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On Wednesday I spotted a new, in-the-box Solar model for sale locally at a great price. It was one of their budget models that I assume the seller got in one of Solar's BOGO deals and the price was worth the risk; even if all the hardware/guts were trash, I'm of the belief that if you have a good neck and a good body, you're 3/4's the way to a great guitar. I'm still a little ways away from spending any fun money and had mentioned how I was bummed about passing on it in a DM here. The next morning I woke to a text from a very badass individual we brush shoulders with regularly around here prompting me to go get the guitar and he'd float the cash. Offers like this generally make me crawl in my skin for various reasons all of my own, but my personal life has been handing me some intense challenges lately that have had me looking for some kind of break and before I had the chance to do any skin crawling, I viewed this as the break I was looking for. Just something to change the pattern of "WTF?!" 
The idea for these was getting a quality guitar for as cheap as possible, focusing on craftsmanship to allow for an actual playable guitar, while the hardware/electronics takes a bit of a hit in quality. I think they were initially meant to break into the South American market where import fees prevent a lot of higher-priced purchases.
The first thing that surprised me about this was the fretwork. 98% of Ibanez Premiums I've picked up since they launched that line have such shitty fret sprout I wouldn't buy one despite owning the tools to resolve that. Just way too much shrinkage in the neck to feel comfortable with those purchases and those are guitars from $900-$1800.
It looks like they skip a final buffing of the frets as they almost have a brushed finish to them, but I'm sure 10 minutes with some fret erasers would get them shining just fine. There's one high fret, effecting the B and E strings at the 17th fret I need to take care of, aside from that, these are pretty damn great!
Some specs-
Poplar body
Maple neck
Techwood fingerboard (composite made of other woods)
Licensed Floyd Rose
Insanely high output house-made pickups
I thought the fingerboard was Macassar ebony until I looked it up. It looks and feels just like the fingerboard on my Spector, being able to see the grain and feeling a slight texture to it, opposed to the ebony boards on my JEM and other Solar, that are jet black and you can barely see any grain lines unless you get really close. I'm curious as to how this will feel down the road and how well it breaks in.
Overall, I'd put this on par with your average LTD/Schecter in the $800-$1200 price range. The fretwork really pushes this up there as fret sprout is something I notice with so many guitars coming out of the West. The regular Solars are made in Indo at WMI, while these-
Action was pretty high when I picked it up, unsurprisingly. I got it home and tweaked the truss rod and bridge height a bit and got it better, strummed a chord and found it was actually decently in tune for being shipped across the world and what I just did to it! I don't know who is making this bridge, but it beats the Ibanez LoTRS considerably. The construction/finish is far better and everything turns smoothly on it. It'll get swapped out for a Gotoh1996 sooner than later, though. Everything but the neck and body are getting swapped out.
Once I got it setup I started playing a bit and occasionally I'd get some crazy buzzing then the cable would pop out of the output jack on it's own. When I opened up the back to see why, I found the arm that pushes against the tip of the jack was bent considerably and when I went to adjust it, it snapped right off in my fingers. Womp womp! I think I have some Switchcraft jacks kicking around I can replace it with later tonight. I also need to get those trem springs out of there as they're so tight that using the Floyd feels more like using a traditional 6-screw trem. That said, it did return to pitch quite well while I was testing it out and once I really go to town with the finger adjustments, I'm certain I can get this holding tune just fine.
The pickups are....hahahah, maybe they figured they could eliminate the need for a boost if they made the output so intense no one would think they needed one after trying it. These things made my IIC+ preset sound like I had a 3 boosts in front of it.
Hahahha I put the locknut pads and screws on the MIDI controller in front of me when setting it up, I went to grab a screwdriver and dropped it on a key of the MIDI controller and sent all of them flying up in the air, onto my black carpet. That was fun.
Overall, at this price this is pretty hard to shake a stick at. There are aspects of it that feel like it's a budget guitar, but none that can't be changed or will effect playability. There absolutely were not guitars made at this level for this price when I was growing up. While it's not curing my itch for an X-type, this will definitely hold me over until I can get one and there's a good chance this will go off to my nephew in the next couple years as he's getting big enough for a guitar. They have several different models available, these will be my go-to suggestion for new players into metal, for sure.
