Ibanez PN1 Spruce - Natural High Gloss Reviews

This is a great guitar for the money. Nice and compact. I bought it as a beater and now it gets played regularly just because it's a solid guitar. It's the backyard, campground, beach, travel companion guitar leaning on the couch waiting to be played.

For such a small guitar it packs a big punch. Nice resonance,action, and sweet tonality. It's comfortable and a joy to play. I also dig the medieval lute design.It has a cool rosette design. If anyone wants a parlor guitar in their collection, for a mere $ you can't go wrong. Why spend a ton of money on PRS when this fits the bill nicely. Really like this guitar!! Keep on Rockin!!John Rotonto Irwin,Pa.

Easy to play. Nice tone. And plenty of volume for a guitar its size. I'm not professional, just play for fun. But it's just as loud as my fender full size guitar.

I wanted a nice guitar for my wife, who is not a large person. She wouldn't let me spend a lot, but as I looked around, this guitar caught my attention. Its unusual shape reminded me of 16th century Renaissance guitars, and the price was surprising for a rcognized brand name. So we ordered it. What we got was a well made, good looking little instrument with a surprisingly big sound. The bass is clear and punchy, and the treble rides right over it. No drawbacks, if you want a small guitar for a nice price, this one fills the bill!

I don't know where to start!! This guitar is just what I have been looking for. I play the electric guitar and the tenor ukulele, so I was never very fond of acoustic guitars. Mostly because they were just too big and bulky. I felt like I was holding a station wagon on its side. This little parlor beauty feels like it was custom made to fit ME. It sits just perfect on my lap----my arm drapes over the side just right, and I have no trouble reaching anything on the fingerboard. And did I mention the beautiful sound??? I'm only playing in our living room, but it has a nice full, pleasing sound---not overpowering, but just right. Simon, my Sweetwater rep, did a super job helping me out. I wanted a setup done with lighter strings, and he made it happen. Kudos to Sweetwater and all their great people. I've bought other instruments through them over the years, and they've always been top notch!! Simon even guided me to the correct case for this beautiful guitar, and reminded me about humidifiers for our dry northeast winters. I couldn't be happier with my guitar----after all these years, and finally finding "the right guitar"----at least for me!!

Wonderful customer service (which is very unusual these days!), helpful info about the guitar, shipped very nicely and carefully, and my daughter loves the guitar. It's the perfect size for her age and size (9 yrs) Her instructor is very impressed with such a great instrument as well! Would absolutely buy from you again!

Recently received my latest guitar from you guys.An Ibanez PN1NT.What a little pocket rocket!! Sounds terrific.Action is great.Been working with Zach Neels over the years.He's a true professional,as you all are.

I was amazed by the sound and play-ability of this lovely instrument. It is a pleasure to play.
One of my main instruments.

My wife and I love this guitar. Great parlor guitar sound and great looks

A nice little guitar for the price. I bought the Gretsch Jim Dandy a while back as a couch guitar, and loved it. My wife has started playing again after a long hiatus, and I bought the PN1 for her so she could have something to grab while I was messing with the Jim Dandy (did I mention how much I love the Jim Dandy?). Anyway, out of the box I wasn't loving the PN1, not at first, but this was in comparison with the Gretsch. After hearing my wife play for a while, I realized that comparing the two is not really worthwhile. Both are nice little guitars for the price. Neither will sound like a rich guitar, but they are nice for sitting around and playing in the parlor, so to speak. The PN1, like the Gretsch Jim Dandy, is a guitar that'd be great anywhere, no worries about sand or wind or an occasional drop of water. I play because it's fun, not because I'm a professional musician. The sound of the PN1 isn't the greatest in the world, but for under 150 bucks, I'm very pleased with the general quality. My wife and I can take the guitars camping with the kiddos, leave them in a tent, not worry too much. I have played some nice instruments in my time, but none really made me into a better player. Some of the greatest players of all time started on little instruments that did not have the best tone, etc. This is a great guitar for messing around. Love that there are no worries. I will likely switch out the strings when they wear out a bit, as some reviews seemed to indicate that a slightly better tone was achieved through that, but my guess is that the tone, as they say, is in the fingers. If you're looking at both the Gretsch Jim Dandy and the PN1, personally I'd go for the Gretsch, but the PN1 is decent too, with a louder sound, which surprised me since the body is quite a bit smaller. Very shiny finish, looks like an old true parlor style.

After polishing the back of neck of my PN1 with 800 grit wet & dry auto body paper, replacing the generic tuners with a set of Grover Sta-tite open back tuners, putting on a set of Martin Custom M130 silk & steel strings and a minor set up adjustment, my PN1 parlor guitar has now taken on a different rating with improved sound and even better playabilty. It is a great sounding guitar for short money. It will make its presence heard at any pub session picking fiddle tunes.

