Yeah! A week overdue, but it got here today, and it's sweeeeet. There's a couple of pics on my profile, they're not hard to find.
I've yet to put on some proper strings (it's got the standard 09 D'Addario, I'll be using 10 Ernie Ball), and the frets look like they could use some polishing (I've no idea why, though, it's a new guitar) but the guitar is awesome. The pickups are extremely clean - I can boost the gain by more than 50%! The neck is really great, being neck-through and all that, I was kinda worried with it being a Wizard 2 neck, which I haven't liked before, but somehow, on this guitar, it's different. Maybe it's just placebo, I don't know, but it feels great. A little fatter than the Wizard 3, but not much of a noticable difference. It's just a shame there's very little room between your fingers and the body at the very top frets (24th), but I think it's something I'll get used to. I don't really play up there, anyways.
The bridge is surprisingly comfortable - I was afraid of one which would grind my hand if I were to rest it on the bridge itself, but that's not the case. It feels no different than resting your hand at a tremolo, despite the fact that it looks like the bridge has some sharp edges. It's awesome.
The guitar does look a tad "cheap" - the neck bindings and plastic nut contribute to this, and it is made in Indonesia, but the body kinda makes up for that. It's single-handedly the greatest paint job I've ever seen that's not flamed maple top or whatever. The pictures I took with the flash on looks like the guitar is a portable universe with multi-coloured stars, and the chrome hardware makes the guitar sexy as hell. Some have said the inlays look like they're 6-string sharktooth inlays put in a 7-string body, and for all I know, they are. I don't see what's bad about this, though - I like this way better than "normal" sharktooth inlays.
This guitar is, simply put, awesome. It might very well replace the RG1527 as my main guitar, but I'm going to have to keep both. The difference in sound has made me much more anxious of changing pickups in my RG, though - it's really opened my ears as to how muddy the stock Ibanez pickups REALLY are.
If you want more pics, check out my thread at SevenString.org:
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The Xiphos 7 is here! blog
