For Taylor guitar fans, the name Andy Powers is instantly recognizable. He’s the Design Director and one of the managing partners at Taylor, and he’s responsible for, among other things, the introduction of V-Class bracing. Taylor’s own foray into pure electric guitars was short-lived, and the Powers Electric guitars are separate and distinct from the old Taylor electric line.

Excellent-condition guitar with no marks, chips, dents, or wear. Includes the original padded gig bag and an additional brass tailpiece.

The Powers A-Type Select is a real departure from typical electric guitar design, and Powers pretty much designed every inch of it except for the tuners. It’s a true hollow body with center support posts, much like a classical instrument, and as such it’s quite light. The compensated graphite saddle is adjustable for intonation, and there’s also a brass tailpiece included if you care to swap it out for the aluminum one. Overall, there’s quite a bit of “art” in this guitar, from the overall aesthetic to the multi-colored knobs and switch tip.

The PF42 “Partial Faraday” pickups have a very clear, almost hi-fi tonality. What is Faraday? In this case, it’s a nod to Michael Faraday, the 19th-century physicist and pioneer in electromagnetism. The PF42 pickups employ what’s called a “Faraday cage,” which in this application is an aluminum shell around the coil that sends stray noise and interference to ground. The result is a very quiet pickup, even though it’s a single-coil design. By using aluminum, Powers avoids interfering with the magnetic properties of the pickup. Leo Fender used a comb-style cage on his Jaguar pickups to help reduce noise, and a similar technique is also applied to some Lace pickups. All said, the Powers A-Type is very clean, with excellent note separation and clarity. It reminds us somewhat, tonally, of certain G&L MFD pickups—ASAT Special and Comanche in particular—and if you like those, you’ll likely enjoy the Powers.

There are many other interesting design details on the Powers A-Type guitar, and if you jump below the specs, we’ll let Powers speak for itself. Overall, the Powers A-Type Select could be equally at home in a museum, an ultimate Man Cave, or a sophisticated jazz or rock combo—just probably not on Warped Tour. If craftsmanship and exclusivity are your thing, the Powers A-Type is letter-perfect.

This Powers PF42 features:

• Body Wood: Solid Maple Top, Urban Ash Body
• 6.0 pounds
• Body Style: Trussed Hollow body
• Bridge Style: Compensated graphite
• Fingerboard/Peghead Veneer: Honduran Rosewood
• Neck Material: One-Piece Mahogany
• Fingerboard Material: Honduran Rosewood
• Number of Frets: 21
• Fret Size: Jumbo
• Scale Length: 24-7/8"
• Fingerboard Radius: Asymmetrical
• Neck Profile: Powers Electric Carve
• Inlay Material: Italian Acrylic
• Nut Width: 1-11/16" with Continuous Contour
• Pickups: PF42 (Partial Faraday) 
• Aluminum control cavity backplate for additional noise shielding
• Carrying Case: Custom Leather Softshell Case

In the words of Powers Electric Guitars:

The Deets

Inspired by San Diego's blend of surf, skate, auto and music cultures, the A-Type re-imagines electric guitar design into a sound and feel all its own. The trussed, slim hollow body is remarkably lightweight and uniquely voiced to combine resonance, sustain and feedback suppression. An asymmetrical fretboard radius makes playing and bending strings effortless and produces a more consistent tonal character. A new single-coil pickup design blends warmth and fidelity (FF42) with a brighter and punchier pickup (PF42) option also available. Every design feature works to reveal a playing experience unlike any other — one that frees you up to sound more like you.

Not to be confused with an end-to-end compound radius, the A-Type’s Honduras rosewood fretboard features a split radius—meaning it’s asymmetrical from the bass side to the treble side, with the treble side slightly flatter all the way from the first fret down to the end (i.e. up to the highest fret, where the fretboard meets the body), for easy, better-sounding string bends.

Body Architecture
Each Powers Electric A-Type features an Urban Ash hollowbody trussed with two internal soundposts fitted into a braced, solid maple top—similar to the soundpost in a violin—which allows the front and back to move together, increasing the resonance and sustain of the guitar while reducing feedback.

Pickups
Available in “full Faraday” (FF42) and “partial Faraday” (PF42) editions, both pickup options are a new design that blends modern magnetic structure with an old inspiration, allowing the strings to vibrate more naturally, producing unprecedented fidelity and colorful warmth—tonal qualities that tend to be at odds with one another, but beautifully complement one another with these new designs—one emphasizing clarity and warmth (FF42); and the other, a firm, brighter response (PF42).

“CamTail” Tremolo/Vibrato
Since pitch-shifting tails notoriously go out of tune, Andy Powers engineered his own ingenious “camshaft” tailpiece—which he’s dubbed the “CamTail”—with string ramps individually compensated for tension and gauge. So, when you dive on the CamTail Tremolo on a Powers Electric A-Type guitar, the strings move in pitch unison relative to each other—getting sonically closer to the way lap and pedal steel guitarists move a chord and maintain relative pitch.