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Ibanez RG2550 E
by dannysimcox
I purchased this guitar a few years ago as i was looking for a lead guitar with a good floyd rose and a thin neck. Having heard many good reviews I decided to buy it! i paid £750 and it also came with a solid, well built ibanez case. Like most musical instruments though the price has risen over the past few years.
There are ... two main things that impressed my about this guitar! The tone and the neck. Firstly this is a great guitar for soloing, i prefer to use the bridge pickup and neck pickup! the bridge being better for those screaming harmonics and the neck pickup sounding better for the smoother classier solos. The neck pickup though is also great for a clean sound, providing a nice amount of bass, and real clarity. No buzzing or humming from the neck pickup!
Secondly the neck is very thin. Probably the thinnest i have every played. This makes it very easy to play. Also in the 3 or 4 years i have had this guitar I have not had to replace anything, and although i do not play it as much these days, I was on it every day for at least the first 2 years!
I would recommend this guitar for anyone looking to shred and rock out and if it was stolen i would probably buy the same guitar again with my insurance!
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Ibanez GRG170DX
by Aleene
I first bought this guitar as an upgrade from my strat copy about a year after getting into guitar. It was the only one in the shop that I actually like the look of (I'm a sucker for superstrat and sharktooth inlays) and at the time was the best thing I had ever owned.
Let me make this clear, this is definitely a ... beginners/backup/modding guitar, and not for someone who is an advanced player.
Playability
This guitar, with the right setup, can have super low action, and a great feeling neck, however that takes a bit of time. To get the most out of this guitar, I would definitely recommend blocking the bridge to get the most out of this guitar. Sometimes the single coil can get in the way, if you pick really hard, but for a beginner, this should teach them to avoid hitting the single coil, so they don't have to change their technique later on.
Hardware
The hardware on the guitar is OK at best. It has lasted a few years and hasn't rusted, however the overall quality is not too good. If you are planning on giving it any whammy abuse, then kiss goodbye to any tuning stability you thought you had. Even with locking tuners, the bridge cannot hold up to any substantial whammy use. If you don't use the whammy, then a tuner upgrade would still be a worthwhile investment, due to the fact that this guitar slips out of tune often.
Most of the screws are absolute garbage, and get messed up almost straight away. If anything, make sure to replace the ones in the back of the guitar that hold the springs down, otherwise you will have big troubles when it comes to changing gauges, tunings etc.
The pickups are, surprisingly, pretty decent. Quite high output and can clearly pick up harmonics. I find they sound better with lower tunings, such as drop C. There's not really much of a difference in sound between them.
The 5 way switch is very useful, with a certain coil-tap like feature, where it will only activate half of a humbucker when in the 2 or 4 position. All the electronics were sound, and the knobs on the front are very heavy duty.
Construction
The guitar is built very well, and has withstood everything that I have thrown at it, including a couple of big drops. There is no dodgy neck work going on, with the frets being level, and cut to the correct size.
This is what makes the guitar perfect for beginners, it can withstand being thrown around a LOT!
Ease of use?
This guitar doesn't have a proper double locking floating bridge, it works just like a strat, so strings are fed through the back of the guitar to change them. This is perfect for beginners, as changing strings can be a huge pain, especially with a floating bridge.
Only 2 controls makes things ever simpler, the highest one controlling the volume, and lower controlling tone.
Modding capabilities
This guitar has high potential to be a modded guitar, or a guitar to practice your luthier skills on. I frequently use it to experiment with things such as pickup changes, action adjustment and string gauge changes. There's even space to route out a cavity and install some effects, like a phase-90 or fuzz factory, matt bellamy style.
Conclusion;
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