Looking at these brand new. Made in Indonesia? Are these guitars any good? They carry a pretty hefty price tag for an Indonesian made guitar..

Would I be better off looking for a MIJ from a different era?

If you like the blue flowers, look up an original early 90s BFP. plenty come up for sale on ebay or on jemsite classifides. You could get a nice one for under 2k easily.

I personally haven't played an Indo-Ibanez. There's been plenty of back and forth about them on various threads here if you look.

The main sticking point is the trem on the new BFP. It isn't an Edge, and the route apparently isn't cut deep enough to allow for custom edge replacements.

My 2 cents
Mat

Do not buy it

I have never laid my hands on any of the Indonesian Jems but I think they are exorbitantly overpriced as Indonesian made guitars. I would get an MIJ Prestige for a lot less cash and assurance that the quality is top notch.

It absolutely doesn`t matter, if the guitar is made in Japan, USA, China, Indobesia or maybe Timbuktu......if you are a player and not a collector.

Go to a guitar shop, take a closer look, play the guitar.
Take exactly the guitar, to which you are interested in. The quality also varies within a series.
After that make your decision.

I am not so sure about that. I can tell you that after 30 years in manufacturing I still see 50% fallout rates on China made product. Where the USA made stuff is less than .5%

Fact is those countries employ non skilled labor and their quality control is non existent.

I am sure they get some that come out ok, but it's a roll of the dice.

The fact that most of these Indonesian made guitars are still fairly new also brings up the question: will they last compared to the Japanese made ones?

Case in point I have an old Korean made SA series that was basically unplayed before I got it last year, but after a year of playing it's practically falling to pieces. Compare that to my Japanese made 2009 RG and 2011 S series, which I've had no problems with wear and tear with.

Don't get lured in by the pretty flowers - it's still an Indo made not-so-premium guitar...you won't find much love on this site for the Indo models. With Ibanez I think you have to stick with their MIJ guitars or don't bother.

I think the quality is sort of 'hit and miss'. When I received my RG3XXV the wiring was dead wrong, yet the tags showed it had gone through inspection.

Then I had an RG331M whose truss rod got stripped after several tweakings. I have adjusted the rods on my other guitars countless times and take extra caution when doing so but this one was a basket case. I finally sold it for like 120 bucks.

But my RGA32 from 2008 never fails me. Even the frets still have a lot of meat eight years into existence.

Ouch sounds like you've had some pretty bad luck with 2 of those 3
It always amazes me how often I hear about guitars that managed to leave the factory with wrong wiring. But perhaps the problem with Korean/Chinese/Indonesian guitars isn't just bad manufacturing, but also that the people doing quality control aren't very good.

I had one of the Indo green dots and it was sent back to the distributor. It had several issues with the wood and how the neck was seated and finished. Horrible.

if you can get one of the first batch they released then great. They seem to be the best. After that they go down hill....

I wouldn't be so sure of that. I played probably the first one to rock up in OZ and it was terrible, very very bad QC on it, looked like they rushed it through production.

Have played one other just recently and it was no better, misaligned neck, dodgy fret work etc etc, the list goes on.

Pretty much with the indo stuff you need to try first, some are ok, most are not. And when you are talking about such an expensive premium I would honestly not bother and just buy a Prestige like a RG2550Z or similar for less cash and be happy

+1 on all of that!

I don't know what prices are like in the rest of the world but in the UK you can always get a used Prestige in top condition for cheaper than the price of a new Premium, so that's the way to go on a budget.

Also my local Ibanez dealer has the RG655 at £800 brand new which is only £200 above the cheapest premium models!

well... what can I say then? I have been lucky. Mine is perfect so I guess I was a case...