Yet another bitch about Jackson thread

[toejam]

Jackson's QC has been pretty bad as of late...I got a Floyd saddle that wasn't properly fitted on my KV2X and now my low E makes a farting sound whenever I hit it too hard.

Floyds, in general, aren't as good as they used to be.

[danastas]

How do you know there is no way a Jackson would play as nice as a PRS? Have you tried all of them?

I've seem some upper end Jackson stuff come out of the shop, but no one here has purchased one. I've seen them sold before too from the stores.

[chrisolson]

Scary stuff, especially considering the two MIM Teles, I bought last year were flawless, and these were $500 guitars.

It's really too bad it's come to this. That said, I'm not in the market for a CS Jackson (I had one - it was perfect, but ended up moving it along), but definitely a MIJ, and with the exception that they come set up pretty badly (entirely fixable by ME), the fit and finish is usually very good. When you pay a premium, you should get near perfection and exceptional service, as one tends to get if they buy an Audi over a Chevy.

Very disappointing to hear this.

[shadowcat]

Would it be fair to say that USA Jackson quality has dropped, and import Jackson quality gotten up? A lot of people are raving about the new imports, while we start hearing about more and more QC issues with the USA Selects.

This is what is so shocking to me, whenever I read these threads... I don't own any USA Jacksons, and local stores don't stock them either, so I can't compare and usually never respond to these threads.

But fact is, most of the problems that I read about (misaligned bridges, loose floyd nuts, overdrilled screws, hairline cracks in the finish on new guitars, electronic problems etc.) are things I haven't encountered on import Jacksons yet. Except on the B stock guitars at the local FMIC outlet store. Those arrive with all problems declared and a lower price indicated, I know that because the guys at the store let me see the lists they get from FMIC. It is obvious that QC is working well here, and working radical. If a pickup doesn't work, it gets marked as B stock. Even if it just needs to be resoldered to be as new.

I actually bought my last three Jackson imports online and was satisfied with all of them out of the box, as they were fully playable and without issues.

IMO it is in no way acceptable to expect less than this when ordering a USA Select or even CS Jackson.

Right now I can (and will) order Jackson import/Jackson Stars guitars with confidence. I would be SCARED SHITLESS when ordering a USA. At those prices even small issues are a total letdown and will make the buyer feel frustrated and unsatisfied.
QC absolutely needs to be adressed ASAP, as well as the customer service.

[daisp]

How do you know there is no way a Jackson would play as nice as a PRS? Have you tried all of them?

I've seem some upper end Jackson stuff come out of the shop, but no one here has purchased one. I've seen them sold before too from the stores.

I had a custom shop Collen archtop, it didn't play as nice, although the fit and finish was better than my new PC1.

[danastas]

We are going overboard a bit here. We can't compare a PC1 to the stuff that's coming out of Japan or Mexico. Two entirely different things. The question would be, how would the PC1s turn up if built in Mexico by Fender?

On the other hand, the prior issues--especially the Dweezil IMO--was bad.

As for Fender, I bought a Lit Ash Strat made in Korea. It was very likely the worst guitar i had ever purchased.

[hippietim]

I know some folks had issues with their Dweezs but my Dweez is still one of my all time fave pointies.

I'm sure it's a fine player now - Jim Shine seems to have a knack for fixing bad fret jobs.

[chrisgUK]

I agree with the gist of whats being said here. If you are spending serious money you expect top quality. There is NO excuse for 2k guitars coming out the factory with sloppy errors. I would prob never buy a custom shop because of fear of it not being what I expected and IF there were any problems I wouldnt be able to get it back easily...
Its such a shame that this is the state of jackson USA. I think the best plan is to buy used or a japanese model

[skorb]

J/C custom shop guitars should come to the buyer in PERFECT condition.

the word is PERFECT.

perfect drilling sets, perfect alignment, perfect fretwork, perfect paint/clear, and perfect packing to avoid damage.

with the prices they are charging, there is zero excuse for anything less than perfection.

