If Ibanez made these in different colors I would gladly buy more. I have enough black guitars but this one is so amazing I could not resist it and after several weeks playing it I'm still content with it and it is now my number one unit whenever I need crushing old school humbucker metal.

Sound
This guitar comes with stock Ibanez humbuckers which are not that bad - but not really good either. If you are used to playing more expensive guitars or using replacement pickups you will probably want to swap them out. But I knew this going in and have no complaints with the stock sound. For the price, this little guitar sounds amazing. I put in a Dimarzio Super Distortion in the bridge and now it nails the Judas Priest British Steel sound. I put a Duncan Alnico II Humbucker in the rythym because I wanted a bit brighter sound for playing chords in that position. With the PU replacement I rate sound a 9 easily.

Features
This is a basswood guitar, which I really like because it is a lot lighter than mahogony and sounds brighter and more percussive in comparison. The notes have a snap to them that sometimes you don't get with heavier guitars. Also it is a bolt on which helps brighten up the sound a bit (its still a dark sound, just not mush like a lot of humbucker set neck mahogony guitars - this guitar has clarity and balls). The neck is excellent- fast and easy to play as you would expect from Ibanez. Some people… read more have complained about the tone control, but it has a (what appears to be) a wide frequency sweep and therefore I find it to be very useful in dialing in the right sound.

Quality
For $250 you would not expect much right? Let me tell you I played this guitar and A/B ed it vs. some 15 different guitars in the store, including much more expensive Ephiphones and Gibsons. Although some of those instruments might have had a better stock sound (because of the pickups) none of them played better than this guitar and I'm talking about important things like staying in tune and fret buzz, nut quality, etc. This little Iceman had the least amound of fret buzz of the roundup. This one came out of the factory just right- while many of the more expensive Gibsons had terribly cut nuts that caused severe buzzing on the lower frets even on lightly played chords and open strings. Over time I might expect some cosmetic reliability issues, but heck for this price I could but several and not really worry about it.

Value
This guitar is a well kept secret. Most stores only have one or two and because they only come in black you might not notice them right away - do yourself a favor and try one. If you are looking for something different but not too radical try this little iceman.

Manufacturer Support
I have not dealt with Ibanez. I do most of my own mods and repairwork.

The Wow Factor
I always like Ibanez's original designs. Yet the full size Iceman is is too top heavy and unbalanced to play in your lap. This smaller Iceman guitar rectifies the problem.

Musical Style:
Hard Rock meets Spaghetti Western read less