LET'S GET OUR claim in straight away. Tony Bacon, February 14: "Now Fender have turned Japanese, d'you think people will talk about post-CBS Strats?" It's our phrase, hands off.

Addicts still refer lovingly to the greatness of pre-CBS instruments, those made before giant CBS took over Leo Fender's homely company in January 1965 for 13 million dollars. Exactly 20 years later, we begin another era with all but a small, select, customised fraction of the manufacturing moving east to Japan — the end of a legend, some will say; a new hope, reply Fender.

Lately, their life has been revitalised by the successful Squier range; but proper, made-in-Japan Fenders are not new, their sales have merely been limited to the Japanese home market, up to this point.

Elsewhere in our Frankfurt report you can read how Fender have launched this new age — three new trem systems, new shapes and more than 20 guitars. But here we'll look in detail at what the split from American production lines means to the bog standard Fender Stratocaster.

The jack ferrule is back, the headstock is slim (fifties style), and we have a four-bolt neck, ail of which could be said for the thousands of Strat copies around the globe, most of them also manufactured in Japan. What they don't have is the American Fender design team who have been at work.

So, the two most important changes are a lockable trem system with tailpiece fine tuning, and a 22nd fret. This is System 1 of Fender's three trem alternatives — a knife edge set-up, not a fulcrum job. It's different from the original Strat bridges and present Squier versions. Instead of pitching forwards or backwards over an angled bridge plate, the saddles and tuners are on a chromed block that pushes against two pillars. Springs inside the body counterbalance the pull of strings, and the bridge 'floats' ready for you to wang away with the snap- (not screw-) in arm.

No 'rooftop' saddles, either. Strings still pass through a sustain block from the rear of the body but now sit inside small pivots within the sustain block before passing over rollers at the front of the bridge. The rollers can be moved backwards and forwards for intonation (but NOT individual height) and can be locked into place. Six small, knurled-top screws at the back of the bridge ease down or release the sprung pivots (basic, but effective), and that's what gives you the fine tuning. These pivot 'springs' are actually small, tensioned lengths of metal and on the review sample, one had given up the ghost making the top E fine tuner inadjustable — a Frankfurt symptom rather than a design flaw, we hope.

Strings are locked, in pairs, by Allen-keyed restrainers just behind the nut and, lo, we have a Strat trem that doesn't go out of tune. Unfortunately, you can't now get at the truss rod adjuster with an Allen wrench unless you remove the nut lock from the headstock. A small price, but why no way of tightening the tremolo arm? The snap-in tension is a useful compromise between the arm staying where you put it, and not being too tight to knock out of the way easily, but you may prefer something stiffer or floppier.

The five-way pickup selector, three single coil pickups (neither hotted-up nor vintage-wound) volume, two tones and scratchplate mountings are as our fathers knew them, no point fiddling with a perfect arrangement (even if they have missed the chance of lining the body cavities with foil to cut down some of the noise and hum).

Question: is the new Standard Strat better off for hardware? Answer, definitely.

The neck certainly won't feel like an old Strat since Fender previously decided to swap to the flatter, 12in fretboard radius away from the early 7.25 which brought age-old complaints of strings cutting out during bends in the top register. Not so today. An improvement, as is the extra fret for a high D on the E string — pagan worship for the upper-range riffers.

Fretting (with latter-day medium height wire) is pristine, a long way from the late seventies era of highly suspect set-ups. A walnut stripe runs up the back of the one-piece maple neck featuring a slim, gently-rounded profile, not the chunky V section of '57 Strats (and their Squier or Vintage re-creations). Nice.

White/black/white scratchplate, bolt-on, Microtilt neck and rear cover for the trem springs ail fit with micrometer precision — as you'd expect of Japan. Which brings us to the main bout. The new Japanese-made, Standard Strats are not in competition with their ancestry... they can't be. With the words "Made in Japan" now below "Stratocaster" on the headstock, there will always be a psychological 'collectors' division between pre/post 85 Strats. If anything Japanese Strats are in competition with Japanese Squiers... they have to offer something more than those excellent budget guitars.

It's slight, but it's there... a deeper Fenderness and a superior finish. The bottom three strings have a solid, single-coil bark to them and the hollowness of the out-of-phase pickup positions operates across all the strings (not just concentrated on the G and B as on some Stratish copies). The sustain is longer (perhaps to do with the extra metal of the bridge), all the pickups are bright and full bodied (though the tail coil does cut up sharp and lean in the top registers), and it's a broad-sounding guitar — good tonal range helped by smooth controls that aren't just treble guillotines. It just seems better at all the things it does, including the now very light, fast-reacting trem.

Little joy to be had in comparing a brand new Strat with a guitar that's lived a life of rock 'n' roll since '57. Old instruments will always sound different and the Strat has to move on. Whether these Japanese offspring will reach a similar revered maturity is another matter. They are at least starting well — and that's something you cannot always say for every age of Fender.

FENDER Standard Strat: £370

CONTACT: Fender House, (Contact Details).