Are Chinese guitar makers stupid?

[CharvelRocker]

A local shop here always have several Arias, and in fatc had a really slick Aria super strat w/ Kahler for a consignment sale. Aria's are indeed a well kept secret.

[sk8boardbob2]

I've always wanted an Aria ZZ Bladerunner, sadly I'be never seen a single one of the eBAY.

[donvandam]

I owned an Aria Pro 2 SB600 bass for a while, lovely tone but it was heavy as shit.


The actual bass I owned, it had that "Duran Duran" vibe.

I have one of those in pearly white! great basses they are

[Boxcar Willie 84]

Man I love those basses, I'd love to have one someday

[CharvelRocker]

I've always wanted an Aria ZZ Bladerunner, sadly I'be never seen a single one of the eBAY.

The Bladerunner was the one with the Kahler right? I know they made one with a Floyd and oen with a Kahler, and I want both :ROTF:

[sk8boardbob2]

^ I'm not sure the one Bladerunner I've ever seen had Blade Dime-ish pickups (Hence the name duh!) a sick orange bengal paintjob and some kind of locking trem. I'm pretty sure it wasn't a floyd type, probably some aria invention. The reason I didn't buy it is because
1. the guy decided to refret it and never finished, so it had like 7 frets missing
2. the store had it for $899

However it was a sick playing guitar(at least the first 17 frets)

[zeegler]

^ I'm not sure the one Bladerunner I've ever seen had Blade Dime-ish pickups (Hence the name duh!) a sick orange bengal paintjob and some kind of locking trem. I'm pretty sure it wasn't a floyd type, probably some aria invention. The reason I didn't buy it is because
1. the guy decided to refret it and never finished, so it had like 7 frets missing
2. the store had it for $899

However it was a sick playing guitar(at least the first 17 frets)

IMO those blade pickups suck. They are only about 8.5k ohms, and sound thin and shitty. The locking trem is an ACT 3 trem, and has its good and bad points. It's solid, stable, and well made, but the locking saddles have these weird lockdown caps that get in the way when palm muting. Plus, the fine tuner screws seem to stick up too far. The other weird thing is that the pivot point is further back on the ACT 3 than other Floyd type trems. That means that without moving the trem posts forward, you can't switch it with a OFR or Schaller. I have thought about trying to switch the locking saddles with Floyd saddles. That might improve the feel of the trem if it works.

Here's my Custom X bridge. You can see the strange caps on the saddles, and the bulky fine tuners. Also note how far back the posts and pivot point is.