Fender American Ultra II Stratocaster HSS

About the Fender American Ultra II Stratocaster HSS

The American Ultra II Stratocaster HSS is the humbucker version of the top of Fender's regular US production line - the tier directly below the Custom Shop, introduced with the Ultra II generation in October 2024. The body is select alder under gloss urethane, but the interesting parts are the ones you feel rather than see: the rear contours are cut deeper than on any other regular-production Strat, and the neck heel is both tapered and sculpted where the joint meets the body, so the four-bolt heel stops being a wall at the 17th fret.

The neck is quartersawn maple. That is a material choice with a practical point rather than a cosmetic one - in quartersawn stock the growth rings run roughly perpendicular to the fingerboard surface, which makes the neck noticeably more resistant to twist and seasonal movement than flatsawn wood. It carries a thin Ultra Satin urethane finish, a Bi-Flex truss rod that is adjusted at the headstock rather than at the heel, and a Graph Tech TUSQ nut. The nut is one of the quieter changes from the first Ultra generation, which used bone: TUSQ is a self-lubricating synthetic, so the string slots are less likely to bind a bending string or a tremolo return.

The fingerboard is where the model splits into two versions. Ebony boards (model number 0119151) come in Ultraburst, Noble Blue and Texas Tea; quartersawn maple boards (0119152) come in Solar Flare and Sinister Red. Both get heavily rolled edges, 7 mm pearloid dot inlays and Luminlay side dots - a phosphorescent material that stores light and glows on a dark stage, fitted across an entire Fender series for the first time in the Ultra II generation.

Electrically this is not a standard HSS Strat. The bridge carries a coverless Fender Haymaker humbucker, a pickup introduced with this generation and wound around Alnico V bar magnets for medium-to-high gain without collapsing the midrange or losing string separation. Neck and middle are Ultra II Noiseless Hot Strat single-coils - the hotter, Alnico V variant of Fender's hum-cancelling design, not the Vintage version fitted to the three-single-coil Ultra II. A treble bleed circuit sits on the volume pot so rolling back does not just darken the guitar.

Hardware is where the extra money is most visible: a two-point American Ultra synchronized tremolo with a cold-rolled steel block and polished stainless steel block saddles, a pop-in arm, deluxe sealed locking tuners with short posts for a steeper break angle over the nut, and a single-ply anodized aluminium pickguard in place of the usual multi-layer plastic - which also acts as a continuous shield under the electronics. A deluxe moulded case is included. Worth knowing before comparing spec sheets: some dealer listings mix in the Limited Edition versions of this guitar, which add an active Ultra Blaster boost circuit of up to 15 dB and sometimes a roasted maple neck. The standard model has no onboard boost. The HSS is also right-handed only - the Ultra II left-handed Strat is the three-single-coil version.

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Sound character of the Fender American Ultra II Stratocaster HSS

This is a bright, modern-voiced Strat rather than a vintage one, and the pickup choice is the reason: the Ultra II Noiseless Hot single-coils are the higher-output, Alnico V version of Fender's hum-cancelling design, so they keep the glassy top end and scooped midrange of a Strat but push an amp harder and stay dead quiet under gain. The ebony fingerboard adds audible treble presence on top of that, most obviously at the bridge. The Haymaker humbucker is voiced as a mid-gain to high-gain all-rounder rather than a compressed metal pickup - it thickens up without smearing string separation, and the S-1 coil-split drops it back to a credible single-coil rather than a thin approximation. The in-between positions two and four keep the classic percussive Strat cluck, and the cold-rolled steel tremolo block with stainless steel saddles gives the attack a harder, more overtone-rich edge than a cast zinc bridge would.

What owners of the Fender American Ultra II Stratocaster HSS say

Playability is close to a sure thing here: the rolled fingerboard edges, the ebony board, the compound radius and the satin neck finish add up to a clear step up from the American Professional II, and a new example can genuinely feel already played-in straight out of the case.

The Modern D profile is the real dividing line. For hands it suits, it's the most comfortable Fender neck around; for hands it doesn't, the rounder American Professional profile remains the better fit - this is a shape worth trying in person rather than ordering sight unseen.

