Reviewed by:
big_d_ibanez, on september 23, 2005
6 of 7 people found this review helpful
Purchased from: McFayden
Features: This guitar has 21 frets set on top of a nice rosewood fingerboard with beautiful Abalone inlay. Its a solid top made out of flamed maple, and finished in a voilet color. It boasts a cutaway neck to reach those high frets, and a standard acoustic bridge. It is an electric/acoustic, so it has Ibanez's AEQ preamp and the pickup under the bridge. The preamp has boost/cut for the following: treble, mid, and bass, as well as a feature called "shape" which ranges from "flat" to "max". The main complaint I have for this section is the pickup. It doesn't pick up the G string at all, which is not good if you run the acoustic through an amp, especially if your picking indiviual notes. And the pickups in general do not sound good, either, they kill the tone. // 8
Sound: I play many styles of music, from rock to country, and every sub-genre of rock that there is. It has an aewsome sound! I have compared this to more expensive guitars and found for the most part it has better tone. The exceptions here are Gibson and Taylor acoustics. This bad boy's good, but not quite as good as these two brands. But for the price I was just amazed at the tone of this guitar, and I still am. It's got a nice, bright tone, but not too bright (which is good, to me at least. ) I really have no complaints about the sound of the acoustic. It's just bad Ibanez had to put cheap pickups on it and ruin the sound for anyone who runs it through an amp. // 9
Action, Fit & Finish: Okay. This was a big problem with the guitar. Action and bowed neck. The set-up at factory for this guitar wasn't all that great. The action was way too high, and the neck boasted a not so nice bow. But I took it to the local guitar tech, and he fixed it right up. Once it was fixed, I've had many people tell me in their opinion it plays almost as good a nice electric. I think so too. Strings are easy to bend, the action's nice, it's very cofortable to play. So I'd recommend it getting a proper set up before you judge it. But besides that, the bridge, the hardware, and everything else were right in place, nothing loose or messed up there. // 5
Reliability & Durability: This guitar can deffinately stand live playing (as long as you don't slam it on the floor at the end of the gig, i.e. Kurt Cobain). It's built like a rock. The hardware will last a good while, and I forgot to mention earlier that all the hardware is gold, a plus. The strap buttons are very solid, they stay better than the ones on my electrics ever have. I wouldn't worry about using this guitar without a backup, it's solid. But I'd mic it for sure, no way I would use the sorry pickups. The finish is good, no signs of chipping anywhere, but I do have a lot of pick scratches (they aren't noticable unless you're looking for them, though). Maybe it could've used a pickgaurd, but I'm not sure how that would look on this guitar. // 9
Impression: I play a lot of styles, and it hangs with me through it all, so this guitar is a great match! I've been playing for several years, and I also own two electrics, a hollowbody, and two basses. If this guitar was lost or stolen, I would probably upgrade to a Gibson acoustic, because those, in my opinion, are about as good as it gets. But I would consider getting this guitar again, especially if I didn't have the money for a more expensive one. I love the abalone inlays and the gold tuners of this guitar, adds flash. I hate the pickups, I've already stated why. My favorite thing about this guitar is the tone of it. I compared this to other guitars, but got it because it was the most expensive one I could get at the time. The only thing I wish this guitar didn't have was the pickup and preamp. I'd rather have it striaght acoustic then have that crappy stuff in there. Overall, great sound, great tone. // 8
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