Eduardo A.
Comentado en México el 6 de febrero de 2024
Excelente instrumento. Guitarra de gama media con muy buenas prestaciones. Podrían mejorarse con clavijeros, pastillas y puente de mejor calidad, pero lo que trae de stock en suficiente, siempre y cuando se le de el cuidado adecuado. Suena muy poderosa.
William J
Comentado en los Estados Unidos el 20 de octubre de 2016
The basic rundown:-The guitar will be pretty much ready to rock out of the box, came nicely packaged, and the intonation was very close; and only using my ST-300 strobe tuner I was able to improve it (the regular tuners show all good). For most ppl a regular tuning it all this guitar needs, it will play beautiful out of the box, so that is the basic review. Yes, its made in China, however, it plays darn well out of the box.Now for some little additional details. (I am not a guitar tech, but been tinkering with guitars for a while):-So, the floating bridge (tremolo) is a Jackson licensed Floyd Rose, nothing spectacular here, don't expect OFR or anything fancy (Gotoh) quality, but it works. It ships with the tremolo way too high IMO if you are used to low(er) action... so be prepared to lower it quite a bit down (btw, don't just turn the screws, you need to relieve tension from the springs and from the strings before doing this, otherwise you'll ruin the knife edge of the bridge plate and then it won't stay in tune after a dive bomb or a whammy pull)-Pickups are pretty punchy, and it is hard to differentiate which one you're running on the selector, perhaps are a bit too muddy IMO compared to my DK1 Seymour Duncan TB-4 bridge Trembucker, specially if you're trying to sound clean lead, they seem to have a lot of mid punch, but not as good bass and treble as I would like... Even when using the bridge on their "lowest" position still too strong to play just bare clean chords, so you might need to lower the volume not to overdrive the amps. I think this tone issue also relates to the tremolo, which is an important factor on the tone too (more on that later)-Neck, its a bit on the bigger side, not huge, but not as thin as my Jackson USA DK1; the wood in the frets feels fairly rough compared to my DK1, but with some minor work it can be made to feel amazing and very close to my DK1. The same for the rear part of the neck, (where your thumb goes) it feels a bit rough compared to my DK1-Volume and tone work as advertised, it has a three way switch.-After changing to a .09 -.46 gauge it required slight changes in intonation, nothing special here.And now to get into the "amazing category" I did the following upgrades (in order of difficulty)-First I replaced all the black hardware with gold hardware, this is more for a personal reason; b/c to me blue looks great with gold, so IMO it makes the guitar look a lot better and more "professional" than the good old plain black.-I then used polishing compound to polish everything on the neck, including all the frets, took about 1 hour of work, but this combined with lowering the action made the neck lighting fast, and gave me a much nicer slides over long distances. This is a must if you like to keep your guitars for 20 years like I do.-Then I replaced the licensed FR with a better gold plated OFR bridge, with a thicker block too; and this changed the tone drastically, and for the better: no more empty can sound D string when plucked without amp; it made the sound deeper, much warmer, and much richer in both bass and treble, and much much better sustain. This is a MUST to get this guitar into the amazing category, and IMO anything beyond this point is a lot of work for small (arguably) tonal improvements.-Then I replaced both Jackson OEM pickups with a Seymour Duncan Hotrodder set, the Jazz, SH-2 neck pickup, and the JB, SH-4 tremolo pickup. Huge difference in clarity, specially in the tonal range you can achieve, no more midrange explosion mess.-After the pickups went in I rewired all the electronics, so I ditched the 3 way for a 5 way blade, which allowed me to perform a coil split option on both pickups so clean "church" chords can now be played on the Jazz SH-2 (neck) pickup and sound with amazing clarity without overdriving the amp at full volume.Final word: Without any work or upgrades this guitar lacks the refinements when compared to more expensive guitars, like say my 20 year old USA made DK1; in terms of sound quality IMO it is good enough out of the box to qualify as a very decent mid range guitar, but not very versatile enough IMO; but again, with some work (specifically swapping the tremolo) it can compete with much more expensive guitars (like my DK1) at metal or anything where IMO sound clarity isn't as paramount as say, playing a classical piece; but with the electronic rewire and pickup upgrade it is now as versatile as my DK1, which can play from church chords to super-metal power riffs...Hope this helps. (picture of my JS32 (bright blue) and my DK1 (sunburst transparent blue)G.
B
Comentado en los Estados Unidos el 8 de abril de 2016
In my honest opinion, this guitar is simply amazing.I love the way the neck feels and the appearance of the black hardware.I ordered what I thought would be a rosewood fingerboard but they sent me a maple fingerboard.I also ordered satin black and recieved gloss black finish.If I did not like the guitar so much I would have requested a replacement.The reputation of a double locking tremolo would intimidate a person who never encountered it before but the Floyd Rose has been around and used pretty consistently for years. You definitely must approach tuning a little differently but this guitar does stay in tune.It arrived in tune actually.The pickups seem to have a well balanced sound and the pickup switch will give you neck,bridge and both.I really like the smaller size body.The guitar is not really light but when compared to other guitars it is not really heavy in my opinion.