I won't change anything about this guitar- I love it the way it is.. I have been playing for several years and theese pickups will please you in many ways.

Sound
This guitar does have a good set of pickups with the true duos. I really like the fact that I can pull on the tone knob, and I can do more with my sound. I think they are much hotter than what others may have experienced; If you use the neck pickup, I highly recommend the single coil option and in the humbucker mode for the bridge. I do not see why people hate these.. if you like old school metal like metallica and megadeth, this guitar delivers an extremely tight and crunchy sound in the bridge position. I also enjoyed playing tunes such as Queen is in Love by Yngwie in the neck and bridge positions. This guitar performs best on an even eq setting such as the general 666 base, mids and treble. I think it punches right through hard distortion and delivers every time I love these pickups.

Features
The non locking tremolo is awesome; however, the arm lies just above the volume knob and causes interference sometimes. Why they did this on a high quality guitar I don't know. The neck is built for smaller hands and shredders so take note of that; i like the 22 frets; I think they should've gone for 24 for this particular guitar, but Oh well.. Tuners are just ok.. String changes require taking the back off the guitar.. The neck is smooth and feels great.… read more the frets were sharp enough to break my e string right off the bat..

Ease of Use
I love the body on this guitar. It is lightweight; slim, fast and very playable. Pickup configs are great.. like the tone and overall control over the guitar

Quality
Good looking; great inlays tone knobs seem a little cheap but I can't tell yet.. frets don't buzz but break strings. I would definitely use a backup, although this would be my first choice for hair metal or crunchy metal like early megadeth..

Value
This thing far exceeded my expectations in the 399 range. I would buy this immediately. If you ever played an rt650 in the early 90's this guitar stacks up/

The Wow Factor
It looks absolutely perfect.. inlays are perfect.. the transparent red really stands out and the wood grain and is really bright red in spots.. worth looking at.

Musical Background:
Hobbyist

Musical Style:
Metal read less