Hadean Tele from Rondo

[longbow]

Haven't posted for quite sometime and frankly haven't really purchased anything new either. But as the summer winds down and fishing is dying off for the year on the great lake Ontario, I was purusing the Rondo site to see what was up. Saw the Hadean Antiquity(which I think means reliced) tele for cheap. So sprung for it.

Took all of 2 days to arrive and for the bucks spent frankly wasn't expecting much. How surprised I was!. Did a cursory set up in a couple of minutes to get it playable and in tune. Truth be told I have 0 complaints for the guitar at all. Save for the fact that the pic showed a tele'esque head stock and I rec. a strat head stock. The pickups are more than adequate, the parts used are very good imho, and the machine heads are stellar. Neck is straight, no frett buzz I can detect, nut appears to be cut correctly and the strings ride straight over the poll pieces in the neck pup. No sharp frets at all. I have a ebony/maple neck comming that is USA made and I will see if it fits correctly. Actually I wanted the body for a build of a parts tele and being that it is 1.75" thick and 3 piece bass wood how could one go wrong irregardless of the actual parts on the guitar. The relicing I could live without but it is finished very well.

I have another parts caster I used a squire neck on that I thought might have been one in a million for playability. Outside of the Hadean neck having a right angle on the actual rosewood edge. ie) kind of sharp feeling edge to the wood, this neck for the hour or so I've played with it is very good. Railroad track straight. Sound is very good, and tone and vol. rolloff is excellent. Audio taper to the pots which I like and they have a good tone range, which to me means you can detect sound differences or tone differences quickly with the tone pot. Haven't taken anything off to see what lies beneath and maybe I won't after I see if the neck I have comming fits.

So in conclusion for 89 bucks and shipping this Hadean is a killler deal. thanks

 

[RevMike]

Pics please!

 

[blowtorch]

Pics please!

yes

 

[OlRedNeckHippy]

I like the headstock on those way better than the old pointy SX ones had. My 1st tele was the SX BSB and I never could get along with the thing just because of the pointy headstock. The guitar played and sounded great right out of the box.
It's become a motto of mine, "Nothing Pointy".

 

[boredguy6060]

I've been waiting to hear from someone who had actually purchased one of these Hadean Antiquites.
I have purchased several Furrian models as well as a 335 copy and two Douglas Tele's from Rondo in the past
I thought that the $129.00 mark was about the cheapest you could buy a halfway decent Tele copy.
Then these came along for $89.00 and looked as good as the Furrian, if not better.
I mean, rosewood neck, three barrel bridge, good tuners, decent pickups and wiring, $89.00 bucks Jeez, what's not to like.

 

[Snook]

I've got a double bound light blue SX Furrian, an antique white Hadean antiquity, and just got a Hadean in surf green about three weeks ago. Don't care much for the SX peghead (too pointy).... but it has a nice dark finish on the neck. The Hadean antiquity had a little point on the peghead I didn't like, so I knocked it off witha a piece of sandpaper. The surf green one didn't have as prominent a point so I left it alone. I think the fit and finish on all of them is as good as the Squier that I used to have. Changed the pickguard on two of them (had to re-drill maybe 5-6 holes), put electrosockets on a couple as well.

 

[greybox]

I just googled that guitar - looks sweet in either color - if it's still that price next week, might just need one.....

 

[richey88]

Here's my Hadean with a different neck and neck pickup (I had the neck for a couple years, got the Hadean to have something to put it on).

The stock neck pup was anemic. $35 later I got a Slick neck pup from Guitar Fetish, installed the new parts and am a happy camper...

 

[richey88]

I really like the stock bridge pickup BTW...

 

[richey88]

The stock neck is dry as a bone. Frets too small for me but really great for the coin. I almost left as is, but had all these parts, and had to mod!! Let's see some pix and your opinion!

 

[harold h]

The stock neck is dry as a bone. Frets too small for me but really great for the coin. I almost left as is, but had all these parts, and had to mod!!!

It says on their site that the frets on Hadean are jumbo?

 

[richey88]

Didn't feel like it on the Antiquity model I got....

 

[richey88]

It was railroad track straight. Longbow may have bought a different model than my Antiquity too.....

 

[Journeyman22]

I have owned (2) Hadeans in the past. I overhauled both of them. I played the living cr*p out of them with no complaints!

