Ibanez ARC500 - anyone have one?

[Xerack]

Hey There,

The more I look at this picture, the more tempted I am to get one of these!

http://ibanez.com/eg/guitar.aspx?m=ARC500

Does anyone have one that could comment on it?

Are these all made in Korea? or are some of them still made in Japan?

I'm loving the finish on this.


Cheers,
Xerack

[Hikey Mikey]

Neither Korea nor Japan, but China. I own an ARC100BS, not the 500. There is one [EDIT: a 500] in my local dealer's shop right now and it is most impressive in person. It [EDIT: the 500] has rounded and polished fret ends, and the fit and finish is excellent.

[Xerack]

Thanks Hikey Mikey,

does it stay in tune pretty well?

[Hikey Mikey]

I don't know about the 500, (see my edited post above) but I assume it would be as good as my ARC100, which has the same microtuners on the tailpiece.

Yeah, those things are awesome! After a few days of new strings (which stretch out, I guess), they are all I ever have to touch. Also, I notice that all the strings go out of tune in about the same amount. Like if I tune it and the first string needs to be sharper or flatter by a quarter of a turn on the microtuner, then all the other strings need about a quarter of a turn the same way. Which is a good thing, to be expected.

If I paid close enough attention, I could probably correlate the tuning to the temperature in my apartment.

[Rotti]

That is nice.