December 5th, 2008 by Andres Gallo

$699

Design

This guitar is absolutely gorgeous. This is my favorite guitar at the moment, with the most comfortable combination of body and neck, which makes it a greatly designed guitar. The body is also made of mahogany, and the neck is a 5 piece neck with a rosewood fretboard to withstand weather changes and such. Another beauty in its design its the 5 way pickup switch which allows for a wide variety of tones.
My only gripe with this guitar is the hardware. The quality of the metal is not the hardest and requires care when locking and unlocking the strings with the allen keys. I changed the hardware on mines to an OFR and its almost perfect.

Sound

The guitar comes equipped with a pair of INF I and INF II pickups. The pickups are pretty good, especially in combination with the 5 way pickup switch which allow them to go from a good clean to a pretty nice heavy tone with lots of “oomph”. The mahogany also adds to that oomph, and helps in creating one of the sweetest sustains possible.
The lows are very powerful and the entire frequency response is very smooth. The sound has a very organic quality to it. There are better pickups out there, but the sound is surprisingly good, considering is an Ibanez made pickup. Once again the 5 way pickup switch is a really nice addition. You can get some really clean sounds with it, that are hard to get with a regular humbucker combination.

Playability

Playability like in most RGs is excellent. The Wizard II necks are one of the faster necks in the market, and the RG body only adds to the experience with its incredibly ergonomic superstrat body. This guitar is in my opinion on the most comfortable guitar in the market. It is so comfortable I recommend upgrading, since I can’t think of a more comfortable guitar.

Reliability

I have had this guitar for a long while, and everything has held up perfectly. However I changed the hardware to an OFR, and the pickups to Dimarzio D-activator X. This is one of those guitar that have such a great feel, that they are worth upgrading. Having another RG with the stock hardware I can say reliability is not an issue, unless you abuse the tremolo system.

Customer Support

Virtually non-existant. It took me a lot of work to find a way in which to communicate Ibanez. It turns out you actually call a completely different company.