Uploaded September 2026 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
This is the 2026 Paoletti Guitars Alfa Loft: a boutique, sustainable, made-in-Italy take on the classic HSS Stratocaster DNA – with many unique twists along the way!
Paoletti Guitars: paolettiguitars.com
The Paoletti family have been making guitars since 2008. Their build process is involved, meticulous, and always to the very highest standards throughout. Put simply, their guitars are built to be the very best of the best, with no expenses spared, and enough personal time spent with every instrument to make sure it’s a superlative experience for the player in every way.
Paoletti is also highly invested in sustainability and the environmental impact on the planet of their work: they’re a carbon neutral company, and keep the plastics in their guitars to the very minimum, among other measures.
Today, I’m checking out the Alfa Loft HSS. The Alfa is Paoletti’s double cutaway, Fender Strat-style model, and the Loft Series features guitars in spectacular, eye-catching finishes. Here, we’re dealing with a jaw dropping nitro Iceburst colorway.
The Alfa’s body is made of Paoletti’s trademark 150-year-old aged chestnut wood. The family has a history in wine making, and they found their old Chianti barrels to be absolutely ideal for their guitar bodies. Here, this is coupled to a Canadian roasted maple neck with a Pau Ferro fingerboard.
We have an HSS set of Paoletti’s in-house designed and hand wound pickups here: single coils in neck and middle, and a humbucker in the bridge – and there’s a blend control on the humbucker that lets you gradually wind it down to true single coil sounds, and anywhere in-between too.
The knobs here are made from old shotgun shells (another Paoletti recycling choice that’s now become something of a signature look of theirs), and you get CTS pots and a 5-way CRL switch. The bridge is Paoletti’s six-saddle Strat-style Tremolo and the scratch plate is nickel-covered brass.
The Alfa’s satin neck has a comfortable Medium C profile and a 41.9mm bone nut. The Pau Ferro board has 22 jumbo Dunlop frets, a 12” fingerboard radius, and a 25.5” scale length, and up at the headstock you get six Kluson Deluxe tuners.
The guitar comes in a wooden Paoletti hard case with plenty of case candy (strap, tools, certificate of authenticity, user manual, etc.), but of course all of this comes at a premium price too: this specific guitar has a German street price of €4,300 (as of summer 2026).
Can the Alfa Loft HSS be worth the money? We’re about to find out! In the video, I put the guitar through its paces in as many musical styles as I can, from country, folk and indie, to pop, rock, punk, metal, and more – let’s see how it handles it!
Let me know your thoughts on the Alfa Loft HSS in the comments.
Here are some links to the various playing samples and info bits:
00:00 Introduction and what we’re doing today
01:01 All about Paoletti Guitars
03:12 Specs and info
07:15 Today’s rig and plan
08:01 Clean tone reference chords on all pickup settings
08:35 Clean tone samples (folk, country, pop, indie, blues, funk, etc.)
11:09 Tone control test
12:08 Indie and alt rock tones
14:33 Volume control roll off test
14:59 Bridge pickup Blend control test
15:32 Classic rock tones (AC/DC, Hendrix, Airbourne, etc.)
17:25 Fuzz tones (Jack White, Black Keys, White Stripes, Smashing Pumpkins, etc.)
18:41 Hard rock tones
20:06 Alternative rock tones
20:42 Punk rock tones
21:22 Progressive and modern rock tones
22:21 Metal and chugging tones
23:49 My thoughts
24:58 First impressions
25:32 Weight
26:02 Build quality and hardware
26:46 Playability and neck
27:34 Sounds and pickups
30:33 What other similar guitars are out there?
31:26 My conclusions on the Alfa Loft HSS and why you should buy one
Check out Paoletti’s great Factory Tour documentary series where they take you through the process of building their guitars: youtube.com/watch?v=vQZEZw4FAgo&list=PL8mOLyAuPieQnSy7nmJY9a4bn2yduz_SZ
My setup was as follows: I ran the Alfa into my Hughes & Kettner Black Spirit 200 head, also using my Crazy Tube Circuit Triptychon and Heatseeker and my Revv G3 pedal for fuzz, overdrive and heavy distortion sounds. I recorded it all into my Zoom H6, and then edited it all together in Final Cut Pro X. That's it. No post-processing on the sounds was done.
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Get all this gear at Thomann: thmn.to/thocf/jkhog8l06m
Get all this gear at Sweetwater: sweetwater.sjv.io/LXqdE0
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Backing music from the YouTube Audio Library: Duck In The Alley – TrackTribe.
#Paoletti #PaolettiGuitar #PaolettiGuitars #BoutiqueGuitars #BoutiqueGuitar #HSSStrat #HSS #Stratocaster #RelicGuitar #RichWordsMusic
*Note: certain links in the description are affiliate links. If you click said links and purchase anything as a result, I will receive a small commission. This doesn’t cost you anything extra, but it does help to support the channel. So, if you do that, thank you very much!*
@paolettiguitars
@musikwein
This is the 2026 Paoletti Guitars Alfa Loft: a boutique, sustainable, made-in-Italy take on the classic HSS Stratocaster DNA – with many unique twists along the way!
