Ibanez RGA72TQM Electric Guitar

No longer available at zZounds

Ibanez RGA72TQM Electric Guitar, Transparent Gray Burst

zZounds Gear Experts Say...

Beautiful quilted maple top on mahogany body. Active pickups and EQ. Tremolo model with Edge III bridge.

Overview

The RGA archtop guitar not only has hot curves but playability. For live performance, its lightweight body gives players more freedom to prowl around stage. The arched top also lets players to knock down heavy riffs and power chords without hitting the guitar body. All told, curved beauty and great performance combine gracefully and powerfully in the RGA.

Features
- Thin Wizard II neck

- Arch-topped mahogany bodies for tonal warmth, strong sustain and playing comfort

- Equipped with fat and strong active Ibanez LoZ3 pickups

- Active EQ circuit with simple-to-operate on-off switch to provide pure tone free of noise

- New RGA72TQM Trem model with Edge III bridge

RGA72TQM's have a beautiful quilted maple top on mahogany body. The LZ3 is also an original Ibanez active pickup, but with higher output than the LZ4. It produces a fat sound with good clarity, perfect for distortion sounds. The RGA72's fretboard's striking, specially designed "Snake Fang" inlays. Smooth heel, set-in neck design meets today's playing style: RGA72's neck provides easy upper-frets access and great sustain.

EDGE III TREMOLO
The new Edge III is similar in construction and feel to the original Edge locking trem; however, it also features lower profile fine-tuners inspired by the Lo-PRO Edge and massive new-design saddles.

The Edge III features two screws in the arm pocket, which allow easy adjustment of the arm height and torque.

In the last two decades, no other guitar maker besides Ibanez has done… read more so much to advance the art and science of the tremolo. The Edge III represents the next phase in locking tremolos.

Specs

Specifications
Neck Material: 3-piece Maple

Neck Type: Wizard II

Body: Mahogany body/ Quilted Maple top

Frets: Jumbo frets

Fingerboard: Bound Rosewood

Inlay: Snake Fang inlay

Bridge: Edge III bridge

Neck Pickup: LZ3-N

Bridge Pickup: LZ3-B

Hardware Color: CK

Documents and Manuals

For support or warranty questions, please contact the manufacturer:
Phone: 800-669-8262
Web: https://www.ibanez.com/usa/support/

Manual

Reviews

(5 ratings)

Submitted September 7, 2010 by a customer from verizon.net

"It's All Metal"

Overall:

(see rating details)

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

This is pretty much a guitar built for metal and speed (the two are synonomous in my opinion). As such there's not a whole lot of jazz or blues inside this axe, although in a pinch you could pull it off with the right gear. There's nothing I dislike about this guitar. As a metal player it falls right in line with the sound and vibe I need from my guitar. I used to play Schecters exclusively, but since I first laid my hands on a Wizard II neck I find that playing on a fatter neck is like trying to sprint through quicksand. There's just something about ESP's (I think it's their weird shaped headstocks) that kept me from going that route. I went with what I thought would be a great value and meet my demands and I'm glad I did.

Sound
The guitar almost has two personalities because of the EQ switch. With the switch off you get a sound very reminicent of a hot PAF. With the switch on you get a very tight and focused sound, not quite as midrangey as an EMG but just as articulate. Usually most reviews of Ibanez guitars start out with "sounds okay for the price but I'm going to replace the pickups with...". Well if you were to do that with this guitar you'd be making a huge mistake. Now, granted that tone is a very subjective thing and if you're the type of player that absolutely positively has to have EMG's/Duncans/DiMarzios in your axe or it's not worthy of being played then by all means go ahead and swap out the p/u's. But these pickups sound pretty… read more awesome on their own. All of my other guitars have either DiMarzio D Activators or EMG's (and one with Gibson Dirty Fingers p/u's) and this one sounds more articulate than any of the others. I have a multitude of high gain presets on my Peavey Vypyr 30 utilizing all of the high gain amp models (Diezl, Krank, Mesa Rectifier, Peavey 6505, JSX, XXX). The amp sounds great through EMG's and D Activators, but when I played the LoZ's through it I heard much more distinction between the presets. So much for claims of "muddiness" that others have posted. I am a little curious though about them running on 3 volts (two AA batteries) as opposed to the 9 volts of other active p/u's...

