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So I’m now the proud owner of a Jackson SDXQ. Actually it’s my second, the first was sent back to the shop. The reason? The floyd was mounted off-center, which resulted in the bottom E being incredibly difficult to fret without falling off the fingerboard. First time in 30 years I’ve ever had to return a guitar.
Second one arrived last night. Judging by the QA sticker(s) on the back, and if the S/N is sequential, this one was a later build. Luckily the Floyd was in the right place.
Sadly though, performance out-of-the-box leaves a lot to be desired. In no particular order the Floyd was WAY too high, and tilted slightly backwards, the strings were rusted, and there appears to be an uneven/raised fret around the 20-22 (I think it’s 20) which is choking the high E. The book matched join is about 6-8mm off true, and for some bizarre reason I had two layers of plastic covering the scratchplate, not one.
Also, the string tension bar is way too close to the bottom E tuner post, and drilling the screw hole for it appears to have split the lacquer on the headstock. And another minor gripe is the Jackson logo on the rear of one of the tuners is skewed. I’ll probably replace them with locking gotohs at some point (purely because it speeds up string changes!).
Oh and when plugged in it buzzes as though there’s an earth issue. Opening the back cavity verifies the earth cable is attached to the string claw, so I guess it’s just poor shielding in the body cavity. The back cavity groove for the screws was routed through the paint to bare wood, but the rest of the cavity is painted. Bad job!
It’s a nice guitar to play, but I wouldn’t expect this sort of quality control issues on a £500 guitar. I also fully accept that some of my issues (strings for example) are due to setup not being performed by The retailer etc. I just thought I’d share my experience with you all
Second one arrived last night. Judging by the QA sticker(s) on the back, and if the S/N is sequential, this one was a later build. Luckily the Floyd was in the right place.
Sadly though, performance out-of-the-box leaves a lot to be desired. In no particular order the Floyd was WAY too high, and tilted slightly backwards, the strings were rusted, and there appears to be an uneven/raised fret around the 20-22 (I think it’s 20) which is choking the high E. The book matched join is about 6-8mm off true, and for some bizarre reason I had two layers of plastic covering the scratchplate, not one.
Also, the string tension bar is way too close to the bottom E tuner post, and drilling the screw hole for it appears to have split the lacquer on the headstock. And another minor gripe is the Jackson logo on the rear of one of the tuners is skewed. I’ll probably replace them with locking gotohs at some point (purely because it speeds up string changes!).
Oh and when plugged in it buzzes as though there’s an earth issue. Opening the back cavity verifies the earth cable is attached to the string claw, so I guess it’s just poor shielding in the body cavity. The back cavity groove for the screws was routed through the paint to bare wood, but the rest of the cavity is painted. Bad job!
It’s a nice guitar to play, but I wouldn’t expect this sort of quality control issues on a £500 guitar. I also fully accept that some of my issues (strings for example) are due to setup not being performed by The retailer etc. I just thought I’d share my experience with you all
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