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I’ve had my eye on the Heritage Standard 530 for a while and decided to finally pull the trigger. I was also considering an Epiphone USA Casino or a Gibson 330 and I’m glad I went with the Heritage 530.The build quality of this 530 is phenomenal! I had heard good things about Heritage Guitars and this guitar definitely does not disappoint. The fit and finish is better than my standard Gibsons, and this Heritage 530 came in at a way more competitive price point for a hollow body/330/335/Casino style guitar at over $1000 USD less than the Gibson or Epiphone. For a USA made guitar with nitro finish, this is the best bang-for-your-buck USA made guitars I own. This Heritage is also nice and light (6lbs 5oz) and super resonant. Acoustically, this guitar just sings! As far as sound plugged in, the electronics and Lollar P90s are superb and sound fantastic! The volume and tone controls are nice and responsive and the pickups sound exceptional clean and have a aggrssive bite when playing with some dirt—couldn’t be happier! As far as the frets, fretboard, binding, tuners, finish, etc., everything looks top notch. And that nitro finish is something I could smell all day long! The frets are nicely finished, polished, and with zero grittiness. Apparently, Heritage pleks their guitars, which is another plus to their fit and finish. This fretboard is beautiful and feels fantastic! The bound rosewood fretboard is beautiful, dark, nicely finished, no tooling marks, and not bone dry—all things that have been some issues with some of my Gibsons, unfortunately. Now for the bad part of this review. The setup on the guitar out of the box was atrocious!!! Whoever signed off at Heritage for having set up the guitar needs some serious help. They lowered the bridge completely flush to the guitar body, and the string height and fret buzz across the fretboard was ridiculously unacceptable! After raising the bridge and adjusting the strings to an appropriate height, no more buzz and it plays wonderfully; the guitar neck required zero relief adjustment, so they at least got that right. Inside the guitar case, there was a rediculous amount of wood particles and sawdust, and even a couple small pieces of the finish work/bracing left rattling around inside of the guitar. Not sure why this guitar was cased with so much filth. I was able to shake the tiny pieces out of the guitar and vacuum the case interior, but for a $2000 guitar, should I really have to be the one to clean up the mess??? I’ve purchased plenty of cheap import guitars that came cleaner than this USA made Heritage. Regarding packing and shipping, this guitar did not ship double boxed—huge problem! I don’t know why zZounds didn’t double box it and there is no excuse for this! Second, FedEx is the worst shipping service ever!!! You can always expect a beat up package from FedEx. Every package they deliver looks like they’ve dragged it through a war zone first. This guitar was no exception. The box had huge gashes in it. And because zZounds didn’t double box the guitar, the underside of the guitar case was significantly damaged—gashed and cracked. Upon inspection, the guitar fortunately did not sustain any damage, so the Heritage hard shell case At least did its job, but how very disappointing to learn that zZounds didn’t double box the guitar, especially knowing that FedEx takes zero care and concern for the packages they throw around and mistreat! I did call zZounds about the damaged case and poor guitar packaging and they are going to make it right. They said they will work with Heritage and have them ship me out a new guitar case at no cost to me. I’ll have to wait a couple weeks for the new case, but at least they took responsibility and are proving good customer service and have committed to replace the case. This is my first zZounds purchase and I am a bit disappointed that more care wasn’t taken with the guitar to appropriately double box it, but am glad their customer service was helpful and committed to resolve the issue. For the record, they also offered me the option of a full return and refund. When I told them that the case was all that appeared to be damaged upon inspection, they offered to work with Heritage and to send me a new case if I wanted to keep the guitar. They were extremely professional and cordial to resolve all of my concerns and provide me with options, which I greatly appreciate. All in all, not a perfect guitar and experience, but would I recommend Heritage and zZounds? Absolutely! I’d go as far as to say for a standard Heritage (non-custom shop model), they are far superior to a standard Gibson. Gibson QC and quality on their standard models, unfortunately, has become as problematic and hit and miss as import Epiphones. Now, was this Heritage perfect? Not at all, but much better fit and finish for a standard model than what I’ve deal with with some standard Gibsons. And from what I gather from other Heritage owners, Heritage QC is far more consistent than frequently coming out of Gibson, unless you’re droppng several thousand for a custom shop model. All in all, I’d give a solid 4.5 out of 5 stars.

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