TL;DR, Great guitar for the money, gorgeous finish, great playability, a good first or tenth guitar, suitable for any and all players so long as very downtuned metal isnt your genre. If you can afford one and it caught your eye, pull the trigger you wont regret it!

Sound
I’ll start with saying that the Quantum pickups work great in this application, I have an RG450 that has them as well but they dont sound quite as good there, my buddy has an RG421 with them and they sound pretty good in that and in this guitar. Really good searing harmonics and treble in this pickups, a decent low end and bass response but I wouldnt do any super downtuned playing with these pickups; however they do cover blues, country, rock and thrash metal all very very well.

Features
The Wizard III neck is great, not to thin and most definitely not too thick, I did find myself polishing it a little bit out of the box as it felt a little “dry” if you will, but once I did that things sped right up and the radius keeps your hand in a comfortable position all over the neck. I also am EXTREMELY impressed with the cutaway for access to the higher frets! I have some rather large hands and yet can manage to get up to the 24th fret with any finger very very easily!

Ease of Use
Playability is wonderful, again going back to some of my previous points; good pickups, great neck, great neck access and also very very lightweight… read more and thin so its comfy to play in about any position for anyone, definitely the lightest and thinnest guitar I own (I also have an Ibanez MiKro and its thinner than that!) all the while the size of the body doesnt sacrifice any tone and theres plenty of sustain.

Quality
Quality is very very solid as is (most of the time) with Ibanez. nothing feels flimsy or misaligned, everything was in nice and tight from the volume/tone pot, bridge/saddles, tuners, nut etc. There was one tiny blemish on one of the horns but I believe that happened in finish, however beings satin finishes are kinda fragile I’m not going to knock back any points for this.

Value
For the money this thing is hard to beat, it looks like a much more premium guitar (dare I say $1k guitar) and plays the part too, quality wise the guitar I can compare this closest to is my PRS Custom 24 SE and that was double the price of this, so not bad company to be in.

Manufacturer Support
Never had to deal with Ibanez customer service before, but beings this is my 4th Ibanez and not one has given me a problem it’s most likely safe to say that this field *shouldnt* be a worry.

The Wow Factor
Ultimately it was that gorgeous satin finish that drew me in! I cant help but pick this thing up and play it evertime I stare at it, again thankfully the playing backs up the looks so it really is the whole complete package; and again, pricetag is also a real winner to me!

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