A review of our Ibanez Artcore AF75D Guitar.
It's a super-sweet Ibanez Artcore semi-hollow guitar I purchased from a local store Sam Ash. This particular store had pretty much the same price on this guitar as everywhere at $319.00. It's really a bargain!

I started out wanting the Blue one (I love blue guitars), but when I saw the wonderful transparent orange in absolutely perfect condition - it had to come home with me! It's beautiful! It plays like a dream, has marvelous details like cream bindings, gorgeous Mother Of Pearl inlays on the rosewood fretboard, and EXCELLENT tuners!


I brought it home (Mrs. Bear was very nice about it!) after buying it with our cubs and started tinkering with it right away. It has a floating bridge (that's the kind of bridge mechanism where the bridge isn't attached to the guitar body - it just sits there via pressure much like a violin, cello, etc.). The bridge wasn't in the right place for the harmonics, and the guitar buzzed a good bit because of this mis-adjustment. I set up the bridge adjustment with a little experimentation, then proceeded to put some of my favorite strings on it: Ernie Ball Extra Slinky, 09 size on the high E. (I usually buy my strings at Musician's Friend - I like their service and their prices - always good) Sorry for the digression - this stuff is great fun...

Now that the bridge and strings were set, I adjusted the harmonics on the tunable bridge. After all the other parts were set up, I lowered the bridge height slightly (the AF75 has an easy-change action height). Now all my string buzz was gone, and the guitar tunes great and on pitch with either harmonics or standard tuning. It sounds like no guitar I've owned!

I think I'm going to try some Fender Bullet strings on it fairly soon. Their traditional nickel strings are good for bending and last a good while. They don't break very often either.

Now that I've had several weeks to play it, I've come to a single, simple conclusion: This guitar is worth three or 4 times the price.
On a scale of 1 to 10, here are my ratings...
Quality of build, finish and hardware: 9.5
Value for the money 12.5
Sound: 9
Came set up properly: 7
Would recommend to others: 10
Looks, extra features: 10

My advice: if you'd like a nice all-around guitar that's really different, plays well with jazzy sounds and rock sounds, this is an absolute MUST HAVE.