NK headless electric guitar review
(For those interested, I’m located in France and received the guitar in a little under a month after purchasing and had to pay around 50€ of import taxes. Your mileage may vary.)
This guitar is very, very good for its price.
On my particular model, its color is more blue-green than blue in real life, and slightly changes depending on the lighting. It is a gorgeous guitar: the aggressive shape, woodwork, white fret board, and even the luminous side dots and logo have not failed to get the attention of people, musicians or not.
Out of the box, the setup is pretty bad with terrible intonation, strings made from chewing gum and action high enough for the guitar to double as a hunting bow, but I would not expect more from a guitar shipped from China. Thankfully, NK includes tools for truss rod and bridge adjustment, which makes it reasonably easy to get a near-perfect setup, even for someone like me who likes their action quite low. Sustain is good while not exceptional, intonation can be perfect if patiently taken care of, no fret buzz at reasonable actions, and it actually holds the tuning quite well. Expect some work from a competent luthier if you want absolute perfection, but I did not even bother doing more than the aforementioned adjustments (as well as switching to thicker strings) seeing as it plays fantastically.
Playing this guitar is indeed very satisfying: it is lighter than most guitars and more compact, resulting in lower stress on the shoulders and back, even when sitting due to its great natural balance which alleviates neck dive.
The position of the input jack is very practical since it does not get in the way of your legs even in the classical pose.
Playing on the lower strings makes the whole body of the guitar vibrate, and using thicker (10–52) strings only accentuates that feeling which I like very much.
The neck reminds me of Fender necks (which I like very much as well): it is compact, easy to glide on and slightly curved, but does not suffer from a common problem with electric guitars where the high E string sits too close to the edge of the neck, resulting in harder to play tapping/pull-offs.
The heel is very deep, enabling the player to access the 24th fret very comfortably. The bridge and neck are slightly more elevated than most guitars (especially strats), causing me to not hit the body of the guitar as easily anymore, which is a problem I did not know needed solving.
Some people have complained about the tuning system (which I’ll get into later) getting in the way of the right hand when playing… I do not have this problem; I can rest my normal-sized hand comfortably on the bridge and play palm mutes, tremolo, arpeggios and the like with no issue whatsoever.
The pickup switch is angled orthogonally to the expected axis of a standard strumming pattern, which I’ve grown to like since it prevents me from accidentally changing pickups mid-song.
The pickups themselves are decent. They pack a good punch and perform well with heavy distortion, while lacking a little more in the cleans (their frequency response is not even) and have a surprising variety of sounds when playing with the switch and the coil-split. They are more than fine for what most people expect of a guitar, especially at that price point, however they are part of a wider truth: the electrical work is very bare-bones.
My particular model had an issue where the input jack stopped working after the first 30 minutes of me playing it plugged in… and it started magically working again when I unscrewed it a little to check for any broken welds.
While there is no hum or background noise, if you want to unleash your guitar’s full potential, you will need to replace the pickups, jack and wires (don’t know about the knobs and the switch).
Which brings me to the parts I feel could be improved on this guitar. Some of the points I’m about to make may not be feasible without a price increase, but I deem it necessary to provide the most exhaustive feedback I can.
The bridge has to be adjusted with the (admittedly very cool) magnetic Allen key instead of thumb screws, which can slow down the tuning process and make it more of a chore than it should be. The intonation setup is tedious with some screws sitting right underneath the strings, requiring you to use the Allen key as a lever.
The head of the guitar has a right angle edge right where the strings are initially pulled through which makes it impossible to setup the string without some sort of small tool (I use nail clippers??).
The truss rod hole was hard to get in with the provided tool, most likely to some manufacturing misalignment in the wood.
The gigbag’s padding is inexistant and it is too roomy to properly hold the guitar, though it is functional enough as its straps are comfortable and it has well enough pocket room for holding a couple of cables, replacement strings, and a strap.
Overall, I am very happy with this purchase and would recommend to anyone looking for a solid guitar with great feel and looks at a low price.
