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Verified Customer zZounds has verified that this reviewer made a purchase from us.

Got a $1,000 budget? Looking for a phenomenal guitar? You've found it. Got mine about a month ago, & haven't touched any others in my collection since (sorry to my beloved Schecter strat). For the money, you'll be hard pressed to find a much better guitar. Especially one that for the most part comes loaded. I ordered the hardtail model, rather than another trem. This thing is a gem. Beautiful dark fretboard. Locking tuners. P/p tone. Sexy pearl paint. It has it all.Aside from the action being a tad high for my liking, & needing to tighten one of the pots as the nut was loose, it was ready to play straight from the box. The fit, & finish are great. Fret ends feel perfect. I did throw a new set of strings on it out of habit. But the pups sound great on this guitar, & they provide sustain for days with the neck through build. Let a friend from McNally school of music give it a rip, & he couldn't believe the sustain it has. Makes his JEM seem paltry when comparing the two.While the JB is a really good pickup, I may toss in my SD Custom instead as I prefer it over the JB. But don't misunderstand me, it's a personal preference, & the stock JB/'59 setup this comes with sound really good. With the added coil tap, you can cover just about any style of music you like to play with it. It's a very versatile, very sweet setup.My ONLY gripe about the guitar, is that what you may have read on ESP's site, or elsewhere, are true, it is a tad neck heavy. So expect a bit of neck dive. It's not terrible, not to the point it'll drive ya nuts, but be aware there is a bit of dive with it. But, from top to bottom, bridge to head stock, it is WELL worth the $1k price tag, & more. I do still plan to add a set of Graphtech saddles to the TOM, but it's not absolutely needed, again just a preference. Straight from the box, right to the stage, this thing is a rock solid guitar I would have zero issues recommending to anyone. If you are in the market for a ready to go, fully loaded axe for $1k, get it. You won't regret it.

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Verified Customer zZounds has verified that this reviewer made a purchase from us.

I'm kind of in between on this one. Sending mine back unfortunately... The rainbow crackle looks awesome, especially in person. Tone of the guitar is great. Huge sound with plenty of heat. The stock trem wasn't holding tune even though it was perfectly setup. I swapped the springs for better ones and it held tune perfect. Neck thru is super comfy and the finish over the crackle had some depth which was nice. Playability was great. Frets were pretty level and I was able to get the action nice and low as I like it with minimal fret buzz. Now the bad... I can't speak for all of them but mine had several blemishes. Some hazing in the horn on the binding under the clear. There was a chunk missing out of the binding on the neck that spanned almost an entire fret. There was a scratch on the back, thin, but about 8 inches long. One screw for the input jack was overtightened and caused a crack in the clear. Guitar plays and sounds great but for the money the QC just wasn't there on this one. Like I said I can't speak for all of them but mine just wasn't up to par, especially for the price. zZounds made the return process super simple. A+ on customer service as always.