Features
The usual allen wrenches, extra trem spring, throwaway cable (why do manufacturers of low/mid priced guitars still do this?), trem arm AND a very useful manual. READ THE MANUAL FOLKS! Ninety-nine and nine tenths of a percent of negative reviews of gear can be eliminated if people would only READ THE MANUAL! Especially with a floating tremolo. Another really cool feature they've added is a hinged truss rod cover. No more crawling around on the floor looking for those (very!) tiny screws when you go to adjust your truss rod. Just flip the cover to the side with your pick and you're good to go. The arched quilted maple top, mahogany body, and set neck are not the usaul RG series specs. Closer to the "S" series (except for the set neck of course). It is an extremely light guitar, but it still holds plenty of sustain, which is always nice. The guitar also has a unique EQ toggle switch that radically changes the character of the guitar. More about that in the "Sound" section though...

Ease of Use
This is very subjective. If you have experience with floating trems then there shouldn't be any problems once you expend the initial effort to get it set up with your prefered strings and tunings. If you don't have any experience with floating trems then once again I encourage you to READ THE MANUAL. Ibanez's Wizard II neck is known for it's incredible speed. It's a flat/thin profile that works for both leads and chording. Since I started playing on them I find it difficult to go back to the thicker "traditional" necks. They just feel like I'm holding a baseball bat in my left hand. There's no tone knob here (GASP!) so your guitar won't look as impressive as your friend's Les Paul or Strat. But really people! I've always found that a tone knob is good for only one thing and that's screwing up your tone. When you roll off on it you're actually cutting out frequencies (as oppossed to your amps EQ which can cut AND boost frequencies) so you're really cheating yourself out of a lot of the sonic spectrum. I've always kept my tone knob at full throttle and EQ'd my tone through my p/u selector, my volume knob, my pedals and my amp.

Quality
This is another Ibanez product made in Indonesia and the quality is outstanding. As a matter of fact you'd actually have to look at the back of the headstock to see that it's not made in Japan. You'd think it was a Prestige. Hardware's above average. Finish is awesome. Frets are perfect. Inlays are well seated.

Value
I never really paid much attention to Ibanez until about two years ago when the XPT700 Xiphos appeared. I don't know why I did it, but I took a chance and bought one from zZounds figuring if I didn't like it I'd send it back. Well, today I now own seven Xiphos's and I've gained a lot of respect for Ibanez. They seem to know what the modern metal player wants and they deliver the goods at a great price. I love my Xiphos's but they are rather large and unwieldy. And now I drive a MINI Cooper and there's just no room in there for me, my amp, the Xiphos and another person. So I had to downsize. Having had the great experience with my first gamble on an Ibanez product I did my research and decided to get this one. There's other guitars around with similar specs in the same price range (ESP Standard Series for one) but I just knew that Ibanez delivered great value, so I took a chance and once again I'm more than impressed with their products.

Manufacturer Support
Ibanez customer service is prompt at getting back to me whenever I email them with questions. Their forum is also monitored by their staff and posted questions are usually answered very rapidly as well. zZounds support is OUTSTANDING. They're really committed to making sure you're treated well and you're happy with your buying experience.

The Wow Factor
Make no mistake about it, this is one sweet guitar. The quilted maple top and matching headstock (probably veneer) with the Transparent Gray Burst finish looks awesome. The Snake Fang fretboard inlays add to the "metal" look along with the Edge III trem. The binding is more of an off white/creme color as opposed to the bright white binding that I've seen pictures of on the internet. The "Cosmo Black" hardware adds to the overall vibe. Not as sinister looking as the Xiphos but it definitely says "I wanna come out and shred".

Musical Background:
hobbyist

Musical Style:
The More Brootal The Better

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