Ibanez RGMS8PB-CBS

The guitar is a bargain for the price. The thing that I like the most is the pickups: the tone is punchy, not muffled and with a good amount of sparkle and definition. This is important to me because I want to get good clean/overdrive tones and not only to use it with distortion.

The guitar is also light, especially considering it's an 8-string, and there is no neckdive.

The neck profile is very slim, being a wizard, and even though this is not an essential thing for me, I admit it is very comfortable. The frets are well placed and do not go beyond the fretboard.

The only flaw I can find is in the manufacturing of the neck: you can feel some very little asperities here and there, but this is nothing major.

A side note: if you look at the specs it is almost identical to the Ibanez RGMS8: the difference is that this one has a top in poplar burl, which aesthetically is more appealing to me.

If you want better materials, in particular fretboard wood, and frets perfectly polished, you should maybe consider more expensive models. But if you are looking for an overall good playability, a good price and the tone is your priority in an 8-string guitar, this one is for you.

spoiler alert: This is exactly the same guitar as the RGMS8 ( black ). not sure why the 125 EUR price bump because poplar burl ....

Thomann alert: The original guitar box came open ! either they checked it and forgot to tape ( unlikely, they never check guitars they send as it's fully automated warehouse process ) or someone already played it and selling "used item as new ?", guess we'll never know.

PROS
- Excellent thin neck (same as the RGDMS8 model )
- lightweight guitar
- the poplar burl looks awesome
- those array 8 pickups are not bad ! the single coil is AMAZING

CONS:
- high frets all around the place. buzz all around the fretboard
- tuners are not very reliable
- dirty frets / dry neck ( classic )
- messed up electronics.
- It has bad grounding ! (HB for fraction of the price has this superior). This must be some junior doing elecronics at the cortek factory, as I got new RGDMS8 with exact same grounding issue... bummer )
- when switching from neck to next position there is no sound