Paoletti Guitars: paolettiguitars.com
The Paoletti family have been making guitars since 2008. Their build process is involved, meticulous, and always to the very highest standards throughout. Put simply, their guitars are built to be the very best of the best, with no expenses spared, and enough personal time spent with every instrument to make sure it’s a superlative experience for the player in every way.
Paoletti is also highly invested in sustainability and the environmental impact on the planet of their work: they’re a carbon neutral company, and keep the plastics in their guitars to the very minimum, among other measures.
Today, I’m checking out the Alfa Loft HSS. The Alfa is Paoletti’s double cutaway, Fender Strat-style model, and the Loft Series features guitars in spectacular, eye-catching finishes. Here, we’re dealing with a jaw dropping nitro Iceburst colorway.
The Alfa’s body is made of Paoletti’s trademark 150-year-old aged chestnut wood. The family has a history in wine making, and they found their old Chianti barrels to be absolutely ideal for their guitar bodies. Here, this is coupled to a Canadian roasted maple neck with a Pau Ferro fingerboard.
We have an HSS set of Paoletti’s in-house designed and hand wound pickups here: single coils in neck and middle, and a humbucker in the bridge – and there’s a blend control on the humbucker that lets you gradually wind it down to true single coil sounds, and anywhere in-between too.
The knobs here are made from old shotgun shells (another Paoletti recycling choice that’s now become something of a signature look of theirs), and you get CTS pots and a 5-way CRL switch. The bridge is Paoletti’s six-saddle Strat-style Tremolo and the scratch plate is nickel-covered brass.
The Alfa’s satin neck has a comfortable Medium C profile and a 41.9mm bone nut. The Pau Ferro board has 22 jumbo Dunlop frets, a 12” fingerboard radius, and a 25.5” scale length, and up at the headstock you get six Kluson Deluxe tuners.
The guitar comes in a wooden Paoletti hard case with plenty of case candy (strap, tools, certificate of authenticity, user manual, etc.), but of course all of this comes at a premium price too: this specific guitar has a German street price of €4,300 (as of summer 2026).
Can the Alfa Loft HSS be worth the money? We’re about to find out! In the video, I put the guitar through its paces in as many musical styles as I can, from country, folk and indie, to pop, rock, punk, metal, and more – let’s see how it handles it!
Let me know your thoughts on the Alfa Loft HSS in the comments.
Here are some links to the various playing samples and info bits:
00:00 Introduction and what we’re doing today
01:01 All about Paoletti Guitars
03:12 Specs and info
07:15 Today’s rig and plan
08:01 Clean tone reference chords on all pickup settings
08:35 Clean tone samples (folk, country, pop, indie, blues, funk, etc.)
11:09 Tone control test
12:08 Indie and alt rock tones
14:33 Volume control roll off test
14:59 Bridge pickup Blend control test
15:32 Classic rock tones (AC/DC, Hendrix, Airbourne, etc.)
17:25 Fuzz tones (Jack White, Black Keys, White Stripes, Smashing Pumpkins, etc.)
18:41 Hard rock tones
20:06 Alternative rock tones
20:42 Punk rock tones
21:22 Progressive and modern rock tones
22:21 Metal and chugging tones
23:49 My thoughts
24:58 First impressions
25:32 Weight
26:02 Build quality and hardware
26:46 Playability and neck
27:34 Sounds and pickups
30:33 What other similar guitars are out there?
31:26 My conclusions on the Alfa Loft HSS and why you should buy one
Check out Paoletti’s great Factory Tour documentary series where they take you through the process of building their guitars: youtube.com/watch?v=vQZEZw4FAgo&list=PL8mOLyAuPieQnSy7nmJY9a4bn2yduz_SZ
My setup was as follows: I ran the Alfa into my Hughes & Kettner Black Spirit 200 head, also using my Crazy Tube Circuit Triptychon and Heatseeker and my Revv G3 pedal for fuzz, overdrive and heavy distortion sounds. I recorded it all into my Zoom H6, and then edited it all together in Final Cut Pro X. That's it. No post-processing on the sounds was done.
---
Get all this gear at Thomann: thmn.to/thocf/jkhog8l06m
Get all this gear at Sweetwater: sweetwater.sjv.io/LXqdE0
---
Backing music from the YouTube Audio Library: Duck In The Alley – TrackTribe.
#Paoletti #PaolettiGuitar #PaolettiGuitars #BoutiqueGuitars #BoutiqueGuitar #HSSStrat #HSS #Stratocaster #RelicGuitar #RichWordsMusic
*Note: certain links in the description are affiliate links. If you click said links and purchase anything as a result, I will receive a small commission. This doesn’t cost you anything extra, but it does help to support the channel. So, if you do that, thank you very much!*
@paolettiguitars
@musikwein
