This guitar has a very well balanced sound. The mahogany neck thru body gives it TONS of body and super sustain. Even unplugged, you can really play this guitar and hear every note in fast passages. It has tremendous clarity. I've used this guitar live on stage and It cuts through the mix very easily. I play a variety of musical styles and compose in them all. Heavy metal, death metal, fusion, rock, jazz, blues etc etc This axe shines in them all. The sound is very distinctive. Its very clear and strong. I have used this through a bunch of different amps, Marshall, Line 6 etc and it sounds great through all of them. The pickups are DiMarzio deActivators. They are really good and drive any amp. They're very hot without ever being distorted or unclear. I think they're DiMarzios best pups IMO. I've played the others as well. You'll love the neck pickups in particular. Its warm thick and flowing. Very smooth with a great response. The bridge pickups is hot and crunchy with great definition. Pinch harmonics etc just fly out of this very easily. These have the output of active pups with the finesse and character of passives. Palm mutes sound so good with this guitar. You'll feel like chunkhing out riffs all day.

The guitar came with its case and keys. I think its a super hi-value for money guitar. In fact its easily worth much more. The case is quite good. The construction quality of the guitar is simply awesome. I've opened it up and inspected the wiring etc. I do this with all my guitars and have changed pups on my other axes several times. The wiring is excellent. The grounding etc is very very good. The guitar is almost noiseless. Very professional. You could use this one guitar for the rest of your life and never have to change.

This guitar is the best playing guitar of all of my guitars. I have 7. Fenders, Gibsons, Ibanez's etc. Its a joy to play this. The neck is ultra comfortable and guitar playing feels easy and joyful. This guitar is really easy to play. A lot of players have complained about the strap pin placement. I've adjusted to it and its fine for me. You can get it adjusted if you like. Its not a big deal.

Its fantastic. BEST quality guitar i've ever played. Its like an Alien-Medieval weapon. It could withstand a nuclear war.

BEST value in the market. By far.

Wont need it.

Its easily the sexiest guitar i have. I show all my guitars to my students and visitors. They see my other guitars and say "wow", "awesome", "very nice" etc When I open the Xiphos case and show them they only GASP. Its that hot.

Active musician, producer, film maker

World Rock Fusion, Metal, Death Metal, Jazz

I own 17 electric guitars and I just bought this one because it looks different! OMG am I GLAD I DID! This guitar SHREDS and has an unbelievable sound! It can play it all even JAZZ with the neck and cleans up well. I thought it would work for metal and rock only but am amazed at the versatility of sound. It stays in tune and so far since I tuned and set up the trem it has NOT gone out of tune! It is exactly where it was and I whammy hard just to try and get it to go out! NOT! It just stays in tune!

I honestly can't say I would not want anything more than this axe offers! It has it ALL! Very easy to play! Great sound! Sustains forever! Harmonics EVERYWHERE! Very distinct CLEAR sound and handles pedals even better! This is it!!!!!! GREAT JOB IBANEZ!

Don't get any better or EASIER!

This is the BEST SOUNDING BEST PLAYING BEST FEELING guitar I own!

This guitar is better than my 1600.00 Steinberger and smokes my Schecters although the Schecters are right there. The Ibanez plays better, sounds better, feels lighter, it almost plays itself. REALLY!

OK when I purchased somehow Ibanez shipped the wrong tool kit with my guitar. After calling and a little trouble convincing the tech the allens were the wrong size finally I received the correct tools. Other than that I can honestly say I have NEVER played a better guitar!

Duh, NO I don't want it as I ALREADY HAVE IT! And I LOVE IT!

Active Musician

ALL!

Killer sound need i say more

It cam with all the tool to adjust. The only down was it didn't come with a case.

Well i changed the strings when i got it and it shreads. Fast neck just plug and play.

Product was very well made high quality just as good as my japan made one.

