A sorry looking 1979 Aria ST-400B appeared one day in a shipment. Someone had mistakenly consigned this to end-of-life status, which rusty strings and pitted bridges often do. But beneath the surface imperfections often lies a fantastic instrument with many many years ahead of it. This is one such instrument. We have 2 ST-400s here (at the moment, there may be more later) and despite starting life at the entry level point, they play better than guitars many levels up other manufacturers' ranges. By this time, the Matsumoku plant was fully equipped with CNC machinery and quality levels were remarkably high - very little variance between equivalent models, and only the grade of electronics and hardware deciding the final pricing. Therefore by the time these guitars arrive here, it matters less where it featured in the range - once we are back to timber, cheaper models tend to be lighter, more expensive models tend to be heavier. They are all made to the exact same standard. This SuperMonaco is one of a pair - it accompanies the Monaco with the single P-90, and both are so much fun, and so adorable that I intend to make more of these offering different options for sounds.