I decided after many years of selling one guitar to buy another that I was going to trade it all to get into an entry level Rick. The neck has a wide, maple fingerboard that is totally glossed out, almost like glass. Normally I don't go for that, however in this case, the back side is narrow giving me plenty of room to sneek my thumb around when nobody's looking, shsh! The strings are so easy to push and bend, it's like butter! The 3 position switch was a bit of a drag at first, but seperate tone controlls for each pickup definately makes up for it. The only sacrifice Rick made was 1 pickup & some art work

I travel a lot and try to keep working on my laptop when I am in hotels. I have found the IE 30 in ear headphones to be fantastic.

They are tiny and light, they cut ambient noise by 26dB (M Audio's claim) and the sound is very good. I was stunned to be using mt iPod on plane at half volume.

The only negative is that you really do need an extension cable if you are going to do anything where you are at all mobile, monitoring guitar via Amplitube 2 from the laptop for example.

Apart from that I have nothing but praise for this product and the hard case is really useful if you are going to throw them in a travelling bag.