The forum member who made this happen didn't ask to be anonymous but knowing him, I'm assuming he'd prefer it that way, regardless we've got some truly great people here and I'm beyond grateful. This gesture means more to me than the value of the guitar or the guitar itself, truly. Thank you, brother.
Once I get that output jack replaced tonight I'll post some vids/clips. Got a band practice tomorrow where I can really put this thing through it's paces!
The idea for these was getting a quality guitar for as cheap as possible, focusing on craftsmanship to allow for an actual playable guitar, while the hardware/electronics takes a bit of a hit in quality. I think they were initially meant to break into the South American market where import fees prevent a lot of higher-priced purchases.
The first thing that surprised me about this was the fretwork. 98% of Ibanez Premiums I've picked up since they launched that line have such shitty fret sprout I wouldn't buy one despite owning the tools to resolve that. Just way too much shrinkage in the neck to feel comfortable with those purchases and those are guitars from $900-$1800.
It looks like they skip a final buffing of the frets as they almost have a brushed finish to them, but I'm sure 10 minutes with some fret erasers would get them shining just fine. There's one high fret, effecting the B and E strings at the 17th fret I need to take care of, aside from that, these are pretty damn great!
Some specs-
Poplar body
Maple neck
Techwood fingerboard (composite made of other woods)
Licensed Floyd Rose
Insanely high output house-made pickups
I thought the fingerboard was Macassar ebony until I looked it up. It looks and feels just like the fingerboard on my Spector, being able to see the grain and feeling a slight texture to it, opposed to the ebony boards on my JEM and other Solar, that are jet black and you can barely see any grain lines unless you get really close. I'm curious as to how this will feel down the road and how well it breaks in.
Overall, I'd put this on par with your average LTD/Schecter in the $800-$1200 price range. The fretwork really pushes this up there as fret sprout is something I notice with so many guitars coming out of the West. The regular Solars are made in Indo at WMI, while these-
Action was pretty high when I picked it up, unsurprisingly. I got it home and tweaked the truss rod and bridge height a bit and got it better, strummed a chord and found it was actually decently in tune for being shipped across the world and what I just did to it! I don't know who is making this bridge, but it beats the Ibanez LoTRS considerably. The construction/finish is far better and everything turns smoothly on it. It'll get swapped out for a Gotoh1996 sooner than later, though. Everything but the neck and body are getting swapped out.
Once I got it setup I started playing a bit and occasionally I'd get some crazy buzzing then the cable would pop out of the output jack on it's own. When I opened up the back to see why, I found the arm that pushes against the tip of the jack was bent considerably and when I went to adjust it, it snapped right off in my fingers. Womp womp! I think I have some Switchcraft jacks kicking around I can replace it with later tonight. I also need to get those trem springs out of there as they're so tight that using the Floyd feels more like using a traditional 6-screw trem. That said, it did return to pitch quite well while I was testing it out and once I really go to town with the finger adjustments, I'm certain I can get this holding tune just fine.
The pickups are....hahahah, maybe they figured they could eliminate the need for a boost if they made the output so intense no one would think they needed one after trying it. These things made my IIC+ preset sound like I had a 3 boosts in front of it.
Hahahha I put the locknut pads and screws on the MIDI controller in front of me when setting it up, I went to grab a screwdriver and dropped it on a key of the MIDI controller and sent all of them flying up in the air, onto my black carpet. That was fun.
Overall, at this price this is pretty hard to shake a stick at. There are aspects of it that feel like it's a budget guitar, but none that can't be changed or will effect playability. There absolutely were not guitars made at this level for this price when I was growing up. While it's not curing my itch for an X-type, this will definitely hold me over until I can get one and there's a good chance this will go off to my nephew in the next couple years as he's getting big enough for a guitar. They have several different models available, these will be my go-to suggestion for new players into metal, for sure.
The forum member who made this happen didn't ask to be anonymous but knowing him, I'm assuming he'd prefer it that way, regardless we've got some truly great people here and I'm beyond grateful. This gesture means more to me than the value of the guitar or the guitar itself, truly. Thank you, brother.
Once I get that output jack replaced tonight I'll post some vids/clips. Got a band practice tomorrow where I can really put this thing through it's paces!
Excited to see what you do with it, and how 