I'm certain the FMIC bean counters have put cost pressures on FMIC and thus when they fuck up the drill holes or paint, the pressure is on to do a quick and dirty cheap concealed fix to the $3000 instrument instead of starting over on a new piece of wood.

they are gambling on the customer not noticing, and they are losing.

cost cutting almost always leads to QC issues. they don't have enough people to get the job done right, and in a timely way, and they aren't allowed to grab a new blank out of the stack if they fuck one up.

count me as another potential customer who is now out of the market for any USA J/C products (well, I already was, but now I'm really out )

[CharvelRocker]

I think people put too much blame on FMIC. IIRC someone here said that Akai had run it into the ground, but the effects werent quite starting to take effect then. Now because of Akai's ownership, we're at where we are now.

[Soloist1]

I think people put too much blame on FMIC. IIRC someone here said that Akai had run it into the ground, but the effects werent quite starting to take effect then. Now because of Akai's ownership, we're at where we are now.

So bad quality is a delayed reaction? Ha never knew that. Interesting. Very interesting.

[AK47]

My Akai era Korina KV2 is one of the nicest guitars I have ever played and it came with an inlayed MOP logo also. I actually prefer Akai era stuff over any FMIC I have played so far and that is alot of guitars.

[shreddermon]

Please give some examples of this rampant nitpicking that is not warranted on guitars that cost thousands of dollars and take a year or two to get.

"Rampant", eh? Thanks for the Fox News-like reporting on my statement. I seem to recall saying there was a "fair bit" going on.

IMHO, it would be very uncool to "call out" other peoples' opinions or guitars like that. They're entitled to their opinions, I'm entitled to mine. We don't need to encourage yet another silly flame war over this stuff.

So over the last several years, how many guitars came as you ordered them with no issues along the way vs. those that had issues either once you got the guitar or in the process?

That's a fair question. Over the last, say, five years or so, I've gotten about 16 J/C custom shop guitars. Of those:

- 1 had a clear QC problem: a broken sustainer mount.

- 1 had a possible QC problem: cracked clearcoat in the neck pocket. Hard to say for sure, but I suspect this was actually shipping damage related to sliding around inside the cruddy non-form-fitting G&G case.

- 1 had a debatable (admittedly minor) QC problem: sloppy paint work in the trem recess area. Most guys who saw the pics thought it looked a little cruddy, but was acceptably "normal". I didn't agree, and sent it back anyway.

So, depending on your opinion, split the difference and call it 2 guitars out of 16 with QC issues. Every other guitar was absolutely great. A perfect record? Nope. A horrific crisis? Nope. Mostly excellent, with a couple of ding-dongs. Still needs improvement, though.

In addition to the above, though, I've also had poor customer service experiences:

- Price quotes and work orders taking months to get done. (This seems to have improved recently, though.)

- Finished guitars taking months to ship.

- Damaged guitars (see above) not being rebuilt in a reasonable timeframe. (Now 9 months and counting since being sent back, over 2 years since originally ordered.)

- Guitar orders just not being built. Two years since originally ordered, just cancelled.

So that's my personal experience. And my opinions are largely based on them, along with some flavor added from others' experiences as well. To each his own. Again, IMHO, the situation needs improvement. But the sky ain't falling.

[fett]

So what do they do? It doesn't take a genius to see that there are some very unhappy campers here. Would I be out of line to say that CS guitars are boutique items? So they have a shop that is supposed to make guitars on special orders. That works when the order flow matches the ability of them to make them. I seems obvious to me that the CS Shop is overwhelmed by orders. A custom builder would increase staff to meet the demand or stop taking orders until they were caught up. A corporation that also makes cookie cutter guitars can't be bothered with their niche buyers because there is no money in it to increase staff. Ergo, therefore, they just tell those guys to crank them out. I just wonder how those guys in the CS feel when they read stuff like we are posting and realize there really isn't anything they can do but "Fill the demand, Damn it!!!

[charvelguy]

personally.. if I spent 2k on a custom guitar, waited many many months only to find the pickup ring screws fell out when I first played it.. *-as minor as it is-* I'd be a little dismayed. I have a hoard of Korean and MIJ guitars bought new w/o any such issue.