Fender’s latest Telecaster is unabashedly a tone machine. The limited-edition Rarities Flame Maple Top Chambered Telecaster features a resonant two-piece roasted alder body and a flame maple top. Notably, the body has hollow chambers that reduce weight without sacrificing structural integrity.
This Tele has a “Modern C”-shaped neck with 22 narrow-tall frets and staggered-height tuning machines which provide the correct break angle at the nut (read: more focused tone). The guitar has a vintage-style Tele bridge with three compensated steel saddles and two premium pickups: a custom vintage-overwound Tim Shaw-designed single coil bridge pickup and a ShawBucker 1T humbucking neck pickup.
For those who love the simplicity of the Telecaster, but want a guitar with modern tone-focused updates, this is well-worth checking out. It is priced at $2,500 — only a $500 increase over other American-made models.