I would have paid more

Never needed them

Very sexy look a lot better in person when the lights hit it. Found no flaws in the paint It just Screams Metal

Active

Metal, Punk, Thrash, Alternative, Rock

Everything about this guitar is shocking and amazing and I have never said that about any other guitar before in my entire life. The pick ups are not active but the Dimarzios are amazing and work well with any amp to the point where you cannot even tell that they are not active. It shreds even better than my Schecter Synyster Custom and for 300 dollars less. It is a Neck thru so the sustain is unbeleavable and it stays in tune no matter how hard you go at it (within reason). It is the best metal guitar on the market right now and the value is absolutly unbeatable (take this for example you can get a schecter synyster standard for 699.99 with Duncan designed pickups or get this one with full Dimarzios for the same price and 300 less as I said above. That is the guitar I compare it too as I have both and they are similar with pickups and for the same music).

The design, the pickups, the case, and the color will blow you away ok ok maybe not the case but its a nice perk and saves you some money.

Use it right out of the box and you will love it.

Made extremly well in a neck thru design which I love and they are useually much more expensive than this. I plan on playing this one a long long time.

699.99 For a neck thru with great pickups, awesome color, and 5pc Mahogany are you kidding me this is the best deal you will find anywhere.

Customer service with Ibanez is easy fast and they do what they can to make you happy. I have no complaints but with this guitar I highly doubt you will be calling anyone except to show off or thank them for this awesome guitar.

Its beautiful in looks, sound and features.

Active Musician

Metal

This axe is awesome. It has really great sounding dimarzio pickups. Great punch, balls, and fury! Fabulous live and in the studio.

Great tremolo, superb neck, volume and tone. Cool finish that changes colors. Its a real demon!

Plays itself, super fast neck!

Ibanez produced a great axe with this guitar, and out the box it was perfectly setup.

Great price, and the case is fantastic

great support, answered my questions!

Kick ass coolness!

semipro

rock, metal, blues

Love the sound, it is just not getting better you know (if you have tried it ofcourse, lol). This guitar is definately worth buying.

I love the tremolo, the pickups, and the finish of it. The frets are also very comfortable playing with.

Well, the guitar I have at home is HARD to play at, so this guitar makes it feel like i'm a guitar god, when everything suddenly got so easy!

This guitar has very good quality, and it will last for a long time before repair is needed.

Well, this is about half the price than anywhere else I have found it, so the value is great! (Or did you mean what I think it's worth?)

Not gotten any support for it, because I have only tried it in a store.

I would prefer the white version ofcourse, but it would pretty fast get dirty, so i'll go for red-cham or black.

Hobbyist (currently)

Hard Rock

Tremelo is great, it does not have a floyd. It's an Ibanez Edge III. For me it took a while to get used to but ask someone that has/knows about these and you'll pick up on it easy.

Great. The quality is just so good. A lot of people complained about where the knobs are to hold the guitar in place while playing standing up. I never touched it, It's fine. I play fine standing up, i rest my arm a bit at the edge and it stays. No problems with it

WORTH it. Trust me. Great sound everything

I didnt need an upgrade. Just didnt know how to tune this right and stuff, So i had someone froma guitar shop help me, they adjusted the action and the springs in the back. Works great now.

The color. The X Shape. what isnt as sexy as this thing ? haha

Active Musician

Death Metal.

Awesome tone! And not just metal tones either. Nice blues and classic rock tones as well. But let's face it...show up at my local blues jam with this guitar...probably not. Sounds better than my Schecter with the Duncan Blackouts, and that guitar I always thought was unbeatable. The DeActivators are just richer sounding and I hate to use that hackneyed phrase "more organic", but in this case it's true.

Comes with all of the requisite allen wrenches for adjustments of the trem and also a nice owners manual. No case, but what guitar under a grand includes a case these days. Ibanez makes a case specific for this guitar but no one seems to stock them :(

First off, if this is your first guitar with a Floyd Rose style trem, do some homework on how to tune these things. It does require a bit of work and patience, especially when changing to another tuning or string gauge. But once everything's set you're good forever. The secret is to get the spring tension equal to the string tension. That's why they're called "floating" trems. That's also why you can't just drop the tuning...you need to readjust the spring tension to compensate for the loss of tension on the strings. I solved that problem by just buying a second one and keeping it in Drop D for when I need it. The neck on this guitar is awesome! Now I can't go back and play any of my other guitars as they feel like I'm holding a baseball bat in my hands after playing this.

