Review:Ibanez 320 SZ

Product: Ibanez SZ 320

Price paid: 610 CAD

Features: 8 1/2

I bought this guitar new in 2005, and play in a metalish band and this guitar is perfect for it. I play through a peavey bandit 112 with a Pod 2.0 and I get a pretty decent metal sound. I get the exact same sound of Tool, so if you like their sound , you will like this guitar. The cleans from this guitar arent that great, but its decent, with a better amp you could achieve this. The specs of this guitar are:
SZ (set-in) neck
3pc. Mahogany Neck Material
Mahogany Body
22/Medium frets
Bound Rosewood Finger Board
Gibraltar III bridge
Duncan Ibanez (H) Neck PU
Duncan Ibanez (H) Bridge PU
Abalone Dot Inlay
NI : Hardware Color

Sound: 8 1/2
I must say going from a squire strat to a 320 SZ was a BIG step for me, I love my sound, but if i had a nice tube stack it would sound way better. IMO the humbuckers I would change because its too chunky for me. If your thinking of buying a les paul this guitar is basically the same thing. With this guitar its verstile, I play different ranges of music any where from classic rock,metal, country etc.... I would recommend this guitar either for your second guitar coming from your first crappy guitar, or as a back up. From this guitar you can get sounds from bands like Tool and Three Days Grace.

Action, Fit, & Finish: 8
i have some important observations here: tuners are good, die cast. probably not the best, but good/OK. I tried to lower the strings (I like low, easy action) and found some fretting out on the top treble E and B strings above the 12th fret. perhaps this could be remedied with professional fret sanding or filing, but I chose not to apply my amateur attempts in that direction. finish: this is a beautiful guitar, make no mistake in your perceptions of that. gleaming shiny black and silver-chrome. nice! this is a reasonably heavy guitar, but i'm sure this contributes to the EXCELLENT sustain (plus the string-through design helps too). the Gibralter bridge is WONDERFUL, simply the best. smart design here, very intelligent and practical - looks great as well - smooth and solid on your picking/muting hand. binding was nicely done throughout, but i personally would opt for a NARROWER neck (this neck is flat and wide, no radius curvature that i could detect). the neck specs are available on ibanez website, I think, but it's a bit more than 1 5/8 inch at the nut (1 11/16 I think). this extra neck width seems to be contributed by the binding because the distance BETWEEN the strings on my (considerably narrower feeling and faster playing) ESP F-200 is EXACTLY THE SAME. and for the life of me, I can't understand why many guitarists prefer these wide necks. the abalone dot inlays (and side dots) are very subtle, a bit hard to see.

Reliability/Durability: 9
I had this guitar for about 7 months and its still like new. This guitar is built VERY well. Nothing has been falling apart at all. No input jack has been loose, no fret buzz from strings, or anything like that.I can tell this guitar wont cause me any problems in the future

Customer Support: N/A
NA

Overall Rating: 9
I been playing about 2 years right now and I played many guitars and this guitar is worth saving for. For the money this guitar is worth every penny. I can go on and on about this guitar, but i think you guys know enough evilGuitar: