After receiving the guitar, my first reaction was that I wanted to return it. The factory setup was extremely poor. String height was 2.5 mm on the 6th string and 2 mm on the 1st string. The truss rod relief was incorrect — the neck looked more like a bow than a guitar neck. The 20th fret was slightly popped out and was buzzing. After about a month, the fret ends started to stick out a bit and scratch my palm. The truss rod itself is installed slightly crooked: the nut is recessed into the neck, with a lot of empty space above it. Still, it does its job.
However, after I tapped the 20th fret back into place and adjusted the truss rod to a proper relief, I managed to set the string height to 1 mm on the 6th string and 1 mm on the 1st string. One-and-a-half to two-step bends work perfectly all over the fretboard without choking on other frets. You won’t even get this on Fenders — there you usually have to level and polish the frets right away. Here, the frets are perfectly leveled and polished straight from the factory.
The stainless steel frets are simply amazing — reliable and durable. They should easily last around 7 years of intensive playing without issues. After a year of playing, there is almost no visible wear. This really should become the standard for all guitars.
The tuners are excellent. They hold tuning well, work smoothly, and make tuning very comfortable. My fretboard is black — it looks better in person than the brown version in photos. The photos represent the guitar’s color accurately. In sunlight, it can show a subtle shimmering greenish tint.
The neck is great. There is a volute on the headstock, which adds extra strength. The neck heel is smoothly contoured directly into the body, making access to the upper frets very comfortable — especially if you have small hands. You won’t find this on any Gibson or Fender (and I own both).
The potentiometers do not crackle. The tone knob, which is also a push-pull, rotates more easily and with almost no resistance compared to the other knobs, but it still works as intended. The wiring is done well and correctly. You can see that the control cavity is coated with graphite, although the shielding is not fully even, so it’s not 100% uniform.
The pickups are not high-gain. Both are around 8 kΩ. For comparison, standard Gibson pickups are usually 8 kΩ for the neck and 14 kΩ for the bridge. The bridge pickup is naturally more aggressive, but even with high gain it sounds perfectly fine.
The factory strings lasted a full year. I replaced them only because I got bored of them. They didn’t even lose brightness. They seem to be D’Addario, or at least they have colored ball ends. I usually use Ernie Ball and Elixir strings, and these factory uncoated strings were a real discovery for me.
After fixing all the small issues, this guitar turned out to be one of the best I’ve ever owned. I pick it up more often than my Gibson because of its versatility and comfort. It’s also very light — around 3 kg.
Looks: 10 out of 10.