My guitar had the pickup selector switch mounted backwards when I got it. Also, a big glob of polyurethane accumulated on the lower wing. Not the best QC but hey! I can live with it.

Let's see...neck thru, floating trem, USA Dimarzio p/u's, chameleon paint, shark inlays. Sounds great and looks awesome. All for around $700? Yeah...it's a great value

Contacted Ibanez via email and they responded within 24 hours. They also have a helpful forum on their website

Very agressive looking guitar! It just screams metal! It's also the first guitar that has the new DiMarzio DeActivator pickups. The neck thru body ensures easy access to all 24 frets. A very unique guitar that suits my style perfectly

semi-pro

metal

The guitar has an excellent mid range tone that makes it extremely great for metal playing. The passive D Activator pickups act like active pickups without the sterile sound. The compressed tone that you with EMG pickups shined without the harsh overtones of an EMG pickup. I'm not really a full time metal player and I like to dial in a good blues tone and this guitar did the trick with an expressive neck pickup. The tone control does just that: controls the tone and in a world where most guitars have a tone knob that does little in the way of shaping tone, this guitar delivers with a great cap for tone shaping.

The paint job is a feature all in its own and no picture on the internet can do justice for how this paint job looks in real life. Single binding on the fretboard and headstock add a nice touch as well as the reversed headstock and shark tooth inlays. All in all, this adds a lot in the way of features. Don't forget the excellent cosmo back hardware! That's a pretty good feature as well.

I'm used to guitars that are oddly shaped and tend not to balance well. This is one of the better ones I've owned as it balances great in the sitting position but tends to dive slightly on the strap. The neck is perfect and is a bit thicker than the RG type Wizard II neck. I personally feel that the knob placement is in a good spot and the tremolo arm doesn't get into my way. Upper fret access could be better but I play rhythm mostly so it doesn't impact my playing that much. However, if you do go into the upper register a lot I'd suggest trying it out before spending the cash just to make sure it doesn't both you. I can reach every fret with my pointer finger but in a live situation I don't know how comfortable I would feel. A lot of people complain about the Edge III tremolo but most of those people don't understand how to set one up properly. Once set up this tremolo will give you tons of fun. Any full floating tremolo can give you headaches if you don't have them fine tuned.

Import guitars shouldn't have the stigma that they do. To me the quality of this guitar is top of the line. I fell in love with it the minute I played it and it hasn't stopped yet. The finish was spotless and the nut was crafted with great quality. The fret job was excellent and the frets even looked to be polished. My local guitar store sets up their guitars before putting them on the floor for sale so I can't say how well it was set up from the factory.

This guitar is worth more than the asking price!

I've never used Ibanez support which means I've never had to. The best support is support that you never have to use!

Studio work

Metal, blues

This guitar makes even my terrible little First Act amp sound great!

The Edge III is great, hasn't given me one problem.

It is simple and very smooth to use. The neck is incredibly fast.

Top knotch.

This is worth the money and more!

Haven't needed it yet, but I will need to when my card switches for the Installment Plan.

This instrument is completely beautiful!

Average Musician

Progressive Metal, Heavy Metal, 80's Hair Metal

Awesome sound, d-activators are tight and trebly. I run through an rp350, roland cube, and Ibanez PM7. Tone knob barely alters, but I don't care

Included hard case, allen wrenches, extra whammy spring, and keys to case. Since the case is 100 bucks by itself, I'm pretty satisfied.

Fast flat neck, great for shredding. Balance is a little off though, but it is the most comfortable guitar I have used sitting.

Edge III works awesome straight from the factory, Easy clean finish, doesn't show fingerprints easily. Don't purposely abuse it, and it should be fine

Great value. again, I got a free case

I have never had to deal with Ibanez, so I can't say, but I haven't needed to, and this is my third guitar from them

I got red chameleon, and it looks amazing.

