Highest Rated Reviews
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Excellent
By Joe Dukes from Pittsburgh, PA on January 24, 2024
I've had this guitar for two years. Plays great, sounds great, and easy to travel with.
Fantastic Guitar
By Randy Crooks from Desoto IA on January 11, 2024 Music Background: Home player
I was a little unsure whether I would like a headless guitar. Ibanez knocked this out of the park. It took no time to acclimate to this guitar. All 10 of the pick up configuration are awesome. My 1st time ordering from Sweetwater. Set up was great. Just needed a little neck adjustment. This will not be that last piece of gear I get through Sweetwater.. Thanks Hunter. Great experience.
Awesome headless guitar
By Brannon from USA on February 16, 2023 Music Background: Player
I love headless guitars. I bought the QX in this model with the slanted frets,and love it. Its so comfortable and lightweight. It feels great on my soon to be 56 year old neck, shoulders and back. Neck is so comfortable to play. The only thing that would make this guitar more awesome, is to have a good tremolo bar on it. Im hoping Ibanez will wake up and listen to many of us out here, and put some trem bars on some of these models.
LOVE it
By Mark C from Indiana on July 11, 2022
I am a small guy, so I love how light and comfortable it is for the neck and back. Feels great to play, hard to put it down. Also, it looks great.
Most comfort guitar i had
By Maksim on October 24, 2021 Music Background: Amateur guitarist
I'm permanent guitar beginner. Now i'm learning to play guitar second time. Yamaha Pacifica 012 was my first electric guitar. Fender Stratocaster Professional II - curent. I decided to get some guitar lessons and realize, that i never will bring my Fender outside of my home and decided to by another guitar which will be a bit different - modern and light. I've chosen Ibanez Q52. I've checked it in a store, it was good enough and i bought it. But when i come home and start playing i've realised that is most comfort guitar i ever had. It's well balanced. It's lightweight. It's comfort to hold in classic position, on right leg and in standing. The neck is very comfort with good fretwork, very straight - i didn't any truss rod adjustments to lowering strings.
I had couple of issues with it, but very small - rusty strings, nut slot for D string was not deep enough, and body was a bit dirty.
I'v decided to made this review mostly to share photo of inside electronics to help people, who care about such things. Graphite isolation is very well made and solid, also as aluminium foil.
Great first entry in to headless guitars
By David from Massachusetts on January 30, 2022 Music Background: Intermediate amateur/hobbyist
Although I've played a fair number of guitars, this was my first foray in to the world of headless guitars (though I did buy Ibanez's sister bass, one of the EHB models, and love it). I wanted a lightweight guitar that wouldn't put a strain on my back and that I can lift off the stand easily, but didn't want to spend thousands on the well-known brand only to find out I disliked the headless feel.
Luckily, this Ibanez model comes in at a perfect price point, and is well worth it. The neck and fretboard are reminiscent of Ibanez AZ models - chunkier than your normal Ibanez shredder neck, but not quite as fat as the AZ neck. It's very comfortable. The wood is smoothed perfectly, fingerboard is rolled enough though isn't at boutique level (obviously) and fret ends are fairly smooth and rounded; no burrs or sharp edges.
The bridge is a little bit wonky. The bass version is very stable and works extremely well, so I assumed the guitar one would as well, but it's a little less than optimal. When I replaced the strings, 4 of the 6 saddles all sprang out from whatever position they happened to be in from Ibanez's factory setup (I stupidly cheaped out and did NOT pay for a Sweetwater setup - I would highly recommend it, and next time I buy an Ibanez, I'll get one). I had to re-intonate the guitar due to the bridge saddles having been compressed to the previously-intonated positions, but the Ibanez techs never having used the screws or tightened them appropriately. A pain but it is what it is.
Similar to some reviews on the EHB basses, the "luminlay" side dots kind of stink - they're barely visible in normal light, and I've yet to see them glow in darkness. Ibanez could definitely afford to take a cue from Charvel when it comes to making bright luminlay fret markers.
Apart from that, the guitar is quite fun and easy to play. The frets are perfect, super smooth, and surprisingly they're well-leveled and flat right from the start. The guitar itself is ridiculously light, which allows me to also use a guitar strap that I wouldn't dare use on a heavier guitar. The body itself is only a little over an inch thick (comparable to an Ibanez S body), making it comfortable and light, but not "beefy" enough for people who want some heft on their guitar.
As far as sound goes, I initially didn't like the pickups, as I thought they sounded sort of muddy and bland. However, in the past week or two they've grown on me. They're certainly not up to the standards of other high-end pickups, but for stock pickups, they get the job done, and are an improvement over Infinity and Quantum pickups. As far as their general voicing, in this guitar, which I imagine is more of the "hot rod" model of the line, they definitely plot in as a heavier hard rock style of pickup, with a little bit of growl and snarl - good low and mid, no icepick shrill, and a little bit of chunk when driven.
All in all, for my first toe-dip in to the headless guitar world, this is quite a good purchase. It looks eye-catching, the feel is good, build quality is above average for many Ibanez guitars in this price point, and it sounds good (after some burn-in time to my ears). It's definitely worth looking in to if you're curious about a headless and don't want to commit to the cost of some of the well-known headless guitar brands. As usual, my Sweetwater SE Ian made this purchase easy and quick, but every Sweetwater customer knows how good the experience is.
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