This section is open for reviews for Ibanez guitars

RG550

I have 2 of these from 1991. Made In Japan. One is purple with a purple mirror pickguard and the other is green with the same. Basswood body, maple neck & fretboard.
These are really comfortable guitars : thinnest neck ever, body contours like a Strat, deep cutaways to access 24 frets, Lo-Pro Edge locking trem. The frets are gigantic. Ibanez V8 pickup in the bridge, S1 in the middle, and V7 in the neck. I think these are decent pickups. The bridge seems to be higher output with treble bite. The 5 way switch gets some of those Strat in between sounds. Though you can't select the bridge and neck together, which I would prefer to the middle alone selection.
These are fairly thin sounding guitars possibly due to the basswood body. Acoustically they are the thinnest sounding guitars I have.
I like these guitars because they are easy to play. I need every advantage I can get. I only discovered them a year or 2 ago. These older models don't have the All Access Neck Joint that the newer ones have.
I bought one for $250 w/o case & the other for $275 w/case so these are a great deal if you want a guitar that's easy to play, & light weight. I'm not going to say it's the greatest guitar known to man just because I use it. I just think people looking for a guitar in this price range should skip buying new and getting less for their money. $300 or so new would get you a lower end Ibanez with a crummy trem and made in Taiwan. A 550 used is a better value.

Ibanez AS 80. This is basically a 335 copy made in Korea. I bought it used but new they go for about $700. I wanted to get a Gibson 335 about a year ago but almost had a heart attack when I saw the price! I tried the Epiphone, but that didn't do it for me. It was a good guitar for the price, but not what I was looking for. The AS80 is the entry level model in this series but it plays and sounds just as good as the Gibson. I put 12-gauge strings on it to give it a slightly thicker tone and this thing sounds just amazing. This guitar is perfect for blues, country, r&b, and of course jazz. Another thing that is nice is that it doesn't feedback like many semi-hollows due to a solid block under the pickups. The only problem I encountered was as the volume was turned down, all the highs were lost; a small cap on the volume pot fixed that.

RG550

I have 2 of these from 1991. Made In Japan. One is purple with a purple mirror pickguard and the other is green with the same. Basswood body, maple neck & fretboard.
These are really comfortable guitars : thinnest neck ever, body contours like a Strat, deep cutaways to access 24 frets, Lo-Pro Edge locking trem. The frets are gigantic. Ibanez V8 pickup in the bridge, S1 in the middle, and V7 in the neck. I think these are decent pickups. The bridge seems to be higher output with treble bite. The 5 way switch gets some of those Strat in between sounds. Though you can't select the bridge and neck together, which I would prefer to the middle alone selection.
These are fairly thin sounding guitars possibly due to the basswood body. Acoustically they are the thinnest sounding guitars I have.
I like these guitars because they are easy to play. I need every advantage I can get. I only discovered them a year or 2 ago. These older models don't have the All Access Neck Joint that the newer ones have.
I bought one for $250 w/o case & the other for $275 w/case so these are a great deal if you want a guitar that's easy to play, & light weight. I'm not going to say it's the greatest guitar known to man just because I use it. I just think people looking for a guitar in this price range should skip buying new and getting less for their money. $300 or so new would get you a lower end Ibanez with a crummy trem and made in Taiwan. A 550 used is a better value.

Had to try a new one. There are differences. New RG550's have :
-> slightly fatter neck profile. About 1/16" thicker. Still very thin but not as thin as my 1991 necks and a 1993 neck I have.
-> smaller frets. Still jumbos, but the old RG's are bigger(#6000?)
-> regular Edge trem. Big downer for me. I was used to the LoPro Edge on my two 1991's and my Universe. My palm kept bumping the "whaletail" on the regular Edge.
-> unstained, unfinished neck. Very nice feel. My old ones have a thick gloss finish.
-> All Access Neck Joint. I thought this feature would impress me more but it didn't. What the All Access Neck Joint is, instead of extending the fretboard to accommodate 24 frets, they made the heel be underneath the highest frets, rather than the Fender Strat-like heel the old models have. And the body/neck joint is rounded off and neck ferrules are used in place of a neck plate. It's very ergonomic compared to the square Fender block. But it didn't sway me one way or the other. It was nice but I wouldn't buy it because of it.
-> bubinga stripe reinforced neck.

Those were the only differences I noticed. I decided not to keep it. My old RG550's still rule in my book.

JEM77FP 15th Anniversary imported from Japan.

Hi. I received my new JEM77FP yesterday just in time to change the strings to my preferred gauge (.008-.038) and adjust the string height, and then go off to band practice to try it out.

This is my first JEM. I do own another Ibanez guitar, a 1978 Artist EQ which I bought new in 1978. This JEM has quite a nice, sustaining sound. I've sold all of my 'shredder' type guitars, and this was to be my replacement for them. As of last night, I believe that the guitar will do the trick. It's very easy to play, and I can move very quickly all over the fretboard. It plays beautifully for a 25.5" neck. I typically like the 24.75 or 25" scales because I have smaller hands. But, I was nicely surprised at how easy the JEM's neck is to navigate.

Yes, the instrument did come with the extra rear cover signed by Steve Vai.

The DiMarzio PAF Pro pickups have great sustaining qualities. I was able to easily solicit feedback when I wanted to. The bridge pickup is a humbucker. The middle pickup is a single coil, and the neck is a humbucker; The wiring for the 5-way switch is interesting:

1=bridge humbucker
2=middle and upper-coil of bridge pickup
3=middle pickup
4=middle and lower-coil of neck humbucker
5=neck humbucker

The Floyd Rose Lo-Pro Edge tremolo can actually accept ball ends on the strings if one doesn't feel like cutting them off as on other FR models. Even with my extra-light gauge strings, the unit was staying in tune quite well. I used to use a Kahler trem on a couple of guitars, and the FR seems to hold tune better. The trem is lo-profile, so the heal of my hand rests easily on it. It takes a bit of heal pressure to change the pitch by accident, so playability is better in that regard than I expected.

The color-scheme is actually cloth fabric patterned after drapes in Steve Vai's parent's home (or his studio), or something like that. The cloth is overlayed onto the guitar body and headstock, then painted over with clearcoat. The body fabric is first sprayed around the edges with black paint for a blend. The body shape is comfortable. It is strat-like, but not as rounded. The monkey-grip is pretty cool, as well as the pink knobs and pickups.

I wasn't sure if I'd like the guitar, but have always had a hankering for one, so went for it anyway. It seems like a keeper now that I've had a chance to play it live.

I believe the JEM77FP will be a nice addition to my current arsenal. And, the salesman who sold it to me guaranteed me that I would be able to play like Steve Vai if I bought it! So far, so good...
Mesadude