I ordered this guitar for my son. He was very excited to get his first professional quality guitar. I've been playing for over 40 years and was very excited to try this instrument out. As usual, zZounds was incredible to do business with. They make the purchase easy and when I called their customer service with issues on this guitar, they were very helpful and accommodating. As for the guitar, the design and features are great. Given that this is the upgraded version in the Sterling line, I was expecting it to be on par with the Ibanez Premium series if not better. At $1400 it was only slightly less expensive than the RG652 Prestige, made in Japan, that I bought a year ago for myself. That instrument, by the way, arrived in flawless condition.The Sterling has a beautiful finish, not quite up to US Music Man standards, but as good or better than any of the other Indonesian guitars I've played. The set up wasn't great, as the action was way higher than I would play with and the bridge was not quite level when tuned to pitch. The cleanliness of the guitar was disappointing. There was polishing compound everywhere. The 21st and higher frets had large amounts of polishing compound stuck to the them and the wood in between. The tremolo rout, pickup routs, and exposed truss rod at the base of the neck all had excessive amounts of goop coating the exposed surfaces. The fretboard was also gritty and bends were sticky and difficult. The final insult was that the tremolo bar set screw was… read more missing, so tension on the bar could not be added to keep it in position. I've seen another review for this guitar on youtube that mentioned theirs did not have a set screw when unboxed either. That's a solid quality control issue. I changed the strings for a fresh set of EB Cobalts. With the strings off, I removed the tremolo and unscrewed the pickups so that I could use some cleaner to get into the crevices and try to remove the polishing compound build up. Luckily, all of the nastiness was fairly easy to remove and everything went back together with no issues. As easy as the clean up was with the parts out, its even more disappointing that the factory didn't make the effort to clean this before final assembly. Also, the volume knob did not function properly. When turned all the way down, the guitar still had output that could be heard through the amp. In addition, it was very scratchy with lots of pops and static when it was adjusted. That's definitely unacceptable on a new guitar. Any new guitar I've ever purchased, no matter in person at a store, ordering online, or buying from an individual, I expect to do a full set up to get the action, tremolo, pickup height, etc correct for my playing style. That said, I don't have an issue with having to do a set, but it's worth mentioning that the factory set up was poor with the bridge not being level and intonation not as accurate as it could have been.To zZounds credit, they offered to return the guitar and send me another. Since I had already done the set up work when I called them, I decided not to return it. My main purpose calling them is to see if I could get a warranty volume pot and the set screw for the tremolo arm. I fully understand that their only option was to offer an RMA, and I appreciated their outstanding customer service. To correct the volume knob issue, I ordered new pots from DiMarzio directly. The cost was only about $30 however, I shouldn't have to change any parts on a $1500 guitar. On a positive note, I added a push/pull tone knob to tap the coils for single coil tones that the guitar didn't have as purchased which adds to its versatility. Sonically, this guitar has a beautiful voice and plays like a dream following the set up. Again, I'll accept that the set up was to be expected. However, would not expect to do this much cleaning and parts replacement on a guitar that is priced to compete with professional quality models from other manufacturers. All in all, I think this will be a fantastic guitar for my son to learn on and will serve him well for years to come. If I had known what the condition was going to be when I received it, I would have steered him towards an Ibanez Prestige.

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