On the electronics side, the absence of single-coil hum is a straightforward practical win for gigging and recording, though a hum-cancelling design still won't fully replicate a true single coil for purists. The Haymaker pickup reads as a versatile all-rounder in the same territory as a Seymour Duncan JB rather than a specialist high-gain unit, and the coil-split is a genuinely usable voice rather than a token extra - though the ebony board and bridge position can tip slightly brighter than some players prefer.

Weight and a fairly conservative finish range are the recurring criticisms. What stings more at this price point is quality control: most examples are excellent, but tuning instability, fret buzz or finish flaws on delivery do turn up occasionally and call for a professional setup before the guitar shows its best side. The series is still young enough that the overall picture keeps filling in.

Playability & handling of the Fender American Ultra II Stratocaster HSS

The neck shape is Fender's Modern D, and it is the single most polarising thing about the guitar. Compared with the Modern C of the American Professional line it is about as deep but flattened across the back, with more pronounced shoulders where the palm sits - and it does not fatten up much as you move towards the twelfth fret. Fender publishes depth figures only for the first Ultra generation, which uses the same profile: roughly 20.8 mm at the first fret and 22.1 mm at the twelfth. Players who get on with that shape describe it as the most comfortable Fender neck they own; players who prefer a rounder C usually know within a minute that it is not for them. It is worth trying rather than ordering blind.

The 10-to-14-inch compound radius does exactly what it is meant to: the lower frets keep enough curvature for comfortable chording, while the flatter upper end lets you bend a semitone and a half without the string choking out. Combined with the heavily rolled fingerboard edges and the thin satin finish, a new example feels broken in rather than new. The tapered, sculpted neck heel and the deeper rear body contours make the top three or four frets genuinely usable, which is the main ergonomic argument for the Ultra line over a traditional Strat.

Weight is the honest caveat. Examples are documented at roughly 3.65 to 3.9 kg, which puts this at the heavier end for an alder Strat, and reviewers have called it out as a downside for long sets. In everyday handling, the locking tuners make string changes fast and the pop-in tremolo arm goes in and out without tools; the arm swings freely rather than screwing into a fixed position, so it stays where you park it. The Luminlay side dots are a small feature that earns its place on a dark stage.

Recommended accessories & strings for the Fender American Ultra II Stratocaster HSS

The guitar leaves the factory with Fender USA 250L nickel-plated steel strings in .009-.042, and the setup - truss rod, saddle heights, and especially the spring tension behind the two-point tremolo - is dialled in for that tension. Staying on a 9-42 set is the low-effort path; moving up to .010-.046 is entirely reasonable but means re-tensioning the tremolo springs and touching the truss rod, otherwise the bridge will sit at the wrong angle and the guitar will play sharp on bends. Budget a proper setup, not just a string change.

Maintenance is slightly different depending on which version you have. An ebony fingerboard is dense and needs only occasional, sparing oiling - far less than rosewood. The maple-board version is finished, so it wants nothing more than a wipe-down; oil does not belong on it. The Graph Tech TUSQ nut is self-lubricating, so the old graphite-in-the-slots trick is unnecessary. Keep a spare pop-in tremolo arm in mind as a wear part, and a string winder is still useful even with locking tuners.

For amplification, the HSS layout genuinely wants two different things, and that is worth planning for. Positions two to five with the Ultra II Noiseless Hot single-coils are at home in front of a classic Fender-style clean circuit with plenty of headroom - the blackface-voiced combo territory. The Haymaker at the bridge asks for a midrange-capable overdrive or high-gain channel, whether that is a valve amp or a modeller. If you only buy one amp, a clean pedal-platform combo plus a good overdrive and a distortion covers both sides. Because the volume pot has a treble bleed, it works usefully as a gain control, which pairs well with a transparent overdrive that cleans up rather than a compressed fuzz. Practical extras: an angled jack plug suits the recessed Strat output socket, strap locks are sensible on a two-point tremolo guitar, and the deluxe moulded case is already in the box, so a gig bag is optional rather than necessary.

