It's when the wood is ripped(is that the correct term?) in half, leaving the both halves with the same grain. When they are layed side by side, it gives a mirror image, that looks like an open book.

Attention All Ibanez Users!!!
I work for bpmmusic.com and I have talked directly to Ibanez about this new model. IBANEZ CLOSED THE KOREAN FACTORY!!! It is now in China. ALL PRESTIGE models are now made only in Japan. So anything you buy comes from China or Japan. To anybody who doesn't like the pickups, they're made to be changed, just like strings. You choose the sound. The pictures that anybody has does not do the finish and Flame top justice. If you see it in person you will understand. At first, I thought it looked like crap, but it really doesn't. In the model number SZ2020FMTKF, "FM" stands for "Flamed Maple", the "TKF" is "Transparent Black Flat". The Bridge is not made by gibralter, it is the Mike Mushok, which has greater stustain than any of the gibralter series. This is just to help anyone who has been misguided by people who know nothing about it.

Talk about somebody misguided that doesn't know what he's talking about .....

Dude, Ibanez doesn't HAVE a Korean factory! Or a Japanese factory, or a Chinese or Indonesian factory! Product is still rolling out of Cort and World in Korea.

Well, if it's actually true that BlackWensday works for bpmmusic.com, then it's nice to know that they have at least one idiot working for them. I good to know where the idiots are so you can avoid them. THAT would be an example of helping the misguided

What do you want from a guy that can't even spell "Wednesday" right?

I also never knew that "Mike Mushok" was a type of bridge. I need to check it out, though, since it has better "stustain" than those POS Gibralters.

Hello,

This is an actual bpmmusic.com employee that plays guitar. BlackWensday is a fellow band mate that I was talking with about this forum. Leave it to a drummer to talk to guitar players about guitars . Just to clear things up, there are two Korean Prestige models, the SA2020FMVV and the SZ2020FMTKF. The manufacturing of all Prestige basses is also heading to Korea, and eventually all other Prestige guitars will be manufactured there as well. It’s just progress. I have personally played all of these instruments at NAMM 2005 and they are of great quality. The first picture of the SZ2020FMTKF posted on this forum is horrible. Something is wrong with the flame but this is an exception and not the rule. All other models of the SZ2020FMTKF series are great in my opinion. I bought one myself. As you can see in picutre of the SZ1220 with the 1pc set neck and the string thru body style, the flame is quite good. This model was not released in America, but the SZ2020FMTKF uses the same body. Now, as for the bridge, they replaced the bridge on the SZ2020FMTKF with the bridge that’s on the signature Mike Mushok model, which he designed. It is still manufactured by Gibraltar, but it is made out of higher grade metal. This gets rid of the weird ringing from the old bridge that can be heard if you are playing and stop suddenly. The metal from the old bridge was cheap and held the vibrations in the bridge instead of passing it through to the body of the guitar. (All the other SZ models are great in my opinion other then this one nuisance). I hope this has been helpful.

Thanks,
Evan Erickson
bpmmusic.com

3 Korean Prestige models. You forgot to mention the S2075, and as far as quality, it's all very spotty as would be expected from a MIK guitar.

Of course all this is very old news here, I publish a NAMM report from the show every year.

http://www.ibanezrules.com/namm/2005/index.htm

So it's true that Fujigen is going to stop producing Ibanezes in the near future?

It was slated for this year but was pushed back to next year.

Do they have another Japanese factory lined up or are all prestige (and signature?) guitars going to be made in Korea starting next year?

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Yeah, caring about the quality of a guitar is being snobbish....

Yup.

Instantaneously disregarding aforementioned quality of a guitar due to its birthplace is the same.

Would you do that with people? ...No, of course you wouldn't. I like this forum at times, but at other times people are so utterly "holier than thou" and up themselves I wonder just how accurate some of the info on jemsite actually is.

i gotta say that was the WORST analogy i've read on the board in years... comparing someone's birth origin to creation of an instrument for commercial purposes ...glen

You must live in a world called, "Perfect" because, unless you do, you would have to see that people do that with people ALL THE TIME.

More so than with anything else.

And they take it many steps beyond that . . . disregarding quality of people based on birthplace/origin, RACE and nationality, (hence, predecessors origin/birthplace) even if said, 'lesser' person was born in the same place they were.

I used to listen to a co-worker all day talk about, "Those damned ni****s, Polacks, drunken Mics . . ." (no, not me, he was talking about people of Irish decent) and many more derogatory terms for many more peoples . . .

I got to the point I would just tune him out, couldn't believe how ignorant one man could be. He was Archie Bunker in the flesh, only worse because Archie even came around when he got to know people . . . this guy . . . if you weren't of German decent he didn't like you, no matter what. . . didn't like me at all because I'm a "damned WOP, Ginker, Greasy Italian" (and he pronounced it, "EYE-Tail-AN"

Okay, rant over . . . in case anyone missed the point, people judge people based on origin more so than they do quality of product based on origin . . . and they do it not only based on birthplace, but ancestor’s birthplace even more so . . .

Not that I'm condoning the practice . . . it's just a fact of life . . . sadly.

Mic