 

[richey88]

When you say overhaul, can we get some details? Mine is nice and light, lots of snap, sounds great, and the new neck feels just right. Stock was a bit wide and as stated earlier, small frets...

 

[Journeyman22]

Sure. I live out in the boonies. Nobody around for over a hundred miles to get my guitars set up, etc. So I learned how to do it myself on the likes of Hadean guitars from Rondo Music. My "Overhauling" is to replace/upgrade everything but the wood and paint. Sometimes I have repainted and replaced the necks too. All in the name of getting myself educated to doing these things for my self. How was I to know it would totally take over my life! LOL! More fun than anything I have done so far. True the Hadeans guitars are a good buy for the money. They were perfect test bed for me.
Now I have moved on to putting together pro quality instruments. The rewards just get better every time I pick one of these guitars up and play it! CHEERS!

 

[Nasty]

No different than a Squier costing a third if not twice as much and assembled by the exact same little Chinese girl at the exact same factory using the exact same materials and hardware, Only difference is the logo on the headstock in most cases. Rondo will change the headstock shape and make some minor changes to the body and dimensions to beat the copyright laws but other than that its the same guitar under the poly urethane,

 

[richey88]

Sure. I live out in the boonies. Nobody around for over a hundred miles to get my guitars set up, etc. So I learned how to do it myself on the likes of Hadean guitars from Rondo Music. My "Overhauling" is to replace/upgrade everything but the wood and paint. Sometimes I have repainted and replaced the necks too. All in the name of getting myself educated to doing these things for my self. How was I to know it would totally take over my life! LOL! More fun than anything I have done so far. True the Hadeans guitars are a good buy for the money. They were perfect test bed for me.
Now I have moved on to putting together pro quality instruments. The rewards just get better every time I pick one of these guitars up and play it! CHEERS!

So you're adding new pots, wiring, pickups etc.. Cool. Tele is a great platform to learn how to do that. Me, I half-ass it (replaced the neck and a pickup on my Hadean) just until I get something I want to play, not so good with a soldering iron, but passable. Time and money is a factor for me, but hell yeah, these Rondo products are perfect for the DIY modder. ROCK ON! Would love to see some of your work.

 

[richey88]

Oh, I did order some brass saddles and will be installing two (leaving the 5, 6 string saddle the steel, isn't that what you're supposed to do?)

 

[Journeyman22]

These were my first (2) guitars I modded and set up back in 2013-14. The CAR Strat is a Rondo Hadean ($89.00). It got the full overhaul, some things I had to redo because I was just starting to learn about doing this kind of work. I got the pots and caps from Stewmac. The Pickups (I went over board on) David Allen's "Texas Floods" (just killer pups) I changed the bridge with a Wilkinson bridge. I replaced the nut with an "Earvana" compensated nut (love it) it was a trick to get it fitted right, because the Hadean fret board radius is 13-3/4" radius. The Earvana was 9-1/2". Replaced the tuning machines with D'Addario locking/auto-trim ones. Also replaced the string trees with the fender upgrades. I also leveled/recrown/polished the frets. Then I found out the neck was slightly twisted. Contacted Rondo, they sent me a brand new replacement neck for free! Love their customer service there. I had to fit the neck and do all the fret over again. Learned a lot though. End result was very satisfactory, It dose stay in tune very well, much to my surprise!. I played it till I got a lot of wear on the frets and gave it to a young boy learning guitar. The acoustic I bought direct from China. It is a copy of a Martin D-45. Beautiful guitar, barely playable though when I got it. So I did all the fret work and re-set it up. It turned out to be an awesome sounding/playing acoustic guitar. The workman ship is very impressive. Since these two I have done around 20 more (I know it sound's crazy) I just found a new love in my life. Learned a ton of great things. Many of the guitars I overhauled I played till they got some serious wear on the frets and I give them to kids who really are interested in learning guitar. My reward was from the education of learning to do the work properly, myself. Now, If when I wear the frets down, I am replacing the old necks with "Mighty mite" necks with wonderful results. I might add that learning and doing all this work is not rocket science! I learned absolutely all of it from the web. Unlimited information to be had by anyone really interested. Try it, You may become guitarded like me. LOL! Cheers!