Ibanez Q52 Electric Guitar - Antique Brown Stained Reviews
Part of Ibanez's boundary-pushing Quest series, the Q52 vaunts a headless design built from the ground up to maximize tone, performance, and playing comfort. While this solidbody electric guitar is extremely lightweight, its ergonomic nyatoh body resonates with rich, woody tones that belie its compact profile. Technically minded players will be blown away by the zero-drag feel of the Q52's Wizard "C" neck, and its heat-treated bird's-eye maple fingerboard is as playable as it is visually appealing. This headless guitar's made-to-measure pickups exude amazing levels of articulation and definition that are bolstered by Ibanez's acclaimed dyna-MIX10 switching system. Rock-solid hardware, including a custom string lock and innovative Mono Tune bridge, ensures easy string changes and ultra-reliable, stage-worthy performance. Stainless steel frets round out the Q52's generous features. If you've been hunting for the perfect headless electric guitar — or even if you're considering your first headless instrument — the Ibanez Q52 is guaranteed to unlock unlimited creative possibilities.
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Highest Rated Reviews
Combined with a Spark Go It Can Do Anything and Go Anywhere
I've been using an electric, instead of an acoustic, the last three years with my duo. For the last two years playing a Blue Q52. With a Positive Grid Spark Go in the gig bag it can go anywhere, be plugged into a PA or substitute for an acoustic guitar (the Go up on a table is louder than any acoustic). It's perfect for an airplane overhead bin and can be played comfortably when some restaurant stuffs our duo in the place of a four top. The tuning stability is fantastic. It can sit in my car's trunk under conditions an acoustic would not likely survive meaning it's there when it might be handy. To back up impromptu singing and finger style solo guitar at an unscheduled dinner party performance, combined with the Spark Go, it sounds great. I've asked and no one misses my acoustic.
At its price point it is appropriately well made. This one is about a pound lighter than the blue one which I'm surprised that I appreciate (~4.5 lbs., the older blue one was ~5.5 lbs.). Ibanez has made a few changes in these guitars over the last two years. The EVO frets that are wear free after two years, are now even harder stainless steel. Without EVO's tarnish the stainless feels a little smoother. The set screws in the locking nut are now larger flat bottom M5's instead of M4's (cheap to be had at an online hardware store and I think a good idea to have a few spares). Presumably accidental overtightening of the string locks is less likely with the larger set screws. Finally, the fret slot depth is like a Gibson rather than the deeper slots of many Asian made guitars. I suppose this is cosmetic, but I do like it.
The Dyna-MIX10 switching has a mode where the inner coils of the two pickups are combined in parallel. This simulates that Strat neck plus middle pickup tone reasonably closely (good for playing "Sultans of Swing"). It also has a useful two pickup Telecaster like option. The alt switch mode for single coil seems about right but the humbucker "power tap" doesn't appeal to me.
There are better gig bags to be had for headless guitars which offer more protection and/or a smaller footprint. I've tried a few and settled on one of them.
I like the feel of the brown finish and maybe the look a little better than the blue, but still wish they offered the straight fret Q52 in plain black...
Light weight and a joy to play!
This headless design from Ibanez is so light, comfortable to play, and holds its tuning so well (sometimes I pick it up and it has stayed in tune for a day or two), that I find it difficult to put down in favor of my other guitars. In fact, I literally haven't picked up my other instruments in months. I haven't charged the luminlay side dots, so don't even know if they work, but I love the tonal options of the guitar, the look and feel of the wood, and am embracing the "uniqueness" of the instrument (which took some getting used to). Highly recommend!
All around great guitar
I've had the guitar a couple of weeks now, and it's a fantastic instrument once you adjust to the missing head. The neck profile in particular is fairly unique, as it starts slightly thicker by the nut, but stays about the same as you move up the neck. This gives a nice full feeling for your open chords without feeling like a baseball bat for more shreddy stuff. The pickups are dynamic and articulate, and work well in conjunction with the 5 way and power tap switches to produce sounds ranging from bright cleans, to dark and jazzy, to hard rock.
My one knock against the guitar is more of a limitation of it being headless. You need to stretch new strings a bit before you clamp them down or else you might run out of adjustment tuning them to pitch. On the bright side, once you get it tuned up, it holds that tuning remarkably well.
