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Munson Avenger Guitar Review – Munsons take on the Classic S-Type Guitar!
Introduction
We have another fantastic review from the amazing people at Munson Guitars! This time, we are checking out their brand new take on the classic S-Type, the Munson Avenger! This new model was released at the Bristol Guitar Show. Luckily, they built a left-handed model! The team at Munson sure knows how to look after us lefties.
They kindly loaned it to us, and we thought it would be amazing to review it, put it through its paces, and use it for a while to see what we thought. Sadly, the Avenger has to go back after I am done with it. It’s getting harder to send these Munson guitars back. So let’s go over what the Munson Avenger is and what the specs are like!
Munson Avenger Guitar
The Munson Avenger is Munson’s take on the classic S-Type guitar. However, Munson, doing what they do best, has added their own flair and modifications to it in both performance and styling. So why don’t we dive into the specs, starting with the woods it is made from!
The body of the Munson Avenger is English Ash sourced from a local sawmill, and the neck is flame maple with a Black Diamond RichLite fretboard with medium nickel frets, Hosco white side markers, and a dual-action truss rod keeping the neck firmly in place. Munson has kept the shape fairly familiar while tweaking the lines and contours of the body to better suit the modern guitarist.
The Munson Avenger has an H/S/S configuration, with the middle pickup being RWRP (Reverse Wound, Reverse Polarity). This means it has a humbucker in the bridge and single coils in the middle and neck positions, giving you that “Super Strat” configuration. The pickups are hand-wound by Munson themselves. This is all controlled with a 5-way switch, giving you your familiar S-Type pickup combinations and a bit more.
More on the Munson Avenger Guitar
The guitar features black hardware starting with a Gotoh GTC101 bridge, a Graphtech XL LH Nut, left-handed Gotoh locking tuners (which have been staggered so no need for a string tree, leading to more tuning stability), and finally, the Munson Avenger is loaded with black Schaller strap locks. One of the standout features of this guitar is the pickguard, made of brushed aluminum, paired with aluminum fretboard inlays, giving the whole guitar a nice modern look!
The price of the Munson Avenger will vary depending on the specs. However, the spec I have here retails for £1945 (+ VAT). I believe this one is a fairly high-spec build, so it would be one of the more “expensive” Avengers you could get.
Where does the name come from? Well, like all of the Munson lineup, the Munson Avenger gets its name from an old warplane. The Avenger! The Avenger was a multi-purpose aircraft which played a major part in WWII and is now the name for this multi-purpose guitar! You can now see why they named it as such!
The Sounds
An S-Type guitar with a 5-way switch? I could only think of a certain genre to play a nice bit of blues shuffle! I stretched my legs for a bit of improvisation and soloing. For the recording, it was all done through my Revv D20 (Review Here), then used an Ibanez Tube Screamer (Review Here) for a little front-end push!
After that, we go through the Munson Avenger’s guitar sounds! We run the guitar into the Revv D20 and go through various sounds, as well as using some pedals and effects to show what this guitar can do and how it sounds. This video is only a taste of what this guitar is really capable of! Any sound you want, this guitar is capable of achieving it!
What are my thoughts?
I think we can say that the Munson Avenger looks amazing! The vintage feel with modern touches really packs a punch with this guitar! The lovely stained ash contrasted with the metal pickguard. A really nice look! It looks very modern but gives off a vintage feel. It’s nice to see something a little different from an S-Type! Of course, it is worth noting that colors and woods can be altered to your preference.
If you are after a super light guitar, this isn’t the guitar for you. The English ash packs a fair weight. It isn’t super heavy, but heavier than I am used to. That said, the guitar is wonderfully balanced with no neck dive or unevenness while standing with it. Coming standard with strap locks as well, you can be sure that this guitar isn’t going anywhere!
How does it sound?
So how does it sound? Well, to put it simply, it covers everything! Thanks to Munson putting the humbucker in the bridge, you can get a huge array of sounds from the Avenger! The humbucker in the bridge gives you aggression and power in your lead and neck sounds, while the neck pickup is more of a standard S-Type pickup giving you warm and creamy sounds! What really surprises me is the middle position! Typically, the middle position on a Strat is a bit “meh.” However, the middle position on the Munson Avenger is just lovely, offering a great “all-round” tone! A perfect option to have!
Final Words
The volume and tone pots are super responsive and easy to dial in! Located in a nice spot so you can reach them mid-phrase or mid-song to adjust! The 5-way switch is trustworthy, and you can switch it and trust it to land where you want, with a nice feedback click allowing you to know when it is locked in!
The neck is just over, with a real nice shape to it and just feels so nice to play. It feels slightly wider than what I would normally play. The Avenger’s neck isn’t greasy and doesn’t cause your hand to stick when moving around the neck. It also looks absolutely insane!
Any downside? Anything I don’t like? Not really, as I said at the start, the axe is fairly heavy (again, for what I am used to!) I honestly love this guitar, it is like they built a guitar to my specs! I can’t even complain about the price as I think it is fantastic value, plus the Munson Avenger comes with a hard case as well!
Conclusion
I want to give a huge thanks to Munson Guitars for letting me borrow this guitar! It’s been great fun to play and I have really enjoyed it! Sadly, I have to return it to them! However, don’t worry, we will be seeing more of Munson guitars on this site!
We reviewed the Munson Tempest a few months ago, a more T-Type shaped guitar, so if that is more your thing, you can give that a read here! It was another outstanding guitar!
We hope to review more plugins soon, we have a few lined up and In Testing so if you can think of any you want us to try please let us know over on our Instagram!
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