^ this , it's amazing how many beautiful Jacksons and Ibanez RG's I've passed on because the floyd posts were not drilled in correctly.
Played one at both Matt's Music and Axe Palace. They were very good. No issues with the 4 I've seen in person, all played very very well. I know both shops sent back a few, but my impressions were very good.
Misaligned trem posts should fail QC, but I've seen ESP, Ibanez, Jackson, and even a Suhr that shipped with this issue over the past 10 years.
I was under the opposite impression. Granted, my sample size is two local shops. Which is hardly representative. Both my local Jackson dealers have only had a few "in stock" for the wall, but have sold many more than that which never hit their websites because they were spoken-for and ordered for customers.
The import stuff seems to fly off shelves. I’ve never seen any of the US built stuff in a shop ever though.
I'd say that's a totally fair, non-crazy, used price for a $2,500 instrument when new.
Not to sound like a fanboy here, but that's not terribly specific in terms of complaints. I've played several of these at two different stores and been impressed. That's just my subjective experience though.
This stuff is all very area dependent. Fender and Jackson US stuff is in Corona, CA. I’m in OH. If the shop doesn’t do anything about it, EVERY guitar will have fret sprout. It gives you a really warped perception, because you can play something like an EJ strat at a shop that just took it out of the box and put it on the wall, and think it’s a POS. Then go to another shop, that actually plays the guitars before they hang them up, and think the player series strats are amazing. In all actuality, they’re both great guitars. One just didn’t get the same TLC, and looks worse, instead of better, because of it
Absolutely. Some people have unrealistic expectations, or don't know this stuff works. I won't say though, that they won't ship a lemon every so often, because that absolutely happens. Anecdotally, FMIC is having issues with fret dressing and leveling across all models coming out of the Corona, CA factory.
I’m torn on whether the situation in NE Ohio is good or bad. For Gibson, Fender, and Martin, we have a couple _really_ nice dealers, and an excellent repair shop / luthier. For everything else, SamAsh is definitely better than GC, but there’s no way to get your hands on high end BC Rich, Ibanez, ESP, Jackson, etc. here. The guitar buyers with money here want the boomer stuff. I’ve still never played a Select series Jackson or an ESP Original series, despite owning an 80s San Dimas-era Rhoads.
This sounds very familiar to me. In MI I lived in that small town near the Indiana border, Lansing/East Lansing, and Kalamazoo. No high end stuff other than Fender/Gibson and similar boutique brands. You'd never find a USA Jackson, ESP Original, Prestige or higher Ibanez there at any stores in the places I lived. I bought my SL2H without ever seeing one in person back in the day, ordered from GC because that was the only option.
