Details & History
What can I say about it? Other than the attention to detail in its construction, the one thing that struck me was how solid it feels. One definitely gets the impression that despite being a bolt-on neck it feels like it's carved out of one piece of wood- I think you could jack up a car with this guitar!! This perception is borne out by the guitars loud, resonant and long sustain, even when unamplified. When amplified via a Peavey 5150, this guitar displays its rock breeding-the Bridge Tone Zone pick up is meaty but articulate with a scooped out type of tone, the middle Blue Velvet single coil is crisp and bell-like, and in the neck, the Air Norton has a delightful 'flutey' tone for those Eric Johnson impersonations!
Critisims of the JCRG5? A few-the maple top is quite nice in this example but I've seen better flames on guitars half this price. Ibanez should've addressed this when sourcing their timber. I'd love to know which lucky devil got the one in all the advertising photos since that is a real beauty! The output balance from the Blue velvet pole pieces is variable when played with a clean tone-the G string output is particularly low despite the it being 'staggered' to be closest to the strings-adding overdrive naturally compresses out the differences. Finally, when I bought the guitar the setup was appalling-a No. 11 London bus could've been driven underneath the strings and I think at £1600 Sterling one would expect it to be setup to perfection! Would I buy this guitar again? For the price it's a nice guitar but I wish I'd saved up a bit more and gone for something really special-what I don't know!
