Don't purchase guitars online!

So, I've made this post to vent about a guitar I puchased on the Internet. Yes, yes I know. Like many things, a guitar may not be something you want to purchase on the net due to what you might end up with. The guitar I was purchasing was brand new from a reputable retailer. (Amercian Musical Supply)

I puchased an 2007 black Ibanez RG370DX. The guitar was beautiful to look at, but it was completely out of wack when it arrived. It had clearly sat in a warehouse or something with severe temperature changes. I'm guessing it was in the warehouse during the Summer months and here in the Winter months before I purchased it.

Anyway, I worked on it the best I could (I'm not a pro guitar tech) but while I could get it playable, it was still not right. The low E string had a nasty buzz on it and even the A string had more buzz that it should have. Not even close to my current guitar. So, I took it to one of the best guitar techs in the NYC area and had him work on it. He made it even more playable, by more adjustments and even leveling a few frets that while weren't really bad, were a still not perfectly level. After all that it still wasn't right.

Needless to say, I shipped it back and got a refund for the full price of the guitar. Of course, I didn't get a refund on the tech work I had done. One thing that seems to be true among all guitar makers though. The newer the model, the more poorly it's crafted. I had a 1987 Fender Strat Squire II that I paid $160 for in 1987. I saw that same guitar on Ebay for almost $600 now. A new Start Squire today on Ebay is like $80.

So, after that nasty experience I don't think I'm going to test the waters of buying a guitar online anymore. The only reason I did this one is I got a pretty good discount on it, and you cannot find that specific model at local retailers anymore.

The whole reason for it was I was going to replace (though not get rid of) a 1997 green Ibanez RG270DX that I bought used from a local music store for $170. It had some electrical shorts, but I fixed them in 10 minutes with a soldering gun. The RG270 plays great otherwise except that it had the low end stock pickups in it. Since I do like the RG270 so much I've decided to take part of the money from the RG370 and just upgrade the pickups in it. I'm replacing the stock ones with Dimarzio ToneZone in the bridge, Dimarzio HS-3 single coil in the middle, and a Dimarzio PAF Pro for the neck. I wanted the Dimarzio Area '61 for the single coil, but it only came in white and while I love the sound, I could bare having an really odd white pickup in the middle.