(see rating details)

Verified Purchaser zZounds has verified that this reviewer purchased this specific product from us.

I've had this now for going on 3 weeks. The finish is absolutely beautiful, extremely fun to play and it sounds great, but this thing is a piece. I own 5 guitars in the 1000-1500 dollar range and this is far and away the lowest quality build (and it's the most expensive). With that said, I am a massive JP fan boy and the design of it is spectacular. It does have a few very unique features that are making me keep it but I'm worried that when I upgrade to an EBMM version that I'm going to take a huge loss when I go to sell this one. Let's start with the positives. The neck is comfortable and thin. The pickups sound amazing. I love the location of the volume and tone knob, and I REALLY love the location of the pickup switch as it is SO easy to switch pickups on the fly. It plays fast as hell, and it is easily the most fun guitar to play that I own (and I own some fun guitars). The fret work is better than I'd expect at this price point and it intonates very well. BUT.......It is a pain in the ass. I've broken more strings on this guitar in 3 weeks than I have on 8 other guitars in the last 3 years combined and most of them were half as expensive. The locking tuners are absolute junk; one of them is very slightly showing some white underlying plastic under the faux chrome. It feels like the locks are hanging on by a thread internally and can't take a ton of pressure. The fret work is decent, but needs some work as theyre not all seated. It actually plays pretty well at medium low action out the box; I can't say that for the rest of the guitars I own at this price point. With that said, you don't buy this guitar to play at medium-low action, you're buying it to SHRED! Haha. At very low action, there is soe significant fret buzz in the higher register, but it doesn't choke out on big bends. I don't mind fret buzz on the lower strings at low action, but the frets need seeded and it needs some spot leveling. Expect it to need some minor work, but because they're stainless, it will be a one time thing. The neck build probably shouldn't have passed QC. There is a ridge on the treble side between the nut and the first fret that makes it look twisted, even though it is not. It doesn't affect the playability, but it's difficult to not be annoyed by it. The tuning stability is not spectacular, but I have not been lubricating it. The screws on the trem claw are cheap pieces of junk that are very difficult to access and are already starting to strip after only 3-4 adjustments. Overall, this thing is very fun to play, but I've only owned it for 3 weeks. The quality of the build is no where near what I'd expect for $1600+ tax. There are definitely higher quality builds out there at this price point, but if you're a JP fan and you want to play fast on a mid level budget, this might be for you. You're essentially buying this because of the ergonomic design, the stainless frets, the GORGEOUS finish, and the pickups. Just know that you might have to dump some extra money into it if you have high standards. If you can wait 6 months to a year to buy the EBMM, I would probably do that.