Over 1000$ for my dream guitar, my favorite shape and color, even a floating double-locking tremolo bridge. It must be perfect for so much money, can’t have any issues, am I right?
The shape, aggressive looks, black color, tremolo bridge, high output pickups. A metal machine \m/
The sad thing is, unfortunately, the amount of issues that have come with this instrument are unbelievable, and after a couple hours of owning this guitar I still find more and more of them…
About the state of my brand new instrument:
The finishing on the instrument I purchased and got sent, is completely unacceptable. Back of the neck feels like a sandpaper (not only is it untreated with any coating (nor lacquer or wax whatsoever) but it was left being very poorly sanded and has some really awkward shapes here and there), lacquer is improperly buffed, there are some tiny dents and chips in the finish (only "horns" and pointy edges, barely visible, but they are there, on a new guitar), and right behind the locking nut, there is a HUGE BLOB of black lacquer that adheres to the nut itself…
Some frets are left really sharp (in my case 17 of them). I don’t know how manufacturer managed to do that, but it’s crazy how fret ends can be rounded and “polished”, and yet they're sharp like tiny razor blades.
Frets are not level and unfortunately need to be levelled.
The fretboard had a bit of black and brown gunk, which came of easily after cleaning it with isopropyl alcohol and applying a little bit of “lemon oil” afterwards (I never had such a thing happen to me with a brand new guitar, so that’s a first).
Pickups and potentiometers are functional, but the pots were “crackling” while I was turning them, especially volume pot. A bit of WD-40 Contact made them work just fine. The pickups make sound, like intended: high output signal, but the characteristic of the signal is not to my preference.
Now the best part: the bridge.
One of the saddles on the bridge does not fit the radius of the whole bridge (namely, the D string saddle, it’s the same hight as A or B string saddle).
Apart from that, putting floyd rose bridge into a guitar that has 16” radius fretboard near the bridge (floyd rose is suitable mostly for 12” fretboard radius) makes the playability really weird and uncomfortable. When both E strings are set to a proper hight, D and G strings are still too high.
Overall, it is an instrument that “left a bitter aftertaste” after it arrived…
Jackson has let me down for the last time, and sadly, I will never purchase any Jackson instrument ever again, even though they have great instruments overally.
This opinion is 100% unbiased, based only around the real state of the instrument I had been sent, an instrument that somehow left the factory as a “finished product” and miraculously passed quality control.
I look at this guitar as someone, who loves how Jackson guitars look, feel and play (thanks to compound radiuses of their fretboards and neck shapes), but also as someone who builds, repairs and modifies guitars as a hobby. From that point of view: I am left disappointed and sad.
