Ibanez RGA42 - Black

RGA 42

Ibanez have a long history (40 years) of making cheap, affordable guitars that sound good, play well and outlast your lifespan in terms of robustness.
This is all marketing spiel of course, so now I\'m going to give the reality side of the coin. Had this guitar for around 4 months, borrowed from a friend, who had it for a month previously and has not changed it since he took it out the box.

Looks - Always a personal thing, to me the simple black is beautiful, simple and effective. Nice finish to it no blotches.

Stock Setup - Nice action, no major deviations or problems with the design, seems well made/constructed with no loose or ill fitting parts. Bridge had no issues, expected as it\'s fixed. Neck is comfortable, as is the body. The stock strings are decent, I changed them out of preference.

Sound - The most important part, even if it looks great and is comfy, if it doesnt sound the part, then you cant love it in my opinion. The sound is rather gorgeous, clean it sounds good, especially with a nice clean sounding amp (I use an Orange Crush 15). Distorted it is a wonder, really meaty distorted tones spring from your amp with this guitar. There are other better sounding clean guitars out there, but they cost alot more, and you could always swap out the pickups, so for the price, the tone is absolutely brilliant.

Features/Longevitity - In terms of features it is a standard set, pickup selection between bridge, centre and middle, active tone/eq control. Simple no surprises guitar, the fixed bridge is a big improvement over other fixed bridges I have used, easy to alter tuning/intonation once set remains spot on without drift.
Robustness is hard to measure, especially when the guitat is not old, but it feels solid, well made and unlikely to fall to bits when you are thrashing it.

Overall - brilliant sound, feel, looks and quality for the price, unless you want a tremelo that is, in which case the RG350DX is right up your street.