The Internet Has Thoughts About Guitar Player's Gretsch G2420T Streamliner Review.

The Suede Read

Art Thompson's Gretsch review makes a specific promise on the guitar's behalf, and it is not a promise about playability. Based on high-dollar Gretsch models in the Falcon, Nashville and Synchromatic lines, he writes, the new Streamliner Hollow Body electric is designed to capture "that great Gretsch sound" at an eminently affordable price. The price is $649. Hold onto the phrase inside the quotation marks, because it is the one that ends up in dispute.

His verdict is warm and reasonably precise. The Streamliner Hollow Body is an inspiring guitar that plays well, is lightweight for its size and has the sonic flexibility to handle just about any style. Two entries go in the pros box: the retro look, and classic big-body resonance and tone. Two go in the cons box: no gig bag included, and the corners on the nut are sharp. Four bullets total on a $649 instrument.

The spec block shows where the money went. A fully hollow arched maple body. A glued-in Nato neck in a soft C profile, a laurel fingerboard, a 24.75-inch scale and a 12-inch radius. Broad'Tron BT3S humbuckers running Alnico 2 and 5, which Thompson says optimises them for their respective positions, with a push-pull coil split on the master volume for single-coil sounds. Seven point two pounds. Five finishes. Made in Indonesia.

Rockabilly twang is the phrase that matters in the summing-up, and it is not a neutral one to reach for here. The guitar channels Falcon, Nashville and Synchromatic style at a far friendlier price, Thompson writes, is well built and striking in Fairlane Blue, and offers comfortable playability, stable tuning and lively acoustic resonance. The BT3S humbuckers deliver clear, versatile tones running from warm jazz to rockabilly twang and punchy rock, with useful coil-split sparkle. That is the thing the badge on the headstock is famous for, named directly, in a summary of a $649 guitar.

Thompson is good on the hardware, which is where budget hollow bodies usually get caught. He reports that the guitar stayed in tune quite well once the strings and the Bigsby settled in, and he gives the factory credit for taking the time to get the intonation right. Nothing in the body of the review walks any of that back. The reservations start and stop at the gig bag and the nut.

On Gretsch-Talk, a thread asking whether the Streamliner is any good draws a different picture, and its most experienced voice goes straight at the promise.

A member who tried one when they first came out reports a chunky neck and a reasonable finish for the price, then delivers the line the review never approaches. Not really a Gretsch sound. Entry level stuff, which is where it's aimed. That is somebody on a Gretsch forum, discussing a guitar the review says was designed to capture that great Gretsch sound, reporting that it does not.

The owners who love theirs do not contradict him so much as qualify themselves. One says he loves his, then points you straight at his own threads about upgrading the pots. He calls the neck medium size with excellent fret work, which puts him in flat disagreement with the chunky verdict above him and leaves the review's soft C sitting between the two. And he closes his recommendation on a condition: go for it if you're happy with a Gretschy/PAFy tone. Gretschy. Not Gretsch.

One spec detail reads differently after that. The BT3S units are humbuckers, with a push-pull coil split on the master volume to pull single-coil sounds out of them when wanted. The thread's shorthand for what actually comes out is Gretschy slash PAFy, two words joined by a stroke, with the recommendation conditional on being content with both. Nobody in there reaches for the plain noun the review reaches for.

Third in the thread is a buyer with a 2420 then incoming, a t-armond pickup upgrade already arranged, and enormous expectations. His reason for picking this model over another in the range was cosmetic. That pretty gold dust finish isn't available on a 5420. So the finish won the sale and the pickups were being replaced before the guitar had even arrived.

Stack that against the four bullets and the mismatch is about what got measured. Thompson tested playability, weight, tuning stability and intonation, all things a bench settles in an afternoon and all things he reports honestly. The claim he opens with is not one of those. Capturing a sound that belongs to instruments costing several times as much is a judgement, and it is the only judgement in the review the forum bothered to take up.

Worth being straight about what this record is and is not. The thread dates to 2017 and 2018 and concerns the earlier Streamliner generation, before the Broad'Tron BT3S pickups in the guitar Guitar Player reviewed. It runs to 37 replies from 17 members; the three voices above are the ones that address the question directly. So this is the model line's track record, not a verdict on the 2026 refresh, and nobody in it calls the Streamliner a bad instrument. The current generation has no owner record yet. What the history documents is a pattern: the people who love this guitar tend to love it after rewiring it, and a review whose cons stop at a gig bag and nut corners has not engaged with why.

Split. The cons box is accurate and small: a bag Gretsch left out, and two corners a file fixes in a minute. The pros box is accurate too, and the resonance bullet is the closest the review comes to testing its own opening claim. What sits between them is that opening claim itself, never revisited. Falcon, Nashville and Synchromatic, at $649. The forum's answer is a chunky neck, a medium neck, new pots, a T-Armond and a gold dust finish.