“My favorite electric guitar I’ve tested in more than two decades.” We review the Powers Electric A-Type and find a stunningly unique and inspirational creation

It’s either totally crazy or completely understandable that the most unique electric guitar to come through in many moons is designed by a guy who runs one of the biggest acoustic operations in the world. Andy Powers is famous for redesigning and re-imagining pretty much everything happening at Taylor. But he loves electric guitar as well, and over in some secret Area 51 laboratory, the endlessly inquisitive luthier built an altogether different beast: the Powers Electric A-Type.

I first got wind of this development a couple of NAMM shows ago, but there were no Powers Electrics to be found anywhere around the Taylor booth. I hunted one down at the Two-Rock booth, where I dug its retro-future sensibility and tonality, from what I could hear in such a noisy environment. Powers and company let me know they were happy to keep it a boutique item until it organically grew from a hip side project into a bigger deal, and now that time has come.

I was completely stunned when the guitar arrived for review. I remembered it being cool, but not this cool! Without even plugging it in, I could see there was so much to take in on this eclectic instrument.

Aesthetically, the Powers Electric has the vibe of a pawnshop prize with modern mechanics and boutique amenities. It’s as if Powers jumped into Doc Brown’s DeLorean from Back to the Future, set the date for 1963, walked into a mom-and-pop guitar shop to pillage various pieces, and then jumped back to the present to combine them in a state-of-the-art contemporary workshop.

The are no f-holes, but the A-Type has a hollow body. It’s double-cutaway frame is slightly larger and deeper than a Strat, and it has a Danelectro or even a Supro kind of style. The Camtail vibrato tailpiece is essentially a newfangled Bigsby that appears as if it could have come from a Gretsch.

It’s got dual single-coil pickups kind of like, say, a vintage Gibson with P90s, but these pickups have their own distinctive flair. The neck would look right at home on an Ernie Ball/Music Man. And then there are all the boutique-y nuances, such as the blown-glass style caps on the volume and tone knobs, as well as the vibrato arm.

Finally, there’s the color scheme. It’s available in myriad vibrant hues that draw on bold classic car colors. I was attracted to Mint Green, Blue Lagoon and Viola Purple Metallic — the model shown here is in Silver Jade Mach 1 — but the review unit available was Aubergine, as seen in my demo video below, which is a shade of purple that’s pretty plum.

Powers Electric A-Type demo by Jimmy Leslie for Guitar Player Review - YouTube

Watch On

I tested this guitar in several settings, from the home studio to a funk gig at John Lee Hooker’s old Boom Boom Room to a ZZ Top tribute where it really knocked me out on “Cheap Sunglasses.” Playability is simply perfect. I wouldn’t change a thing. In fact, I’m kind of timid about even changing the strings because these are so on point.

The open-pore mahogany neck feels very much like an Ernie Ball/Music Man as well, and it plays slinky as hell. Something about the uncommon scale length of 24.875 inches and having only 21 frets equates to being able reach things on this guitar that are normally beyond my grasp. You wind up playing all sorts of chords and licks that were never apparent. It’s weird not to have at least 22 frets, but string bendability is off the charts, and when you combine that with the awesome action on the vibrato system, wild stuff ensues.

Powers Electric offers a top-loading hardtail option for the A-Type, but to me, having a whammy bar is half the fun of playing an electric guitar. The cool thing about this Camtail system is that when you’re not using the vibrato, it’s so locked down that it practically feels like a hardtail. There is zero string slag when performing traditional bends. The A-Type stays holistically in tune no matter what you do.

Now, I’m a floating trem kind of cat from the Jeff Beck school, so it took a minute to get used to the bar only going down rather than down and up. Then Taylor let me know that there’s a little screw you can remove to unlock the bar and make it float. That facilitates upward mobility to a reasonable degree for a Bigsby-style vibrato.

