Jet Guitars - JS 501 Stygian Satin Black

The Jet JS-501 Stygian begins where others end: where black ceases to be a colour and becomes a material. The hand-wound Alnico Stygian HH pickup, mounted directly onto the body without an intermediate plate, eliminates any interfering interface between the vibration of the wood and the coil. This direct mounting transmits harmonics with a fidelity that standard plastic pickups systematically attenuate — the midrange gains in density, whilst the attack gains in raw definition.

This signal derives its character from the solid mahogany body: a wood with a long grain, uniform density, and naturally rich in the low-midrange. The mahogany extends to the neck, of the same type and grain — the whole instrument vibrates as a single unit. The rosewood fingerboard provides balance: an oily grain, a natural glide under the fingers, and a tone slightly darker than maple, which rounds off the high-end. The 12″ radius flattens the fingerboard sufficiently for clean bends across the 24 Medium Jumbo frets, which are as wide as you could wish for vibrato and building up volume. The dual truss rod and bone/polymer fibre nut — standard since 2025 — ensure long-term tuning stability.

The all-black hardware, including locking tuners at the headstock, locks the tuning in place where the strings bend the most. The 3-position selector switch, combined with the single volume control, keeps the signal flowing through a straightforward circuit. The fixed bridge locks the energy where it needs to stay: in the string, in the wood, in the amp.