I wanted to find a non-headless guitar that nevertheless shares some of the features of the recent Ibanez Quest QX54QM-BSM headless guitar (which I also own and like) The SML721 was the closest so I went for it. I may have gotten lucky, but this guitar is flawlessly manufactured. Zero cosmetic problems and perfect fretwork. No fret buzz, even hough I lowered the action and the neck relief substantially. The neck plays great, the gold frets smooth, the slant on the is mild so I had no problem getting used to it. The hambuckers are not weak but not as strong in my opinion as on some of the other Ibanez guitars that I am familiar with, but this is no big deal. One side note: I was surprised how large the difference was when I changed the stock d'Addario XL10 stings to my usual Ernie Ball slinky set. The initial stiffness on the strings went down and the guitar came alive, with a whole lot more twang. I played the same guitar in a store a while ago with the stock strings and it came across more dull sounding to me, especially on clean settings. In any case, a great instrument that is well worth its price and looks even better in real life than in photos!
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