Fender Limited Edition American Professional Classic Stratocaster Silent System, Rosewood Fingerboard, Daphne Blue

The Fender Limited Edition American Professional Classic Stratocaster Silent System in Daphne Blue is a Corona-built Strat in one of Fender's best custom colours, and the first American Professional Classic to carry the Silent System — a passive, battery-free answer to single-coil hum that leaves the three Coastline '57 single-coils completely alone. Pale blue over alder, a mint green three-ply guard, chrome hardware and a rosewood board on a Modern "C" maple neck: a 1960s Strat spec sheet with the one genuinely new idea Fender has had about single-coils in years.

Daphne Blue, mint green and chrome

Daphne Blue is a 1960s Fender custom colour and it still does the job better than anything on the modern chart — soft, slightly grey, and completely transformed by the three-ply mint green pickguard sitting on top of it. Aged-white knobs and pickup covers warm it, the chrome hardware cools it back down, and the vintage-tinted maple headstock with its gold transition logo ties the whole thing to the era it came from. Gloss urethane over the alder body, front and back.

Silent System — no battery, no preamp, no compromise

Fender's Silent System is patent-pending and fully passive: no nine-volt block in a rear cavity, no active electronics in the signal path, nothing to remember to turn off. It cancels the mains hum that single-coils pick up from lighting rigs and untidy stage power, and it does it without replacing the pickups with stacked coils or humbuckers in disguise. The three single-coils in this guitar are wound and voiced as single-coils, and that is the whole point of the exercise.

Coastline '57 pickups and a five-way blade

The Coastline '57 set is built to vintage output rather than modern hotness. Bridge position snaps and bites, position two and four give you the quacky in-between sounds a Strat is bought for, and the neck pickup comes through round and singing. A 5-position blade switch with a white tip runs the lot, master volume on the front knob.

Two tone circuits, split by pickup

Rather than one shared tone control, this Strat gives the neck and middle pickups their own (Tone 1) and puts Fender's Greasebucket circuit on the bridge pickup (Tone 2). The Greasebucket takes the high end down without the bass rising to replace it, which keeps the bridge pickup tight and playable when you roll it off — the setting most Strat players never use because it usually just goes woolly.

Built for long nights

A Modern "C" maple neck, 9.5"-radius rosewood fingerboard with white dot inlays, 22 medium jumbo frets, a 1.685" synthetic bone nut and the 25.5" Fender scale. Satin urethane on the back of the neck, skunk stripe down the centre, four-bolt plate at the heel. A six-saddle vintage-style synchronised tremolo with bent-steel saddles takes the arm, and ClassicGear staggered tuners keep the break angle over the nut honest. Corona, California, stamped on the headstock, and a Fender deluxe gig bag in the box.

Set up in-store by Guitar World Australia's techs before it ships to you, so it plays perfectly the moment it arrives.