The power, sustain and archtop beauty of the RGA. Equipped with fat and strong active Ibanez LoZ3 pickups. Bound Rosewood Fingerboard with Jumbo frets.
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Sound:
Very bassy with no articulation. I,m not sure yet if the sound problem is in the pickups or the guitar. I am going to pull the Ibanez actives out and put in some EMGs or somthing and see if that improves the sound any. It is very dull and dark sounding, and that is playing through a Digitech RP250 which is very treble harsh. Pinch harmonics are almost impossible. It sounds like the tone control is turned 3/4 down when it is up full blast. I planned on replacing the PUs when I bought it so I am not too disapointed, I just hope the problem is the PUs and not the bridge or the wood. Ibanez guitars are all about the necks, the stock Ibanez PUs are never very good (at least in my opinion and experience)
Feature:
Well, it,s a pretty barebones guitar(not a bad thing). Two active humbuckers with single tone and volume controls and three way blade selector switch. I really dig the new Ibanez truss rod covers, you don't have to take it off to adjust the trussrod. It has a little door that slides to the side to allow acccess, Great! The gilbralter bridge looks really nice and feels solid under your hand but I worry that the soft metal that it appears to be made of may be responsible for some of the muddy tone, not sure about that yet though. My favorite thing about all my Ibanez guitars is the Wizard neck, flat and thin front to back and wide accross the front with big jumbo frets, shred city.
Ease of Use:
The playability of this guitar along with most Ibanez guitars is its shining feature. It,s very easy to play.
Quality:
The Indonesian Ibanez guitars don't hold a candle to the Korean ones, but they are also much cheaper. The only real flaw I found was in the neck binding, in some spots it's a real hatchet job but, not bad enough to make me send it back. What really amazes me is the difference in wood quality. My Korean RGT420DX is made of mahogany and it weighs a ton and sound great, this Indonesian RGA32 is lighter and sounds muddier, and a Chinese guitar I bought last year that was also made of mahogany and was much larger than either one of the other two and considerably lighter was also very muddy. I wonder if some of this asian mohogany is really mahogany at all or just somthing that looks very similar while being much less dense and resonant. In my opinion if you can afford to step up to a Korean manufactured guitar, thay are the best quality/price ratio right now. Get them while you can still afford them.
Value:
Maybe I expect too much from a 350$ guitar. I was a little dissapointed with this purchase but not enough to send it back. I bought this guitar cause it has a battery box to try out different active PUs so it wasn't like I expected much to begin with. Personally I think the RG120 at 200 bucks is the better deal for a begginer.
Manufacturer Support:
I have never delt with Ibanez for service ,but they have a pretty good website for parts and such.
The Wow Factor:
Well, it definetly looks better than it sounds. I only got the titanium grey cause they were out of black but it looks really nice with the cosmo black hardware and the blacked out PUs. The binding on the neck adds to the appeal as long as you don't look too close. The new headstock laminate that they are using looks really nice too. The gilbaralter bridge looks pretty mean too. Overall it is a very handsome guitar, not really pretty but very nice looking. As a note I have noticed on other Ibanez guitars that if the hardware is not simple black or chrome that the finish seems to ware off REALLY REALLY fast but I have not noticed that YET on this guitar.
Overall:
Overall I don't think this is a bad guitar for a beginner as it is or for an intermediate player who is willing to uprade the PUs. I have been playing around 20 years and this guitar would not be my main guitar without significant upgrades and modification. Unless you are specifically looking for a cheap mohogany body guitar with a battery box, and fast thin neck I think(like I was) there are much better deals out there.
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