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• Washburn WI-66V / WI-66PRO |
The guitar is new (2002). Here's what comes from official Washburn page on this guitar. I typed the most important features (that is, the features different from WI-64) in bold.
Specifications
Body
- mahogany
- bound, carved figured maple top
Neck
- 22 frets
- 24 3/4 "
- set mapple neck*
- fingerboard radius 14"
- bound rosewood fingerboard
- 2.7 mm fretwire
- pearl wing inlays
* I think, actually it will be made from mahogany, just like in case of WI-64.
Hardware
- fulcrum stay-in tune vibrato tailpiece
- chrome hardware
- metal covered bridge and neck humbuckers
- 3-way toggle switch
- Grover tuners
- 2 volume knobs (bridge/neck)
- 2 Voice Contour Control (VCC) knobs (bridge/neck)
Hope I haven't missed anything important...Yeah, they say there are three colours available: Caramel Burst (WI66VCRB), Wine Burst (WI66VWB), Transparent Blue (WI66VTBL).
Some words from me...Well, the design is stunning. Yeah, it's very close to Les Paul now, but just like WI-64, it seems to be a very comfortable guitar. Every new addition to the guitar's design worked perfectly. It's cool. And I was almost upset that I hadn't been able to buy this guitar instead of WI-64. But one thing have made me change my mind - a tremolo bridge. Well, personally I think of Idol as of rather good and affordable replacement to Gibson Les Paul (well, USA-made Gibson is much better than this Korean baby, but it's very expensive, too!). You know, I think it's better in certain respects than Epiphone Les Paul from Korea. And WI-66V could have been another step to a very, very good replacement. But isn't Tune-o-matic one of the main features of Les Paul? So, that tremolo only makes it worse in my opinion...Although there would be many people who missed that thing in LP, so they'll be very satisfied with the new instrument. But I think that it will be very sad if there won't be WI-66 version with Tune-o-matic...Maybe they just didn't put it on their page?
WI-66V:
WI-66PRO:
New for 2004. Well, since there was a "V"-model with tremolo, there should be a tune-o-matic model, and that's reasonable. All the beauty and comfort of WI-66 combined with good old tune-o-matic bridge gives a seemingly perfect machine. I think that's cool. I want that thing! :) Well, nothing else to say, just read the specs (I guess there's nothing really new or stunning;)) and then just look at the perfect beauty!
Specifications (my comments in grey italic)
Body
- Let's put it brief: mahogany body with quilt maple carved top with a nice binding around the body
Neck
- again, briefly speaking, mahogany set neck with cool-looking pearl "wing" inlays on the rosewood fingerboard. Binding along the neck as well as round the headstock.
Hardware
- standard features of the Idol series: three-way switch, four knobs (2 volumes and 2 VCC knobs), Buzz Feiten tuning system, Grover tuners
- tune-o-matic (finally!..)
- Seymour Duncan '59 reissue neck pickup, Seymour Duncan Custom-Custom bridge pickup (WOW!!! That's great indeed! When buying a new guitar you're always on your own about what to do with pickups. And since in most cases there are some no-name pickups coming with Korean guitars, you're replacing stock pickups with something better: Seymour Duncan, DiMarzio, EMG, Bill Lawrence - whatever you like. This time everything changed. The guitar comes with cool SD stock pickups! I think that in most cases you'll be satisfied with them completely.. at least there's no need to buy something cool right after the guitar)
Well, enough of boring words - just look at it:
To be honest, I made the Wine Red pic myself, just matching the color to the illustration in Washburn catalog. And here are some pics from internet auctions:
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