Ibanez ART100 Review – Should You Buy?
Noted guitar maker Ibanez first made a name for themselves in the 1970′s with a noted copy of a Gibson Les Paul that was, by all accounts, far better than the instruments that Gibson themselves were making at the time. Though Ibanez was stopped by Gibson from further producing the guitar, it was clear that Japanese manufacturers were here to stay.
Enter the Ibanez ART100. No Gibson lawsuits here. With this instrument, Ibanez shows that they haven’t forgotten how to make a great single cutaway guitar for a fair price. What are the specifics on this killer guitar?
The ART100 has a mahogany body and neck with a bound rosewood fingerboard. Unlike most Ibanez guitars, the ART100 has a set neck with medium frets. The bridge is a tune-o-matic style Gilbraltar III with set tailpiece. The pickups are Ibanez’s own Artcore 1-S in the neck and Artcore 2-S in the bridge.
It’s hard to really complain about anything with the ART100 since it has a street price of only around $300. Like most Ibanez guitars we’ve ever played, it has an extremely playable neck and a great feel. It’s not quite the same as the ones with a Wizard neck, but that’s not a bad thing. It’s just a different feel.
We chose the Heritage Cherry finish and were very pleased with it. We found no discernible flaws in the finish. The guitar has no inlays with the exception of a custom inlay on the 12th fret. A classy look, in our opinion, especially for a $300 guitar.
Regarding the sounds, the strengths are certainly the distorted and overdriven tones, though the clean sounds are certainly passable.
The stock pickups do a fine job, but if you want some different sounds, you could always swap out the stock pickups for some replacements.
We wish the guitar had come with a case, but what do you want for $300? Overall, it’s a fine budget guitar that doesn’t sound or play like a budget guitar. We highly recommend it.
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