The day I bought this Strat was one of those days you wander into a music store to just look around, and you walk out with a thousand dollar guitar that you had no intention nor right to buy. That happened to me when I went saw my friend John Lisher who was store manager of Daddy’s Junky Music near West Farms Mall in West Hartford, CT. He showed me this new Strat “Ultra” which sounded great, looked beautiful and played like butter. It has a Wilkinson nut which supposedly helped the guitar remain in tune when using the whammy bar. So I bought it and immediately installed a Floyd Rose Tremolo on it (what a surprise) nut left the locking nut off. With the help of locking tuners, the guitar remained in tune and allowed me tune up in the traditional manner. I then was talking to my friend Joey Brasler who was, at the time, working for a music store in North Hollywood called Makin’ Music. Joey told me about these new “Antiquity” pickups made by Seymour Duncan that look and sound like old vintage pickups. So I bought a humbucker and installed it in the bridge position on this Strat (as you look at most of my guitars you’ll notice I generally don’t like single coil “bridge” pickups because they tend to sound thin and squeal on high-gain settings). In contrast, this pickup drips of tone and is one of the best sounding pickups I’ve ever owned, taking this guitar from a “really good” guitar to a “great” guitar.