This guitar does it all. The playabillity is 2nd to none. The pickups sound amazing in each position. I can't say enough how impressed I am with this guitar. It looks and sounds great!
I would put this Ibanez prestige against any Strat and I'm a Fender guy. I love my Fender Strats and Teles but I can't quit playing this Ibanez. I also love the feel of the neck, it's perfect.
You know you have a winner when it's the first guitar that you grab and you don't want to put it down.
Thanks to Kurt Martin and Sweetwater for calling and keeping me informed of my order. Sweetwater is the best!!

Really great neck, the contours on the guitar's body are effective. The pickups sound great and the locking tuners work and look good aesthetically. Overall a great looking guitar as well as a joy to play.

I bought this a while ago and love the floating trem. The pickup options are so flexible, it is amazing. The feel of the guitar makes it feel like "home". This guitar is very, very flexible in the tones you can get. I highly recommend it.

My favorite. The AZ neck profile along with the roasted maple and stainless frets. Excellent tremelo and the Seymour Duncan Hyperion pickups give me all the tones I search for.

If you're looking for an Ibanez guitar that doesn't sound or feel like an Ibanez guitar, look no further. If you're expecting the AZ to feel and sound like an upgraded RG you will be disappointed. The neck is a medium-fat C shape. Similar feel to a Fender Custom Shop full C neck. I love it. Some will hate it. The neck thins out a bit closer to the pickups to more of a fat D shape. Great for players like me who play with their thumb wrapped around the neck, but want a more classical thumb behind grip at the upper frets.

All the appointments included you'd expect from an expensive guitar. Slick feeling baked maple neck, fat jumbo stainless frets, rounded neck heel for upper fret access, name brand pickups, solid floating bridge that stays in tune. I love this guitar for the fat neck, and the versatile tone options. If you only had to bring one guitar to a gig this can be it. It'll do classic metal to SRV, country, or even jazz. The single coils sound fat and sparkly. To me the humbucker sounds like a PAF with some extra winds for more power. Not sure it will handle extreme down-tuned metal madness, but it will do everything else. The locking tuners are not the usual thumb wheel tuners. I had to watch a YouTube vid to learn how to use them. This is my only gripe: the standard thumb wheel tuners are simpler to use.

Beware the pickup switching system is complicated. If you attempt to swap pups you need to know your stuff. I find all the tones usable and unique and see no need to change the pickups. Seems to me Ibanez is pitting this guitar against the Suhr Modern but for less money. I own both and like them equally. In fact I prefer the fatter neck on the AZ vs the thinner oval neck on the Suhr Modern.

Overall impression is this is a well-designed and executed instrument. It's not for everyone because of the size of the neck and the not so hot bridge pickup. If you like thinner shredder necks avoid the AZ. If you want a versatile vintage sounding / modern playing guitar, this is a top-notch option.

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This has everything a gigging guitarist needs: locking tuners, whammy bar, single coil, humbucker, classic look, large radius fretboard, dual cutaway, stainless frets and higher quality than a typical Strat or Les Paul. Sounds great too. It took me way too long to find a guitar that checks all these boxes, but finally got one.

This Ibanez Prestige is exactly what I was looking for in terms of the perfect guitar that can do anything I need it to. Thanks to the help of Ian Lemberg, I was able to do just that. Ian asks you questions that help you pinpoint exactly what you need and in a polite manner as well. He also checks in with you to make sure that your instrument arrives in perfect condition and he is always available in case of any issues you need to address. Sweetwater does a great job with their inspection process and I feel is hands down one of the best places to shop for your musical needs. Thank you to all the Sweetwater staff that made this possible.

After nearly two months of researching this particular guitar model I decided to purchase. What really shines about the guitar is its versatility. It can produce Strat-like tones, and Telecaster-like tones, but it also has its very own unique bright snappy tones which I very much enjoy. There is something about the combination of the beautiful roasted maple fretboard and neck, the Jumbo Stainless Steel frets, that the Seymour Duncan Hyperion pickups are translating quite well in my humble opinion. The Hyperion pickups were newly designed specifically for the Ibanez AZ series of guitars.

The quality of the guitar, the two selector switches, the volume and tone knobs, the pickups, the Gotoh tuners, the bridge and saddles etc are all top notch. Everything has a very nice quality feel to it. Even the case is well made with a sleek design and plush interior. The Stratocaster profile made me think the guitar would have some weight to it but the Alder body makes it surprisingly light.

The placement of the input jack is spot on. You can conveniently run your cord through your guitar strap, or between the strap and the guitar body, and the cord is out of sight, out of mind, and out of your way.

The guitar arrived two weeks ago. Although Sweetwater did a fantastic job of setting things up I restrung it, set the action lower, and re-intonated it. This also provided an opportunity to use and familiarize myself with the Gotoh locking tuners. I have been playing this guitar at a minimum of three to four hours per day literally every single day since it arrived. Its plugged directly into a Scarlet 2I2 interface into Logic Pro X where I utilize LP's guitar presets through 8 inch reference monitor speakers.

This guitar is also more beautiful in person than any photo or video review can convey. The Ice Metallic Blue color can transition from light blue to a subdued mid blue depending on the lighting conditions. Ibanez, in conjunction with the Seymour Duncan, has managed to find a unique sweet spot with the versatility in the tonal palette of this guitar model. Nine different tones are available each of which can be adjusted to taste via the tone knob.

There are plenty of high quality demo and review videos on YouTube that showcase the AZ2204 traversing everything from jazz, to funk, to fusion, to rock in sterling fashion by any number of players. This underscores the design intent by Ibanez to make a guitar that could go from studio sessions, to playing on the road, to home studio recording with more than enough versatility to play any genre of music.

With over thirty years experience I have not owned very many guitars but I have owned my fair share of them. They can be expensive and that makes me extremely picky. Not once have I ever had the experience of "bonding" with a guitar or having an overall reliable "go to" guitar. Now I do. I can't say enough about how satisfied I am with my purchase.

Last but not least, a big THANK YOU! - to my Sweetwater Sales Engineer Logan. With the uncertainty of purchasing over the internet and not being able to physically handle this item I had many questions. Logan's assurances and explanations of Sweetwater's standards, their 55 point inspection of the instrument, and the inclusion of high quality photos before the item shipped really put the gold quality stamp on my shopping experience.

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