Jackson JS32T King V AH BK

This guitar is just awesome; I used to have an SG, so when I gave it and bought a King V. I thought it was going to be an awkward transition, and it was for a few days, but after that everything felt smooth: you can easily reach the higher frets (24 of them), the neck is smooth with some great (gauge 9) strings and very thin.

What I thought was going to be my biggest issue was having to play classical style, but it turns out it was great. I was already a little used to it, but I did see an issue with this way of playing: Firstly, you can ONLY play classical position (place your right leg between the fins and hold the right fin with your leg, by bending it a little). That's fine, since you can much more easily go up and down the neck and it feels much better than the normal, parallel to the ground way of playing. However, playing this way means you're going to be turning you body to the left in order to play the lower frets whilst also looking at them, which will make your lower-left-back stiffen and make you wish you could just put the guitar back in the "normal" position, which you can't. This will only happen for the first 2, maybe 3 weeks (less if you play a lot, like me), but it is worth noting nonetheless : it won't necessarily feel great at first.

I don't think I even need to mention how cool the guitar looks. I may not like the zebra-colored pickups, but the guitar still looks amazing (you will need a pretty big bag for this guitar however, both in length and width).

With all the positive things I have to say about this guitar, I've been avoiding 1 really big issue: the pickups. They sound quite good, the sound itself is great (played through my Boss Katana MKII and some fender tube amp at band practice), but the hum is SO LOUD. If you can't play at higher volumes (a bit arbitrary, so consider high volume to be enough to make your neighbors frustrated enough to come to your door) you might not notice it, but once you go that bit higher, the hum gets too loud. At band practice it made everyone frustrated, even my dad said it's unbearable. You can't even keep the guitar's volume nob at max and put your fretting hand over the strings, since it will still hum: you need to turn it down all the way. So unless you're OK with that, or with changing you pickups, I recommend keeping this in mid.

So considering the pickups' quality and the minor inconveniences that come with playing a V at first, I can only really give it a 3.5/5, which could totally go up to a 4.5/5 with new pickups and a bit more getting used to.

My experience with this guitar is very positive. I play a range of metal styles from Thrash to Doom to Classic this guitar can handle any of these styles and more!!! The V shape is comfortable and visually appealing.

The compound radius fret board is easily one of the best features of the guitar and makes playing rhythm a charm and allows you to shred with ease. The pickups are very versatile and can handle both Clean and Distorted tones exceptionally well. The bridge is adjustable but is set up perfectly out of the box and the string thru design makes changing strings easy.

The tuners are responsive and the guitar only needed a quick tune out of the box. Overall if you want a badass looking metal guitar with great quality and play-ability then I would highly recommend this guitar

I bought it because I was a kid in the metal 80s and been wanting one of those V-style guitars since then. Well, this one looks awesome and... it's a Jackson, man! This iconic neck is fast and smooth. The fretboard could be a little better indeed, but for the price I can not say anything really negative about this guitar. The pickups are good enough for playing some 80s metal riffs, but if you want a really screaming guitar or more punch to dive into modern metal, you should look elsewhere and maybe spend more money. Last but not least, you know that these guitars need to be played like classic guitars when you are seated. If it's not your thing, don't buy V's.