- Looks OK!
- Terrible build quality
- One of worst fret and nut work
- Avoid this guitar at all times!
Hello there! Back again with another honest review of an entry-level electric guitar by Stagg, the S250 model Stratocaster clone! Unlike my other real, long-term and honest guitar reviews, this time you won’t find anything positive here! If you have already read my article on the reasons to trust my reviews, you know I have extensive real-world experience in the musical instruments industry.
Table of Contents
I have been working hard to pour everything I know into this website. Hence, people get real information, but not cheesy and extremely misleading pieces of content that have been written by inexperienced professionals. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against the Stagg brand, nor have I been encouraged by anything or anyone to look down on this brand. 
About Stagg
I believe they produce pretty insane value-for-money accessories, percussion and stands, but they fail big time with instruments! Stagg is a musical instruments and accessories brand from Belgium, and they have been active since 1995 in this field of business. As I have already given so many details about how we would test guitars during my service in an e-commerce company that would handle over 20000 musical instruments and accessories, I had the chance to play dozens of guitar models from many different companies.
Stagg S250
Among dozens of brands, Stagg electric and acoustic guitars were sold quite seldom compared to competitors’ models, which are priced more or less in the same range. Before we dive into more details, I would like you to hear the Stagg S250 in action within our unbiased guitar reviews concept and also some other shorter videos. There will be three videos belonging to the years 2014, 2015 and 2016, which means people would still buy this guitar and also means this is a long-term review! 
The first video below was recorded with a Rode VideoMic Pro and a Marshall AVT50 amp in 2014. This might be the best Stagg S250 among the others; please keep watching and reading about it if you want to find out more about the reason.
Test Room Video (no talking)
This second video belongs to our non-biased guitar reviews series, which was recorded with a Marshall JVM205C valve amp + Shure SM57 microphone in 2015! If you listen to this guitar review video, you will understand why I dislike Stagg S250 and other models as well! 
During my service in the industry, I was also responsible for managing YouTube and constantly replied to thousands of comments and questions. To be fair, we never talked about our own opinions to judge a product; rather, we would just provide our followers and customers with reviews, statistical data and customer feedback. The one thing I really dislike about this situation is that sometimes people judge your basic abilities, such as tuning your guitar 🙂
I have heard many times that I should be learning how to tune a guitar! But the thing that people don’t understand is that even though you precisely tune up your instrument, do your neck adjustments and set up the intonation, some guitars will sound like shit and out of tune! The very first multiple notes at the same time or chords played will expose the instrument’s ability to produce usable sounds. You will notice that chords tremble and sound out of tune because of permanent intonation issues. 
Sound Demo (no talking)
And even though there are a bit better versions coming out in the same production line, the frets are terribly mounted, the plastic nut, as we know, is the cheapest, and they didn’t even spend some time to correctly fit it on the instrument. 
You will also notice that I am trying to be careful while using the pickup selector switch because it’s so stiff and you can apply too much force and skip the positions.
Sound Demo (no talking)
This last short video above is from 2016, and as you will hear, there are intonation problems that are quite clear to the listener once there is more than one note being played. And the intonation adjustments were already made! For your information, this is a very clear sign of bad fretwork and/or a bad nut. In an ideal world, chords being played in any position should ring freely without going out of tune.
Tech Specs
| Stagg S250 | Tech Specs |
|---|---|
| Body | Alder |
| Neck | Hard Maple |
| Fretboard | Rosewood |
| Frets | 21 Medium |
| Scale | 648mm |
| Radius | 241mm |
| Pickups | Standard Single-Coil |
| Selector | 5-way Selector |
| Controls | Volume - Neck Tone - Middle Tone |
| Bridge | 6 Saddle Vintage Style Tremolo |
| Tuners | Standard Die-Cast |
| Neck Plate | 4 Bolt Standard |
| Strings | No Brand 9-42 Strings |
So my verdict is quite an easy guess, I think? I wouldn’t spend any money on Stagg S250 and other Stagg models as well. Sorry, Stagg! While there has been a huge competition among guitar manufacturers and they are now able to offer crazy value-for-money instruments, I don’t really understand why a company like Stagg does not really care about quality issues.
Here’s another video featuring a Stagg S300 Stratocaster in a blind test video for Strat clones that I made back in the day. It was torture to play a simple riff on this instrument! I have also just released another piece of content, this time roasting an SX EG2K electric guitar (also check it out and avoid it at all times!) 
As you have been reading my reviews here, there are many alternatives in this price range from brands such as Squier, Cort and SX Guitars, and they were always way better than Stagg at any given time. I believe you wouldn’t expect me to write a negative review, but as I have mentioned many times in my blog, I have been trying to create the most honest musical instrument reviews for you!
Sometimes I get comments on my reviews that sit on the extreme edge, just like this one you read. There are still some people out there who claim that a single experience that they have with a product will always beat the experience in the actual business. I even received comments that these Stagg S250 series would rival the Fender American Standard Stratocaster – come on!
It’s impossible that any Stagg guitar could even compete against the Squier line, let alone American-made instruments. But as I said, some people want to reveal how much they know by making such stupid claims. As you can see, just avoid this guitar brand at all times.
This also includes helping you to save your hard-earned cash! 🙂 Thanks for visiting my blog and supporting me so far! I will hopefully see you in the next review here!
