Replay Guitar Exchange is the best music store in the Tampa area. Today, August 25, 2018, was their 2nd Anniversary, and they had crazy good prices on everything. I almost picked up a new Fender Mustang for $299. It’s not like I’ve always wanted one, but hey, new for $299, you bet. But I kept looking and found something arguably better.

I found a brand new Jackson Adrian Smith guitar for $288. Normally this is a $500 guitar. $288 would be a great “used” price, so to get it that cheap new? I could’t resist.

I’ve always liked this guitar – I’m not an Iron Maiden fan, but I liked the strat shape and the locking trem and the HSS pickup scheme. It uses a Floyd Rose locking trem system, but I think it’s the cheapest model of Floyd Rose. The pickups are made by Jackson. The whole thing is made in Indonesia. So at $500, that puts this instrument in line with the medium quality imports. Let’s get into the review.

Overview

This is a good playing guitar (if set up correctly) with expensive guitar features such as a Floyd Rose Trem system and a compound radius neck for what is normally $500. To get there, corners are cut in setup, fretwork, wiring, and pickups. The good news is that all four of those things can be upgraded over time at home.

Body

This body is basswood, aka the cheap wood, aka the metal wood. This guitar is semi-lightweight, which is nice. But it shows up in the clean tone. This guitar doesn’t sound as good as a regular strat clean. But seriously – you won’t be playing this clean very much, will you? I know I won’t. The more distorted your tone, the less the body wood matters.

Neck

The compound radius neck goes from 12 to 16, and the profile is not a C, like most strats – it’s flatter. But the width of the neck is strat-like. Mine has a maple neck with a maple board. There’s no skunk stripe on the back of mine, which I think is great – I have a couple of Fenders with skunk stripes that you can actually feel, which is annoying. I’ve seen versions of this guitar that do have a skunk stripe, so I’m a little confused. But obviously some have them and some don’t.

Unlike a strat, this neck has a fairly unfinished fretboard. I don’t mind. The neck feels nice, and they’ve rolled the edges – great touch. I like the size of the jumbo frets, but this guitar is already showing a tiny amount of fret wear, just from being played in the store. I suspect the fretwire is budget. However, the lack of finish on top of the fretboard means that when I inevitably refret this thing, it’ll be easier. The fretboard on mine was very dry. I can’t tell if it has no finish on the fretboard or a very thin tru-oil type finish. I may do a layer or two of tru-oil on it. Not sure.

The fret ends are a problem. Not a huge problem, but a problem. They didn’t do the fine filing to knock down every semblance of a sharp edge. Either that, or there was some fret sprout. A few minutes with my fret end file fixed that, but it’s worth mentioning.

When I get a guitar I tape up the fretboard and polish the frets. Did that on this neck, and it shined them up nicely. The one thing that surprised me was the four screws that hold the neck to the body are very thin – I would’ve have liked to have thicker screws holding the neck in. Squier uses thicker screws than these. Does that affect tone? I have no idea. I only know they saved maybe 4 cents.

The body on mine has a cosmetic blemish under the pickguard – an area where the white body was painted black. Really? I mean, it’s not two grand, but I’d expect better in any price range. But you can’t see it because it’s under the pickguard. The body finish itself is excellent, otherwise.

Pickups

Let’s get this out of the way. I’m really into pickups. I think they make a big difference. The pickups that come with this guitar suck. They SUCK. They sound like cheap ceramic magnets, like you’d find in a Squier Strat. I have no idea if they are ceramic, but they sound like it. The two single coil pickups are thin and sound low-fi, and the humbucker has a lot of gain but not a lot of clarity. But I’m going to play this guitar a while before I decide what to put into it. Right now I think I’d like to see two Texas Specials for the single coils, and a Shawbucker or Shawbucker 2 in the bridge. Ultimately I’m more of a recording guitarist than a gigging guitarist these days, so the single coils don’t matter much – if I want single coil strat sounds, I’m going to use a real strat. This guitar will definitely get a humbucker upgrade eventually.

Trem System

This is a top-mounted Floyd Rose “Special”, meaning the entry level Floyd Rose. The question is, does it work? Does the guitar stay in tune when you dive bomb it? Pretty much, yes. Keep in mind that even on Joe Satriani’s two thousand dollar guitars, he changes guitars about every two songs to keep things in tune. No system is perfect. This one is a step above the systems you see on $300 level budget locking trems.

Wiring

This guitar has full sized pots, which is nice – some Indonesian guitars have those tiny crappy pots. These are fine. But the 5 way switch is a cheapo box type. It’s fine until it breaks, and then I’ll wire it up with a proper switch. Another sign of cost-cutting. The grounding wire is extremely flimsy, and I have no doubt it’ll eventually break and I’ll replace it with a heavier gauge wire.

Setup

Um, yeah, about that. The setup wasn’t great. The truss rod wasn’t tight enough, and of course the strings were nasty. But that’s always the case when you buy a guitar. I always swap out the strings. Here’s the thing – whoever at Jackson had the assinine idea that it was OK to put the truss rod inside the heel of the neck ought to be fired. You have to take the guitar APART to adjust the truss rod. This isn’t the 50’s! I take it back – the truss rod location isn’t the issue, as much as the fact that the body/pickguard won’t let you get to it.

Eventually I’m going to need to cut a big slot in the pickguard and the body so that I can adjust the truss rod without removing the neck. I mean, to adjust the truss rod you have to loosen the strings, remove the neck, adjust the truss rod, put the neck back on, tighten up the strings, check the relief, and do that over and over until things are correct. In my case, three times. And each time I’m wondering how many times I can do this without breaking one of these thin lame ass screws. Seriously, most people wouldn’t do this. And if you pay for a setup at Guitar Center, they’re not going to do it either. Which is a shame, because properly set up, it’s a pretty darned good guitar.

Overall

I think this is a good guitar for the money at $500, but I think they should charge $550 or $600 and given you access to the truss rod and spent a little more time on the fret ends. People bash it because it’s a quarter the price of the full Adrian Smith Artist model and it’s made in Indonesia. And honestly, mine was set up pretty badly, and I bet mine wasn’t the only one. But great music has been recorded with guitars not as good as this one. It’s about the player. This instrument is good enough, IF set up correctly. It’s a step above the $300-ish locking trem guitars made by almost everyone. If you’re a casual player, pay someone good to set the guitar up. If you plan on using it on recordings or live, you might also add in some new pickups. Get a great setup, upgrade the pickups, and you have a good playing and sounding instrument. And if you can grab one used for $288 like I did, grab it. If you want to go with something better, you’re going to spend a grand.