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.

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!

Playability is wonderful, again going back to some of my previous points; good pickups, great neck, great neck access and also very very lightweight 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 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.

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.

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.

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!

Acoustically, this guitar is totally resonant and rings like a tuning fork. The body is made of "meranti" - I looked it up and apparently this wood is used as a substitute for mahogany. That makes sense, it does have a lot of the same thick, rich overtones but this is balanced out by the bolt-on maple neck providing a bit of "cut". I can't comment on the pickups because my lady has thus far been too shy to plug it in (it's her first guitar), but at this price, I would normally expect to swap out pickups if it were mine anyway. Online reviews seem to indicate that the newer generation of the "Quantum" pickups are being received much better than the originals, so maybe she'll want to keep them! Will update when we get that far.

As noted above, fit-and-finish are excellent across the board. In particular, the binding is very cleanly cut and glued - very nice to see on a guitar in this price range! Not sure about the pickups since she hasn't plugged in yet, but those are easy to swap if needed. The 5-way switch has a very cool set of options, with full humbuckers on either end and combinations of single-coil and parallel settings in between. The nut is whatever low-friction material Ibanez has been using for years - I think it's almost exactly like the GraphTek "Tusq" material, and that's a good thing as well. The only minor gripe I might mention for parts selection is the very-basic bridge, but if you like hardtails anyway, this one is solid enough to hold until you put in an upgrade. My only real complaint is the "satin" finish - builders REALLY need to stop doing this on production guitars. I know it's cheaper, but it LOOKS cheaper, and that's not a good thing.

If you like Ibanez necks, then you already know what you're in for. If not, give it a try - there's a reason so many people play Ibanez, and it's not just that they're reasonably-priced!

Ibanez guitars last for DECADES. Even the very lowest range of their guitars stand head and shoulders above most of their competition, and this one is a few levels above that. You can always swap hardware components out if you want to, but with this, you probably won't feel the need for quite some time. A quick setup, and you're off to the races.

MORE than worth the price, as is the norm for Ibanez. It's tough to beat them when it comes to pure quality for the money.

I've been playing Ibanez guitars for over 25 years, and I've never once had to reach out to them, so I really can't tell you how their Support is - but I'd rather not have to, so I'm cool with that.

"WOW" is right! It's gorgeous, plays great, quality is way above its price point..... This is just one more example of why I keep buying and recommending Ibanez guitars.