A nice, classy touch for an instrument like this. The floating bridge is solid, and the ebony tailpiece is better finished than we expected. Fretwork has been improved over the years at the Phred finishing shop here in the States (the guitars themselves are constructed overseas and sent back for final setups), and the neck is nice and comfy. The DockStar also features a bit more of a traditional control layout, with 2 humbuckers, master tone and volume, and two discreet mini-switches for your coil splits.įirst thoughts: this guitar is light and a breeze to play. The koa top and back are simply gorgeous, and we must admit that fit and finish are certainly improved over the Ernesto we checked out back in 2014 (not that that model was bad, per se). Luckily, you can get a Phred instrument with more traditional electronics, which is what we have here: the Phred DockStar Koa. We liked that Ernesto a lot, but felt that the on-board effects loop might (if you excuse the pun) throw some novices for a loop. While there’s a several-years long waiting period for one of those guitars, and a starting price around $10,000, Phred offers guitars in the much more reasonable “sweet spot” of $500-800. A few years back we had an opportunity to review the Phred Ernesto VH3, which was a hollow-body thinline guitar reminiscent of the instrument Trey Anastasio plays in Phish.
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