I quite like the Vintera neck profile. It’s officially a “thin C”, but feels more substantial.doctor_capleson wrote: ↑Wed Mar 15, 2023 4:06 pmI have the Vintera JM. I like it fine. I bought it as a backup to my CIJ JM, so it was important to me to have the specs be as close to vintage as possible so that the guitars are nearly identical. It's now my primary gigging instrument, and the CIJ is the backup / gets plenty of love and a nice comfy spot at home.
Pros: Only JM in the Fender lineup that is "vintage correct" re: fretboard radius, neck profile, vibrato unit spacing from bridge, vintage style tuners, JM-spec pickups with 1M ohm pots. Every other JM in the Fender lineup messes with one or more of these things.
Cons: not a fan of the screw-in vibrato arm; immediately replaced stock bridge with a Mustang bridge
I had a set of nice JM pups lying around that I planned to drop in, but honestly the factory pickups sound alright in the Vintera. There was a little fuss with setup and break-in (as always with JMs; I've never seen one come from the factory in a playable state)
My bandmate has one of the first run TVL JMs, and I would put the Vintera up against that one any day. The only differences I can see are: TVL had neck binding, TVL has exclusive colors, TVL has a more robust toggle instead of the dinky slider for the rhythm circuit, TVL comes with a Fender hard case.
If you can live without the binding, toggle, and colors and happen to already have a roadworthy JM case, then the Vintera is not a bad buy.
If I were to get another JM an IBM Vintera is high on the list.
I agree about the screw-in arm. That would have to go.