The main thing to keep in mind when utilizing that ability to momentarily raise notes and chords sharp is to remain conscious about ending with a quick downward push for a return to ground zero. Somehow, the advanced mechanical mojo of this system makes the platform feel solid even when it’s not technically locked down. Traditional string bends still sound true. What a godsend!

The Powers Electric emits a happening tone all its own. You can feel the lightweight A-Type body made of sustainable Urban Ash resonate against your body acoustically. You can even have a buddy play it and simply grab the headstock to feel the good vibrations resonating up through the neck.

It’s about twice as loud and vibrant as a typical solidbody before being plugged in, and it doesn’t disappoint through amplification. I played it through several different amps, from a powerful Rivera Knucklehead to a Fender Super Champ. In every scenario the Powers Electric delivered multiple killer tones.

Clean sounds are so percussive that much of the funky fingerstyle slap-and-pop stuff I normally reserve for acoustic playing becomes fair game on this electric. It’s so spanky! There’s a pristine high end that shines through on both pickups in all three toggle-switch positions, perhaps reflecting its solid maple top.

In the bridge position, this new Powers pickup creation cuts like a knife and stabs like an ice pick. In the neck position, it warms up nicely. The middle toggle-switch position offers a beautiful balance of both. That was ground zero for me, and I’d flip it forward or backward depending on the situation. Very practical.

These Powers pickups are kind of like low-noise, high-powered P90s, and when you add some gain, things get really interesting really quick. They won’t sound exactly like humbuckers, but they can sound thicker than your run-of-the-mill single-coils, due in no small part to the substantial hollow body.

Like a fine jazz box, notes will blossom if you give them time to do so. Playability is so sweet that it’s tempting to flail away, but when you slow down and let a note sustain, it will open up and bloom like a magnolia tree in springtime.

The tone control is unique and ultra-practical. Roll it back and that top shimmer goes away without changing the overall tone too drastically. I found it super useful for playing lead passages, especially when using high gain. When a lot of sizzle is being generated by pedals and tubes, you don’t need so much from the guitar, so it’s nice to be able to curtail it in one fell swoop of the control knob without having to worry about entering a tonal twilight zone.

Andy Powers is perhaps the most fascinating person in the musical instrument business because he’s a modern renaissance man. Andy is as interested in cars, skateboards, surfing and growing an organic fruit tree farm on his property as he is guitars. He’s as much a player and artist as he is a luthier, and while he obviously designs a lot of Taylor products to suit that huge brand, it’s clear that many of his creations are simply to satisfy his own cat-like curiosity.

Powers may have originally designed the A-Type to suit himself, but he wound up creating something that every single player I’ve presented it to finds fascinating. As for my editorial opinion, the Powers A-Type is my single favorite electric guitar I’ve tested in more than two decades at Guitar Player. In my 10th year serving as Frets editor focused on acoustics, it's fitting that my fave electric comes from a fellow acoustic aficionado.

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SPECIFICATIONS

CONTACT powerselectricguitars.com

PRICE $3,999 with groovy custom leather, Mad Men-approved gig bag inspired by classic Porsche seat upholstery

NUT Ebony, 1.7" width

NECK 1-piece mahogany, asymmetrical “Powers Electric carve” profile, glued-in

FRETBOARD Honduran rosewood, Italian acrylic “Twin Arch” inlays, 24.875" radius

FRETS 21, jumbo

TUNERS Enclosed chrome-plated

BODY Urban ash back with solid maple top, double-cutaway “trussed” hollowbody

BRIDGE High-carbon steel baseplate with Delrin saddle, machined aluminum Camtail vibrato tailpiece

PICKUPS Two Powers Electric PF42 single-coils

FACTORY STRINGS D’Addario XS Coated Nickel, gauges .010 - .046

CONTROLS Three-way pickup selector, volume and tone knobs

WEIGHT 6.4 lbs (as tested)

BUILT USA

PRO Outrageously inspirational, totally unique, an electric guitar with wonderfully percussive dynamic response and perfect playability

CON Not a single thing