Ibanez AJ307CE Reviews
Ibanez AJ307CE
List Price: $1000
Paid: $???
For Christmas 1999, I received an Ibanez AJ307CE, the acoustic 7 string. For the past 5 months, I’ve been getting to know this guitar and here is my review. This review is not extremely comprehensive, but is mostly just my experiences with the guitar.
I believe my parents purchased the guitar from Musician’s Friend, who has great service and all, but I believe that if I had purchased the guitar from my local music store, they would have set it up for me so it would have played better.
Included with the guitar was an allen wrench, a pair of shims, a small instruction pamphlet on adjusting the neck, and an extra bridge.
Out of the box, the guitar played well, but the first fret on the high B and E strings was almost unplayable because the neck was warped so it was bending backwards slightly. I would get into how much I tried to fix this myself, but I’m sure it’s not very interesting. Other than that, the guitar plays extremely well.
The sound of the guitar is great, although it is very difficult to find a new low B string, so that particular string is getting rather old and grungy. Other than that, all of the strings on the guitar have equal dynamics, which from my previous experience is difficult to get out of an acoustic guitar.
Plugged in, the guitar does an exceptional job of recreating the acoustic sound through an amp. Built into the guitar are a 3 band EQ with frequency adjustment and a volume knob.
The appearance and construction of the guitar is excellent. The binding around the body, neck and headstock doesn’t stand out too much, and the finish on the guitar is perfect. The dot inlays in the fretboard, as well as the Ibanez Artwood logo on the headstock are very well done. I’m not quite sure of the material used, though it is definitely not plastic.
Looking in the Musician’s Friend catalog, I found that the retail price of this guitar is around $1000. Recently, Dean came out with an acoustic 7 string, which is available for considerably less money. I have not played the Dean, but I am nervous about taking the Ibanez with me when I work at camp this summer. I guess it really depends on what kind of environment you plan to play in. Unplugged, the sound of the Ibanez is pretty good, but it might feed back too much for live performance.
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