The Hagstrom Fantomen Tobacco Sunburst is a six string electric guitar designed in collaboration with the Swedish metal band ‘Ghost’. The asymmetrical body is constructed of mahogany and the neck is built of mahogany and joined to body using a classic mortise-and-tenon joint. The Fantomen possesses features standard to Hagstrom guitars such as the H-Expander truss rod. The light-weight alloy truss rod provides tension at both ends of the neck allowing both low action and a thin neck. This makes for an extremely fast playing neck and excellent neck stability.
The Fantomen also uses Hagstroms Resinator wood for the fingerboard, which is made of a composite material that has increased density and stability compared to standard wood fingerboards. This material also has the advantage of eliminating dead-spots on the neck normally associated with standard fingerboards. The Fantomen is equipped with Lundgren humbucking Alnico II pickups. Hagstrom worked with Swedish pickup maker Johan Lundgren, whose pickups are used by artists such as Martin Hagström of Meshuggah. They have a wide dynamic range from warm, smooth tones to aggressive and intense sounds suitable for the heaviest metal musical styles.
The pickups are complimented with a three-way pickup selector and a coil-tap push-pull control for added tonal flexibility. The Fantomens hardware includes 18:1 die-cast tuners, a tune-o-matic roller bridge and a Graph Tech ‘Black Tusq XL’ nut. This version is finished in Tobacco Sunburst.
Action was a bit high out of the box, but it was easily setup, no fret buzz. Fretwork seems very good, only some small scuffmarks on the neck binding. Pickups sound good, really like the mirror pickguard.