Beautiful. I’ve really liked the few JS guitars I’ve played, I just can’t do the whole floating double-locking vibrato thing anymore. I’ve been thinking of parting with my JEM7VWH, I don’t play it much anymore and I’m celebrating a new arrival myself…
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Whoa!!! I’ve always wanted one of those kind of guitars!!
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It’s been a dream guitar for me since I was about fourteen. I’ve never been very comfortable with Gibson solid-body guitars(Les Pauls, SGs, Vs, etc) but I’ve loved every ES-335 I’ve played. I could never justify the cost, but I was made permanent at work recently and I figured that if I didn’t buy it now I never would. It sounds absolutely incredible, plenty playable and it’s nice to finally have a hardtail too.
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I saw Mammoth WVH last night with Nita Strauss opening and I gotta say Wolf’s new SA-126 (currently in prototype status from what I can tell) looks like a real cool concept. Semi Hollow 22 fret offset kinda. That harmonica bridge alone has me GASing for it for doom/sludge type stuff. I love hollowbodies for stuff like that.
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Well, it turns out Gibson deserve their reputation for having issues with quality control. I noticed this today:
Some tool marks/scratches on the fretboard. This can’t be repaired and affects value significantly. Not sure what to do about it, the guitar sounds incredible and plays great, but this is a bummer. Totally not acceptable on a guitar that costs this much.
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Duuuude!!! That’s sucks!! I’m sorry that happened. Many would get an ear full, at the least…
It sucks but I’m going to have to return it and get a replacement. This isn’t acceptable.
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I’m pretty much done with Gibson and Fender both due to stuff like this, in addition to fret sprout and overal lack of fit and finish. It’s completely unacceptable for > $1000 instruments.
If Ibanez and ESP and Solar can keep this stuff at bay on <$1000 instruments the big boys have no excuse.
They need to choose quality instrument maker or lifestyle fashion brand because evidently they cannot be both.
My newest acquisition is literally flawless. The last Fender I bought not so much. If I wasn’t so dead set on having a strat and the supply chain hadn’t hadn’t hit the aftermarket parts industry so hard I would have just gone warmoth.
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That’s a beautiful guitar. I remember when Ibanez came out with his first signature guitar, I think back in the mid 90’s. I played on one back then. That’s the last time I played on a JS model. I’ve been toying about getting one. You may be pushing me towards it again. haha.
I’m sorry to hear that, because for a while there, maybe the 2010s or so, I thought Fender was absolutely killing it on QC - almost everything I picked up with their name on it felt pretty good. Sounds like that window has closed.
Same, my first electric guitar was an American Standard Telecaster, so when I payed more for a Fender Performer Strat with less QC and a soft case it was major 
I’ve been checking out guitars from Fender and Gibson too at stores, and I found multiple fit and finish issues on them. Fenders are incredibly bad these days, they dont even polish the frets sometimes and the nut work is terrible. Their “factory specs” for action is not that great either.
It’s pretty sad when the Epiphone I bought was flawless other than the frets needing some fall away put into them to stop pinging, otherwise the fit and finish was perfect. I couldn’t find a single issue. I just can’t justify paying for a name with all the QC issues.
I still think the “relic” thing was the marketing department coming up with a way to charge more money for factory seconds.
The story I heard was that was Keitgh Richards, touring the Fender factory and saying he couldn’t play any of the new Teles because they weren’t “broken in,” but I have NO clue how true that was.
I’ve played some incrdible “reliced” guitars, there’s a lot more that goes into makingh a guitar look 30 years old than factory seconds… but while I’d never pass on a great new guitar because it was relic’d (if it was done well and looked decent), I vastly prefer to do it the old faashioned way. I’m sitting here with a 1997 strat on my lap that isn’t getting beat up NEARLY fast enough for me. 
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