OCCASIONALLY, I get the very nasty feeling that the currently prevalent 'stingy' philosophy is creeping into more aspects of life than simply that subject to Downing Street Diktat.

It seems that many products, now made down to a price, represent the barest minimum of materials and skill that can be thrown together and flogged off in the guise of something useful and effective. The bone of essence is being cut and systematically replaced by a job lot of defective plastic hip joints.

But the Hohner's price is hard to understand, for reasons we will get to. This guitar narrowly avoids ploughing into the quality bottom thanks to its application of a little knowledge about tremolo systems. Once again someone has read the Arlene Phillips interviews last year, and her enthusiasm for black and red is reflected here in the shiny polyester and rather dubious plastic binding respectively.

The guitar arrived with a comprehensive set of Allen keys for the various adjustable/unscrewable bits, and an instruction sheet bearing the claim that the guitar had been professionally tested and set up. "Pah", as they say. Indeed "Phooey". But apart from that, the paper was accurate and helpful, and advised intelligently on action and tremolo adjustment.

Alongside 'Truss rod', it came out against adjustment without professional advice. We-e-e-ell... all right then. The assumption is that the buyer will be inexperienced. Also, at this quality level, the resemblance between desirable relief and set relief has been previously noticed to be rather more coincidental than deliberate, though this is nowadays limited more to oriental classical guitars. So, go to someone who has seen it before.

The action here was 1.8mm treble to 2.2mm bass, strung .009/.012/.015/.0219/.0301/.0396 (inches) over a slightly more than 0.16in relief at its maximum over frets 10/11. That's not bad — the slight imbalance in the trebles is easily cured, and a professional setup could run the action in a little closer to the low cambered fingerboard.

I say "fingerboard" with some dubiety; in view of the comparison I make later, I really do need convincing that it is not merely a veneer. Unfortunately there are limits on the amount of poking about that can be done on a review guitar — Destruction Testing is not in the brief. One other caveat on action: the rounded fret wire sported by this and many another downmarket electric koto will buzz more than a slimmer bead wire action for action and bead height for bead height.

I could have done with a very slightly slimmer neck, and after a while came to dislike the feel of the polyester. The guitar balanced as well as any other Tele copy with a large amount of metal on the body. The machine heads functioned satisfactorily, though the issue is clouded somewhat by the tendency of the strings to catch in the partially undone nut lock. The buttons are an awkward size — too big for the usual Fender size slot in a string winder, and too small for the larger slot. The headstock shape looks like many others.

The pickups produced a reasonable-looking output on a meter, and I thought they were Chinese until I realised I was looking at Hohner's cheerful and dated little-man logo sideways. Tonally they are dull, and not helped by an unimaginative, unshielded and treble-lossy two-vol/two-tone/one-three-way-selector switch control system. The pickups hummed badly when selected individually and were badly microphonic — the guitar might as well have had a crystal mic on it. I would consider the guitar unusable on this point alone. The pickups were fully encased and looked as if internal inspection might finish them off.

The trem system is fair enough(ish). Tightening up the nut lock raises the pitch of the strings by twisting them out of true as the clamp closes. Allowance must be made for this by tuning slightly slack, as the range on the bridge fine-tuners is limited to just over a tone. Regular trem fans will already know the potential for fun and games juggling different string tensions as the block leans back and forth trying to counteract your efforts.

The nut lock is in three sections, so strings must be dealt with in pairs. Restringing is difficult to achieve quickly, and will probably eventually result in the loss of at least one screw or plate from the clamp assembly.

The tremolo fulcrum is towards the picking side of the bridge — the whole unit tilts, altering action, and, by reason of the individual string length adjustment, gives a significant variation in pitch shift between strings.

The first saddle as set was quite near the bridge fulcrum, the sixth saddle was much further back. Consequently, as the bridge tilted the sixth saddle moved upwards and forwards through a bigger arc, further than the first, and let off more string tension than the first. The other saddles ran more or less diagonally (and incorrectly for intonation, incidentally) between first and sixth. So a shove down on the arm that generated a semitone drop on the first gave a simultaneous tone on the second, and fourth drop on the sixth string.

I know trems are a bit haphazard in this respect, but I thought this one was a bit over the top. Mind you, there was a certain vacuous pleasure to be had from trying to find the various chords available from raising or lowering the pitch of the open strings. The one I've mentioned gave a nice B7 to E min slide if only some strings were picked.

At this point, it might be possible to say that if the guitar could be got cheap enough, it could be worth replacing the electrics for the sake of the halfway decent trem. But wait, the HTB1 has another little surprise yet.

When the guitar arrived, info on body and neck materials was not available to your faithful hack, but a peer round the innards in a vain search for shielding, nice pots or anything else worthy of note revealed the body to be formed in a lateral multiple laminate structure. Plywood, squire. Plywood.

If we cast our minds back a wee while (One Two May '84 issue) I came out about having used a plywood guitar. It cost forty-odd quid as I recall. In the same screed, we discovered a similar Hondo Les Paul copy for about £99. It, too, had weedy electrics, and a rough and ready comparison of that and the HTB1 would seem to indicate that the trem system is costing around £100, give or take a few bob for inflation. Or is there some jiggery-pokery with the pound against the Korean button that accounts for this massive difference between two cheapos?

You get what you pay for (through the nose?) here — a very cheap body and unspecified neck, duff electrics and a reasonable trem system.

What the eye doesn't see, the paint shop will gloss over.

HOHNER HTB1 guitar: £225

CONTACT: M Hohner Ltd, (Contact Details).