Generally I really like this little guitar. The neck is great, only thing is the fret ends are a bit sharp. But! For new owners I would suggest pulling the bridge pins to check and make sure they're able to come out. I went to put on new strings and one pin would not budge. It broke off and I ended up having to drill the pin out. I think it had glue on it. Also the bridge doesn't have glue extentending down all the way to the bottom edge. It's not coming off or anything, but it might, guess. Otherwise it's quite delightful and very sturdy and has nice sound.

I bought my Ibanez PN-1 guitar through Sweetwater. I am returning the guitar but want to leave my thoughts and experience with the instrument. Nice little guitar!! I loved it and enjoyed playing it. Seemed to be well built and finished. The sound hole decoration appeared to be just a decal. About a month after getting the guitar I began to get fret buzzing. Took it to my luthier and he determined that the frets themselves were coming loose from the neck. He fixed two but said that the rest were the same, as to looseness. He said that the fret wire material was sub-standard, was very soft material and the frets were showing what he considered to be very excessive wear. He contacted Sweetwater and arranged for the return/refund. I hope this fret problem is not one that affects all recent production of the Ibanez PN-1. Less than 5 stars due to frets. But, 5 stars for the way Chris Nunley has handled all of this.

This was delivered yesterday. Overall, about what I expected for a guitar in this price range. I bought this guitar because I needed something I could take camping with me without worrying too much about it.

The fret job was sloppy. The fret ends protruded out over the binding far enough for the guitar to be pretty much unplayable. I spent an hour filing them down and polishing them to where it was comfortable enough to play.

However, this guitar looks really cool and once I sorted that out and put some new strings on it, I was really impressed with the sound and playability. There is no buzzing, the intonation is accurate and the fit and overall finish is good. This guitar is heavy on the treble and light on the bass, but is much louder than I though it would be. Jury is still out on the tuners, I have read bad things, but I have started to fall in the category that if it ain't broke, don't fix it, especially on cheap guitars.

Overall, I imagine with this kind of guitar, they have to cut corners somewhere. In my opinion, the corners were cut during the stage where they fine tune a guitar to get it ready for sale. The materials all seem to be pretty good for the price range, but there is no way someone did a quality control check on they guitar I bought, or more likely, they have a high tolerance threshold. Maybe one just slipped through.

All that said, at this price, would I personally buy another one knowing what I know? Oh yeah! Just be warned that you may have to have someone do some work on it which may cost another $75. Still, I think that would be worth it for this guitar due to the fact that it is a solid platform. If you have the money, you may even consider having Sweetwater do the work before they ship it. I am pretty sure they offer the service. I have never had them do any repair work, but based on all my other interactions with them, I imagine the end product would be well worth it.

On a side note, I also recently purchased a used Gretch Jim Dandy for the same purpose and I really like it a lot. However, as of this morning, I like the tone of the PN1 a little better - but not enough to really matter that much. I think you would be good either way.

First of all, it's not a bad little guitar for the money. ...The set-up is good, playable, and the sound is perfectly acceptable for an all plywood guitar. My only gripe is with the cheap plastic bridge and nut, the shoddy construction where the binding meets the end of the fretboard - which is purely superficial - and the laissez-faire installation of the tuners, where the screws were not fully driven in. Which could theoretically, play havoc with the tuning. But luckily, I own a screwdriver. Other than that, it's a fine little beginner guitar with a distinctive body-shape. Best for a young person - or a big person with small hands. At any rate, I liked it well enough to give as a gift.

Nice little guitar with good tone and tunability for the money.

The overall quality is not quite up to other inexpensive parlor guitars I have purchased recently like the Gretsch Jim Dandy or an Oscar Schimdt 0G1. The low end tuners and the actual positioning of the tuners bought forth my first negative opinion. The finish of the binding on the neck was not the best.

However, that being said, I was more concerned about the sound, set up and playability. All of which are more than acceptable and will fit my needs for a small decent sounding instrument to be on the couch or in pub session. With a new set of softer light strings and set of Gover Sta-tite open geared tuners, the PN1 will be fine. I like the size and vintage shape of this parlor guitar and the tuners are strictly my own personal taste. When one flips a guitar over to look at the back, tuners should not draw attention. The tuners would better off if they were closed geared like the PN15.

Sooooo where to start on this guy... a steal and a bit of a no-brainer buy if you want a guitar to tool around on that you don't need to worry about all the time. I picked it up for that exact reason, and to use as a travel guitar.

As far as the quality goes, the finish looks pretty good, but upon closer inspection, it looks like the frets were cut/rounded off with a belt sander, poorly I may add. Its pretty uneven on the binding as well. there wasn't much care that went into building this guitar, but then again...

It sounds pretty decent too for the money, so cheers to that.

Long story short, if you aren't looking to get the next best thing, and you're cool with a mediocre guitar to have for cheap, look no further.