Technical data for the Fender American Ultra II Stratocaster HSS

Price history for the Fender American Ultra II Stratocaster HSS

Cheapest seen: 1.890 EUR  ·  Most expensive seen: 3.898 EUR

The history of the Fender American Ultra II Stratocaster HSS

This model belongs to a specific line of succession inside Fender's US catalogue. The American Ultra arrived in 2019 as the replacement for the American Elite and took over the role of the most feature-heavy regular-production Fender - modern neck, compound radius, noiseless pickups, S-1 switching. The American Ultra II, announced on 15 October 2024 and in shops from 19 October, is that concept reworked rather than restyled, and Fender was unusually open about where the ideas came from: the brief was to import feel and speed from its own performance brands - Charvel, EVH and Jackson - into a guitar that still looks like a Stratocaster.

For the HSS version specifically, the changes from the first generation are substantive rather than cosmetic. The bridge humbucker changed from the Ultra Double Tap to the new Haymaker. The single-coils went from Ultra Noiseless Hot to revoiced Ultra II Noiseless Hot. The rosewood fingerboard option was replaced by ebony, the bone nut by Graph Tech TUSQ, and the multi-ply plastic pickguard by single-ply anodized aluminium. The neck is now specified as quartersawn maple. The tremolo gained a cold-rolled steel block and polished stainless steel block saddles, the rear body contours were cut deeper, and every instrument in the series received Luminlay side dots - by Fender's own account the first time that has been done across an entire Fender series.

The HSS launched at 2,249.99 US dollars, marginally above the three-single-coil version, and it is the configuration Fender aims at players who want one guitar to cover clean Strat work and high-gain rhythm duty. One notable omission: when the series added a left-handed Stratocaster, it was the three-single-coil model, not this one. Since launch, Fender has also issued Limited Edition versions of the Ultra II Strat HSS with an onboard Ultra Blaster boost circuit and, in some cases, roasted maple necks - variants that are easy to confuse with the standard model when reading dealer spec sheets.

About Fender as a manufacturer

Fender began as a repair bench: Leo Fender opened Fender's Radio Service in Fullerton, California at the end of 1938, built amplifiers and lap steels with Doc Kauffman as K&F Manufacturing in the early 1940s, and set up the Fender Electric Instrument Company in 1946 after that partnership ended. What followed in four years reshaped the instrument: the Esquire and Broadcaster of 1950 - renamed Telecaster after a trademark objection from Gretsch - the Precision Bass and Bassman amplifier of 1951, and the Stratocaster of 1954, developed with Bill Carson, George Fullerton and Freddie Tavares as the first guitar with three pickups, a spring-loaded vibrato bridge and a contoured body.

The company's defining idea was never craftsmanship as mystique but industrial logic: bolt-on necks, flat solid bodies, standardised parts. An instrument built that way can be made in quantity, set up quickly, and repaired or upgraded component by component - which is precisely why seventy-year-old Fender designs are still serviceable and why a Strat is the default platform for modification. Leo Fender sold the company to CBS in January 1965 for 13 million dollars; an investor group led by Bill Schultz bought it back in 1985 for 12.5 million and founded Fender Musical Instruments Corporation. US production was consolidated in Corona, California, where the Custom Shop opened in 1987, with a second plant in Ensenada, Mexico from the same period. Servco Pacific has held the majority stake since 2020.

In practice Fender's catalogue is a ladder defined by where an instrument is built and how much hand work goes into it - from Squier through the Mexican-built Player range and the US-built American Performer and American Professional lines up to American Ultra, with the Custom Shop above all of them. The American Ultra II sits at the top of that regular production ladder, which is what its price reflects.

Notable players & recordings featuring the Fender American Ultra II Stratocaster HSS

Honest answer first: no artist is publicly documented as using this exact model - the Ultra II Stratocaster HSS - as a main instrument. The series has only been on the market since October 2024, and Fender's artist programme is built around signature models and vintage reissues rather than the Ultra line, which is aimed at working players rather than at name endorsements.

What can be said is that Fender's own Ultra II launch campaign and its demo and Pure Play videos featured players including John 5, Joe Lally, Lawrence Ku and Felix Pastorius across the series - guitars and basses alike - which indicates the intended audience more than it documents anyone's live rig.

For context, the Stratocaster as a design is played by Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan, David Gilmour, Mark Knopfler, Buddy Holly, Bonnie Raitt, Nile Rodgers and John Mayer among many others - but none of those names belong to this model, and the humbucker-at-the-bridge HSS layout it uses is a modern rock and metal idea rather than part of that classic lineage.