In Praise Of A Non Mij Ibby? |
|
|
|
|
May 29 2021, 12:39 AM
|
|
I never thought I’d see the day, but yup. In light of the semi crazy pricing of MIJ Ibby’s lately, I give you, the S470DXQM. This is an S series guitar. These started out in the 80s as the sabre guitar. Some very spiff players use S series, not the least of which are Joe Satriani and Herman Li. This guitar has always been a lighter/smaller body guitar which makes it very handy for live playing as it’s not a huge/heavy guitar that will break your back after you wear it for a couple of hours. Jennifer Batten (toured with Michael Jackson) played one of the original Sabre guitars and chose it for that very reason. She wanted a guitar that would not weigh her down during long shows where she is quite active on stage.
In addition, as you may notice by the nomenclature, this is a DXQM. DX being given for guitar that come with extra nice bits like special fret markers, finishes etc. The QM being given for quilted maple. So this is a DX (extra features) and has a lovely finish in quilted maple. As a bonus, it’s got one of the spiff ball bearing Z trems. These trems don’t use the same knife edge tech that the Floyd trems use. Instead, they are mounted on a double ball bearing which yields a very smooth action for diving/pulling/trills/etc. The guitar has a lot of curb appeal. It just looks like a very nice axe. Honestly, it looks nice than the price would suggest. I’ve seen used examples of this axe online hovering around $500 which is a great price for this much guitar imho. That isn’t to say it’s perfect. After all, these are Indo/Korean builds (2003-2009) and even the newest examples are more than a decade old, with the older examples being nearly two decades old. This is an older instrument. As many Ibby fans know, the older stuff is often seen as the better stuff, but, it’s not Japanese. Being not Japanese it will suffer on resale value which is why these guitars are still affordable. So it’s a bit of a double edged sword, you can get one much cheaper than many similar MIJ examples, but it won’t fetch a high price on resale no matter how many upgrades you put on it. Speaking of upgrades, that leads to to my other gripe with the instrument. The guitar is burdened by the dreaded INF pickups. I’ve got a pair of these in my RGT42DX and they are not great. They are not quite as bad as i remember but they are often swapped out for a better set. If you do swap them out, always keep the originals as some Ibby fans want their Iby bone stock even if it means putting INF pups back in. Lastly, it’s got a Wizard II neck, instead of the much loved wizard I. The wizard II is not a bad neck. It’s sturdier and less prone to warping than the Wizard I. It’s a couple mm thicker. For most folks this is not an issue. For anyone used to thicker necks, the Wiz II still feels very thin. Again, this is NOT an MIJ guitar. So it’s got the slightly thicker neck, the cheaper pickups, etc. Given the age of this series, it’s a good idea to be able to inspect and play the guitar before you buy one. If you see one online, make sure you know what the return policy is as you may get one that has no life left in the frets. After this much time, many of these will be needing a fret job unless they were mostly just kept on a rack and not played very much. All that being said, this is still a very well equipped guitar that can be had for the price of a much lower quality new starter range guitar. The $500 price point is packed with newer guitars of questionable quality. Buying one of these is a chance to get much more bang for your buck. I’m a big Ibby fan, and I”ve started looking around for one of these myself as they represent a great value. QUESTION: HAS ANYONE OWNED ONE OF THESE? *Here is the IBBY WIKI entry on this model https://ibanez.fandom.com/wiki/S470DXQM CHECK OUT THIS LESSON IN PRAISE OF A REAL MIJ IBBY PRESTIGE FROM DALTON SANTOZ!!! https://www.guitarmasterclass.net/ls/Prank-Blues/ This post has been edited by Todd Simpson: Jun 1 2021, 06:16 PM |
 |
 
|
|
 
|
1 User(s) are reading this topic (1 Guests and 0 Anonymous Users)
0 Members:
