My most recent acquisition is a 2015 Santa Cruz 00 I bought off of Ebay for a really good price. As these things go I knew there would be something not disclosed I'd have to deal with, there always is. In this case it's fret wear. There's serious pitting on the first five frets under the e and A. They are significant enough that I have to put some extra relief in the neck to keep the e string from buzzing when fretted on the deepest-pitted fret (the 3rd). The guitar is stunning in other respects so I want to keep it. I wouldn't sell it to another person in this condition either, so I need to fix these these frets.

I could probably get them dressed and polished and the guitar would be fine, albeit with lower frets as a result, but I would rather do something more long-lasting. I spoke with Gryphon Strings about a refret of the first five frets, but during the conversation we got to talking about the advantages of maybe just refretting it with stainless steel since this is a guitar I want to keep.

We spoke about the pros and cons of SS frets. He said it might make the guitar brighter and crisper sounding due to the harder material of the SS frets. He also said that bending and moving over the frets is smoother and that they are so good and so long lasting that I'd probably never have to worry about another refret ever on this guitar.

I'm interested in opinions on whether I should just get the first 5 replaced with the normal nickel or do the whole thing with SS. The extra cost of SS would still leave the guitar with an overall cost below 60% of what it sells for new, so I'm not having a problem with the cost.