Ibanez Low Pro Edge Cosmo Black

Anni fa comprai un'Ibanez 550 del 2000. Il ponte era distrutto e decisi di sostituirlo. Visto che il ponte originale (Edge) non lo fanno più ed è introvabile ho optato per questo che è la versione low profile dell'edge.
Appena montato è andato da dio. Poi mano mano ha sempre più problemi di accordatura. Non tiene la 6a corda per bene mentre le più acute le tiene tranquillamente. C'è caso che la colpa sia mia che abbia regolato male il ponte ma da quando ho sostituito le corde (da Ernie ball a D'addario) ho avuto sempre più problemi (ovviamente mantenendo la scalatura).
IN generale è un ponte che non vale quello che costa. Se avete un'altra marca di chitarra (e non Ibanez) vi consiglio il floyd originale o al massimo il gotoh/schaller. Magari rifacendo un setup alla chitarra riesco ad eliminare il problema e riscriverò la recensione

Although the design of the trem is excellent, the metals Ibanez have been using since 2001 have been awful and wear out within a couple of years.
I needed a replacement trem for my Jem because all the intonation bolt heads were rounding and could no longer be adjusted. The original whammy bar that came with the guitar snapped - I have no confidence the replacement bar provided with this pack will last any longer.

It's also worth noting, this pack did NOT include the nut and locking pieces, this had to be ordered and ended up costing a further ¤70.

Many of you will know, most tuning stability is lost at the locking nut due to weak metal allowing the strings to slip and slowly saw grooves in the pieces designed to vice the string in place.
So you can imagine my frustration when my Jem started losing tuning stability after replacing the entire tremolo and locking nut.

My 1991 Ibanez does not suffer this problem at all, all the hardware is stock and the guitar stays in tune perfectly - made back in the days when Ibanez made their trems out of proper steel!

I bought Lo Pro Edge for my project guitar. For a long time I wanted to try it, but never actually got a chance. Years back I decided to go with Ibanez S370, and then change hardware through time (pickups, switch, tremolo, etc.). Now the time has come to install Lo Pro. My impression is that Lo Pro feels a lot better than ILT1 bridge. There is more quality behind Lo Pro, and it feels better to play. It feels more comfortable to play and do the palm-muting. Using fine tuners is way smoother than on ILT1. When arm is freely rotated it does not produce any sounds and does not wobble - that was an issue on ILT1. It is quiet as it should be. Arm usually does not rotate freely, it does that only when bushings are not tight enough. This happens depending on how much one uses the tremolo. There are several workarounds that can be found on internet - I decided to use a method that involves plumbers (teflon) tape. I personally like this push-in arm, rather than the nut that has to be screwed on ILT1 arm. That is one of the reasons I wanted this unit. Overall, I am very satisfied after a few months of home use and I see many people being satisfied even with heavier and longer use.

As for tuning stability, at first it felt quite good but not perfect. I am new to all this so I made some mistakes upon installation - this can cause instability. You can read my story here:
However, I found useful information on ibanezrules.com and made tuning perfect for returns from dive bombs. Information on ibanezrules can show you that only 2% of these tremolos has perfect stability, without any clues on why is that so (). After that, pull-ups remained as a slight issue, but Goldo BackBox helped a lot (more info here: LINK). I wanted to try some tremolo stabilizer as well, and BackBox came as a good fit. After all this woodwork I can say it was worth it - tremolo is very stable and return to zero point is near near perfect. I came to a point where fluctuations can be noticed by tuner, but I cannot hear them. Project complete :-)

Only place where ILT1 seems better is the dive. ILT1 was able to go a bit deeper. However this might be the case of a different and lower arm on Lo Pro.

Only cosmetic drawback I see are somewhat uneven surfaces on the saddles. Everything else is top notch.

Please note that this unit does not have ?Licensed Under Floyd Rose Patents? text next to fine tuners, as shown on picture. Reason is that Floyd Rose patent is expired so Ibanez no longer has obligation to put that text.

As for Thomann service - I can only say: thank you Thomann :-)