Amatuer guitarist

Metal, Nu Metal, Industrial

this guitar sounds amazing great harmonics,but could use more crunch and sustain(just get better pickups)

i bought it at my local guitar store and the tone,volume, and tremelo system are amazing. i play metal mostly and got a tremolo stop so i can still divebomb but not pull up. i can keep this guitar in drop c tuning for 3 months at a time and it wont go out at all.

amazingly easy to use, great contours to reach high frets! i had to move the guitar strap buttons around because it didnt balance good, but other than that it works great

great quality, i've dropped this guitar thousands of times no dens scratches or chips, amazing.

the value could have been better if maybe some blackouts or emg's were on this guitar.

didnt need any

this guitar is sexy

musician

metal,hardrock,rock,classic rock

Its the best sounding ibanez yet.DiMarzio D'activiator pickups sound beautiful in the guitar. I use a marshall 100 watt half stack amp and a death metal pedal, and it sounds wicked.

I love the tremolo, floyd roses are awesome just difficult to tune properly.

Its very comfortably sitting or standing,"i owm a jackson warrior so im used to the shape",But it wont take long to get used to for someone new to the shape. The neck is fast and i find it simple to do artificial harmonics, Its great.

It is very well built, the paint holds well and it feels so sturdy, the glued in neck is so amazingly done.

worth the money by far

never need it

Its gorgeous, the shape is so appelaing and eye catching escpecially with the green chameleon paint. simply awesome.

In a banfd

Death Metal

Unbelievable sound. Great for metal. Pretty good for classic rock and blues (yeah, you read that right. I said blues). Neck thru maple/walnut neck and mahogany wings balance the output from the ceramic magnet D Activators perfectly. Excellent sustain. Full, well rounded sound from the pickups.

Neck thru, Dimarzios, Edge III Trem w/locking nut. Cool paint job (Red Chameleon). Fast-as-greased-lightning Wizard II neck. What's not to like? Accessories included all pertinent allen wrenches, trem bar, strap buttons and an extra trem spring.

Plug it in and start shredding! I chose to tune this one to Drop C tuning (C-G-C-F-A-D) with 10-52 strings. Of course any time you change string gauges and/or tunings on a floating trem you're going to have to totally reset the guitar (unless of course you prefer to play with strings 1/2" off the fretboard!). This takes quite a bit of trial and error and is not for the impatient among us. Operation was successful and now I'm chugging lower than whale turds.

Much better than my previous Xiphos!!!!! Selector switch was properly installed and no blemishes on the finish (see my previous review for further details).

Hey! Dimarzios, Neck thru, Edge III trem, the most wicked paint job ever, killer tone and super fast neck...all for $699! Does it get any better?

Haven't contacted either Ibanez or zZounds about this one. Haven't needed to. But zZounds Customer Support has always been very helpful and quick to respond to my inquiries in the past and Ibanez has responded to my emails as well.

"Sex Appeal"? C'mon now! If you're a true metalhead you should be drooling over this thing!

Hobbyist

Metal

THE SOUND IS GREAT

NOT THE REGULAR NOT THE REGULAR 'LET'S GET IN TUNE'.

READ THE BOOK.

IT NEEDED A SET-UP WHEN I GOT IT. 2 WEEKS LATER, IT SERIOUSLY NEEDS IT. WHEN I FIRST GOT IT, THE 5TH STRING OPEN POSITION C NOTE COULD NOT BE PLAYED. NEITHER COULD THE F ON THE 6TH. THEY CAN NOW BE PLAYED WITHOUT "MASSAGING", BUT THEY DON'T SOUND GREAT. THE FINISH IS GREAT. HUGE INDENTATATION ON UPPER BACK WING(SOMEONE LEFT THE SANDER GOING TOO LONG).

I'VE PLAYED BETTER FIRST ACT GUITARS

CAN'T REACH COMPANY--THEY SAY CONTACT RETAILER. I CAN'T EVEN FIND TRUE SPECS, OTHER THAN WHAT I'VE FOUND ON ZZOUNDS. THE MANUAL IS GENERIC.

COLOR IS GREAT. FEEL IS GREAT. BALANCED.

ACTIVE

CLASSIC, METAL

the pickups are not nearly as good as my emg 81/85 no sustain and definately no crunch just a tinny sound i only played twice after i got it for christmas and ordered a les paul epiphone with emg 81/85 and it will smoke the ibanez , all the x does is hang on my wall

the looks are great the paint is awesome the neck is great love the guitar just hate the pickups.

tone knob is almost useless

a $400.00 schecter will smoke this anyday