPHA Pre-wired SSS Pickguard with Alnico 5 Mini Rail Humbucker for Strat Style Electric Guitar

I am VERY impressed. The 3-ply pickguard is cut nicely; no rough or wonky edges. The color is a subtle vintage white pearloid - not yellowed, just not bright white which works for me. The pickups and knobs/switch tip also have an aged look to them which blends well with the aged white color of the pickguard. The screws holding in the pickups and the switch are straight - a lot of budget style loaded pickguards have crooked or side-ways mounted screws. The whole setup is heavy and feels durable and of high quality. The entire area of the electronics on the back of the pickguard surface is covered in shielding foil - with humbuckers, its not always necessary (and will be pointless if the cavity isnt shielded) but its a nice touch. The solder work is the best I have seen on a budget product. Its VERY clean with quality connection at every point. It comes with 3 full-size 500k unbranded pots (volume/tone controls) with an orange drop capacitor. The 5-way switch looks like a cheap pcb switch, but the solder work is exceptional and the switching is tight. The packing is very good and professional looking. It also comes with a detailed, easy to read diagram so you know how to wire it up. It DOES NOT come with an output jack and you will need to have a soldering iron and know how to use it to install. You will need to solder the ground wire to the trem claw (or the bridge or other ground point if you have a hard tail bridge) and you will need to solder the hot and ground wire to the output jack. Simple enough.If I had to knock anything - it would be that the volume/tone knobs look cheap, but I have found that to be the case with more expensive guitars so not really a big deal.I bought this as kind of an "extra" in case I need it for anything - or even to strip parts off of it as needed. Its been sitting in the box since I got it but I had to open it to provide a review. Now that I have looked it over, I am very excited to have it and am actively looking for a guitar to put it on. I have had other Musiclily mini-rail humbuckers and they were good pickups so I am sure this will sound good - my excitement is around how good this loaded pickguard setup looks. I almost bought the black option, so glad I went with the aged white pearloid.For those of you wondering if it will "drop right on" to your existing guitar, I will share this; I have been modding/repairing guitars for years, I have never found an aftermarket budget pickguard that lines up perfectly to existing pickguard holes. In all cases, they either line up with a few holes that are barely visible and cause a situation where the mounting screw goes in sideways (which I refuse to do), or a few new holes need to be drilled. In most all cases, the pickguard lines up to the existing holes on both sides of the bridge and then you work from there on the remaining holes (what lines up and what doesnt). I dont like crooked screws, so I fill and drill where necessary and I am sure whatever I put this on will have the same need - so dont be fooled by reviews that say "it lines up on my xxxxx", it probably lines up enough that 3 or 4 screws go in crooked. If thats good for you, then I guess it does "line up", but to me it looks awful - whatever works for you. I will update this review once I get this on something but for what it is, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND.

Uniform and precise assembly

I've built a number of guitars for self and family and have used several different brands of loaded pickguards. I love the value in the Musiclily products. Can you find better quality, sure. Can you source the electronics for custom solutions, of course. Can you get the whole package, assembled with this quality for under $100 - nope. Even if you picked up a kit guitar that includes all the electronics - you should seriously consider upgrading with one of these. I did a "high" end guitar for myself and spent over $200 on just the pickups not to mention the orange drop caps & pots. Did all the wiring and I don't see much difference in sound between the two. Those who are pros will probably notice the difference but for my uses these work and I can afford them.

Like so many others, I love tinkering with Squire and MIM Stratocasters and experimenting. Over the years I have developed reasonably decent soldering skills but this type of pre-loaded pickguard makes it about as easy as DIY can get. You will need to de-solder the existing electronics (if you have them) and installation only requires the ground and hot wires to the jack and a ground wire to the tremolo claw. I usually prefer to keep single coils in Strats but nice to make an exception here and there. These pickups look to be styled after Seymour Duncan stacked pu's giving you the look and size of a single coil but the tone of a humbucker. A five way switch is included and 1 volume & 2 tone knobs. I enjoyed both clean and dirty tones. The overall tone is darker than typical Strat single coils. The tone knobs bring you to woofy overly bassy territory at about 8.5. Maybe worth replacing them if you desire more tone knob options. Right now I am ok keeping them on 10 and using amp controls and pedals to sculpt the tones to my taste.

This is my second loaded strat pickguard from Musiclily. The first was the basic model with rails and I'm super happy with it. This is the upgraded version with the alnico loaded pickups and it's even better. The pickups are much higher output and the tones produced still sound very much like a telecaster for all 5 switch settings, even with the humbucker pickups. These pickups have a much lower noise floor as compared to similar single coil pickups and it makes it great for high-gain playing styles. I installed this on a kit-guitar I've had for a number of years. Now the guitar sounds amazing. It's a no-name kit guitar and only 2-3 of the holes lined up -- but it still installed great and I'm super happy with it. The tortoise shell color combination looks amazing!