Amped Review: Waghorn Kronos 6 and Double Cut

Classy guitars from Bristol   10-Sep-12

We’ve been blessed to review some pretty incredible guitars recently, but it’s not so often we get to review something that has been lovingly hand-built and complemented with some of the best accessories and hardware around.

Waghorn Guitars is a custom guitar workshop in Bristol, they’ve just kitted out Alex Hutchings (super-human Rolad demonstrator) with his own custom model, and the small team of skilled luthiers are also producing stock and custom models for the general public.

We managed to get our hands on two of their flagship stock models - the Kronos 6 and the Double Cut.

The Kronos 6 is a high-end guitar for shredders, sort of like a super Strat wearing a top hat and monocle and smoking a cigar.

The Double Cut has bags of style with a beautiful natural finish. It’s light, thinline, but has a naturally deep tone.

If you order a Double Cut you will get the option of a number of different materials for the body, body top, neck, fretboard and scale length. You can choose between swamp ash, mahogany, alder and korina for the body, and flamed maple, quilted maple and burled maple for the top.

In fact the range of options for the whole guitar is outstanding, go to the Waghorn website to check out the full range of options on both guitars, and watch the video above to find out which materials we had on the guitars we were reviewing.

We decided to focus our review on the craftsmanship of the guitars, we have very rarely been so impressed at the feel and soul of any guitar. Both Waghorns felt like loyal companions on some sort of mystical journey, it sounds a bit Game of Thrones but there was a definite and instant connection.

The Kronos was weighty, with an air of quality. When your fingers hit the fretboard it feels like an instant fit, it’s a really smooth neck, the attention to detail is sublime.

Paying the same sort of money for a factory guitar would get you a guitar with nowhere near the same quality and attention to detail.

For raw power the Kronos 6 is not to be messed with, when you put it through a bucket load of gain it really sounds the business, but when you roll it back and go clean you get a nice clean jazz guitar with a heavy top and bottom but no boxy mids.

The Double Cut is much the same, but would probably benefit with a single coil (which is an option) rather than a HH setup.

There is a lot to say about these guitars, and we say most of it in the video review. But if you are looking to part with £1795 (for the Double Cut, £2095 for the Kronos 6) then you won’t get much better than a Waghorn.

Because it’s a small custom company as well, you can advise on how you want the guitar set up (in minute detail) and if you have any problems then you can speak to the guy who actually built the guitar.

You probably won’t have any problems though.

In the video, we allude to the fact that maybe the guitars are priced out of the market for a lot of guitarists, but the company build cheaper options, which are stripped back but built with the same attention to detail.

Kronos 6 (as shown)
£2095
Double Cut 6
£1795

More Information

• Waghornguitars.com