1st off, came to my house needing a neck reset. The high E was almost off the board. After giving it to my tech and spending an additional $90 on it it was finally set up and ready to play. The fingerboard had some kind of weird residue on it that was collected by the frets. I had to hit it a couple times with the Dunlop and some 0000 before it came up. The inlays are actually pretty, I love the pattern and the pearloid has a nice iridescent quality to it. The Floyd and nut are what they are. The 1000 series is allegedly made from the same stuff as the German, just in Korea. I abuse this thing daily and it stays in tune and operates smoothly. I had an issue with the volume knob, 1. Because it's basically an on/off switch, there is almost NO taper. The 3 way switch is actually pretty sturdy. The pickups are JB's, the middle one is smaller than the bridge, and the middles output is much hotter than my bridge pup. It took a minute to get the outputs balanced and as far as for tones, this thing is ok. The middle pickup position is basically useless, the middle is ok for cleans and solo work, and the bridge delivers enough crunch for some high gain action. Also the pickups are not mounted well in the harness and they move around a bit and annoy me. The strap buttons are sturdy. The neck is super comfy and the scale length (Gibson 24.75') with 24 frets is awesome for me bc my hands are not the biggest. I'm a sucker for a reverse headstock and this one looks awesome. The tuners were… read more ok but I swapped em for some locking jams to facilitate quick string changes and add some weight to the headstock. I love the extreme cutaway, neck access is amazing and this guitar plays just as well as my M-II from the Japanese custom shop. The originals were made by Buddy Blaze but then production models were made in the ESP shop and you can tell they tried to return to that feel and ascetic but it falls a little short. The finish looks great but you can see the seams where they joined the peices of the body together, and the 3 piece neck has one section of flamed maple going horizontally, and 2 sections with the grain going vertically. Doesnt look great. Overall this guitar is OK. Not great but OK. After dealing with the aforementioned issues it's playing really nice. One last issue: this guitar dropped in price 3 times since I purchased it. The first time I contacted customer service they adjusted the price, but the 2nd time they told me no, and then I found out it dropped ANOTHER $50. I mean, come on guys. All in all, meh. If the guitar came to me playing like this out of the box, I'd be a lot happier. You all at zZounds are supposed to check each instrument as it ships, and your QC pooped the bed on this one.

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