Ibanez Prestige

91
auGust 2018 Guitarist
reviewIBANEZ AZ PRESTIGE & PREMIUM SERIES
1. The brand-new, Custom
Shop-made Seymour
Duncan Hyperion
pickups are what sets
the Prestiges apart from
the Premiums
2. The oil-finished S-Tech
Roasted maple neck
of the Prestige AZ2204-
ICM puts it among
the elite of the densely-
populated bolt-on market
and unlocks – usually with a little help from
a blade or coin in the top notched tip – as
you unwind it. Once you get used to ’em
they’re fine but both the locking element
and setting the post heights can be, well,
fiddly at first.
The vibrato bridge is essentially the same
design on both ranges, based on Gotoh’s
‘modern classic’ 510 with two height
adjustable and lockable pivot posts, plus a
new-design knurled collar to tension the
push-fit vibrato arm. The Prestige’s T1802
version uses nicely-shaped titanium saddles
and a full steel block without deep drilled
anchor holes; the Premium’s T1502 uses
plated steel saddles and a tapered die-cast
FST block, which has deep drilled anchor
holes. Spacing is quoted on both as 10.5mm
– which should mean an E-to-E string
spread of 52.5mm when in fact on all four
it measures bang on 52mm at the saddle’s
break point. The vibratos sit virtually
flush with the guitars’ top face but a recess
underneath means travel, especially
upbend, is enhanced without having to tilt
the unit.
Pickups and Control
Having gone to so much detail it’s little
surprise we have a completely new set of
AZ-exclusive pickups: Seymour Duncan
Hyperion designed collaboratively, we’re
told, with Duncan’s Maricela ‘MJ’ Juarez.
While we’re told the pickups on both series
are the same our Prestige HSS pickups
are clearly marked as originating from
Duncan’s Custom Shop; those on the
Premium appear to be standard production
– an easy ID are the copper foil wraps
around the Premium’s humbucking coils;
the Prestige’s are black. They’re classed
as ‘moderate’ output (the Premium units
have a slightly lower DCR) with Alnico 5
magnets. However, it’s the switching system
that provides yet another twist.
The HSS guitars have the dyna-MIX
9 system introduced by a two-way mini-
toggle ‘Alter’ switch placed between
the master volume and tone controls. In
position 1 (towards the tone control) we get
the usual selections from the five-way: neck,
neck and middle, middle, middle and slug
coil of the bridge humbucker and, lastly,
the full bridge humbucker. Flip the Alter
switch towards the volume control,
however, and we get four additional sounds:
neck and middle in series, neck and screw
coil of the bridge humbucker in parallel,
neck and middle in series plus the bridge
humbucker added in parallel, the slug coil
of the bridge humbucker and, once again,
the bridge humbucker.
The HH guitars go one sound further
with the dyna-MIX 10 system. Here with
With sleek styling
aimed at player
comfort, these guitars’
looks are a strong
indicator of the new
ground the company
is trying to break
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Video demo http://bit.ly/guitaristextra
GIT435.rev_ibanez.indd 91 14/06/2018 19:31