Brilliant AZ242, plays and sounds incredible. Slight clouding underneath the finish on back, very hard to notice, other than totally mint. The Ibanez AZ242BC Premium in Deep Espresso Burst has a American basswood body which provides a well-rounded tonality with even frequency response, light weight, and excellent resonance. The bocote top delivers bright overtones and a stand-out aesthetic that will look great on stage. This example is totally mint bar a tiny cloudy area on forearm contour. The fingerboard is roasted maple – this tonewood is naturally warm sounding and the roasting process removes impurities to create an incredibly stable and resonant addition to your tone. The roasted maple also makes the fingerboard more consistent across its length, ensuring each note will ring out with equal clarity. The headstock features a return to Ibanez's classic design, and gives this the AZ242BC a distinctly vintage-inspired look.
Brilliant AZ242, plays and sounds incredible. Slight clouding underneath the finish on back, very hard to notice, other than totally mint. The Ibanez AZ242BC Premium in Deep Espresso Burst has a American basswood body which provides a well-rounded tonality with even frequency response, light weight, and excellent resonance. The bocote top delivers bright overtones and a stand-out aesthetic that will look great on stage. This example is totally mint bar a tiny cloudy area on forearm contour. The fingerboard is roasted maple – this tonewood is naturally warm sounding and the roasting process removes impurities to create an incredibly stable and resonant addition to your tone. The roasted maple also makes the fingerboard more consistent across its length, ensuring each note will ring out with equal clarity. The headstock features a return to Ibanez's classic design, and gives this the AZ242BC a distinctly vintage-inspired look.
Brilliant AZ242, plays and sounds incredible. Slight clouding underneath the finish on back, very hard to notice, other than totally mint. The Ibanez AZ242BC Premium in Deep Espresso Burst has a American basswood body which provides a well-rounded tonality with even frequency response, light weight, and excellent resonance. The bocote top delivers bright overtones and a stand-out aesthetic that will look great on stage. This example is totally mint bar a tiny cloudy area on forearm contour. The fingerboard is roasted maple – this tonewood is naturally warm sounding and the roasting process removes impurities to create an incredibly stable and resonant addition to your tone. The roasted maple also makes the fingerboard more consistent across its length, ensuring each note will ring out with equal clarity. The headstock features a return to Ibanez's classic design, and gives this the AZ242BC a distinctly vintage-inspired look.
Brilliant AZ242, plays and sounds incredible. Slight clouding underneath the finish on back, very hard to notice, other than totally mint. The Ibanez AZ242BC Premium in Deep Espresso Burst has a American basswood body which provides a well-rounded tonality with even frequency response, light weight, and excellent resonance. The bocote top delivers bright overtones and a stand-out aesthetic that will look great on stage. This example is totally mint bar a tiny cloudy area on forearm contour. The fingerboard is roasted maple – this tonewood is naturally warm sounding and the roasting process removes impurities to create an incredibly stable and resonant addition to your tone. The roasted maple also makes the fingerboard more consistent across its length, ensuring each note will ring out with equal clarity. The headstock features a return to Ibanez's classic design, and gives this the AZ242BC a distinctly vintage-inspired look.
Last updated at 04/27/2026 22:38:45
Ibanez AZ242BC-DET Premium Deep Espresso Burst
Delivery $428.40
Western Guitar Ibanez Az242bc-det
Delivery $53.08
Affiliate Disclosure: We may receive a small commission for purchases made through this link at no extra cost to you. This helps support our site. Thank you!
originally posted on ebay.com
Yes I know that's what they wanted me to think and I'm not going to buy into the snake oil of torrified woods generally. But.... The neck feels great cz tuners and bridge make for awesome stability and the pickups and 10 pickup options mean this is a guitar for all seasons. It can play jazz and metal but fit well in-between. Classic rock rocks, blues is rich. Just enough output to push without being able to find a clean tone. A couple of sessions in I'm sold.
originally posted on musiciansfriend.com
I didn't buy mine through Musicians Friend but I recently bought mine and I'm madly in love with it. First off it looks nothing like the pictures here. The grain pattern is wildly different from this picture. It's gorgeous. Everyone I show it to falls in love with it. Also the roasted maple neck is way darker and looks so sexy.If you're expecting a traditional Ibanez playing experience this is not your guitar. The neck is super thick but crazy comfortable and easy to play on. I hear everyone comparing it to a Fender modern C neck but it feels way more like a Les Paul neck or to be exact it feels exactly like the PRS SE Holcomb whereas it has a wider 20' radius on it so the two feel almost identical. Yes you can absolutely play fast on it. It's smooth, it's fast, ... MoreI didn't buy mine through Musicians Friend but I recently bought mine and I'm madly in love with it. First off it looks nothing like the pictures here. The grain pattern is wildly different from this picture. It's gorgeous. Everyone I show it to falls in love with it. Also the roasted maple neck is way darker and looks so sexy.If you're expecting a traditional Ibanez playing experience this is not your guitar. The neck is super thick but crazy comfortable and easy to play on. I hear everyone comparing it to a Fender modern C neck but it feels way more like a Les Paul neck or to be exact it feels exactly like the PRS SE Holcomb whereas it has a wider 20' radius on it so the two feel almost identical. Yes you can absolutely play fast on it. It's smooth, it's fast, it's amazing.Ok now I'm not sure if you're familiar with Suhr but I think somebody at Ibanez bought one and suddenly took instant inspiration from it because the two Suhr are alike (see what I did there? Lol). I mean come on the knobs are even the same lol. Which those knobs are really fantastic. If you like to fiddle knobs and flip switches when you play these are definitely killer too use from the top grip and overall feel of them. When comparing this to a Suhr does it feel like a $5k Suhr? No, of course not but it really does come close. The thing I like more about the Ibanez though is the tremendous versatility if the ten different pickup combinations via the two switches. There's not a single tone that you can't get with this guitar and it does it amazingly well. It definitely does metal but at the same time I beats the majority of single coil tones I've gotten from Tex Mex loaded USA strats. This guitar does it all. Another thing that really surprised and impressed me was the amount of resonance and sustain.
originally posted on sweetwater.com
So I bought this from Sweetwater almost 2 years ago. The fusion edge pickups get a lot of slack for sounding muddy in all settings, and are supposedly very similar to the DiMarzio Titan pickups. I'm not sure on that last part, but on the first part I have no idea what the interwebs are talking about.I ran this through a bunch of amps (that I spent about a year dialing in the tones on each of them; little tweaks here and there over the course of a year) to get what I considered ideal metal tones for both recording and jamming. The Fusion Edge pickups sounded killer on every amp, in every position. Some of the amps I ran it through were the H&K Grandmeister Deluxe 40, Soldano 100 watt, Jet City, Triple Rectifier, Old School 5150, Engl Powerball and 2 different Line ... MoreSo I bought this from Sweetwater almost 2 years ago. The fusion edge pickups get a lot of slack for sounding muddy in all settings, and are supposedly very similar to the DiMarzio Titan pickups. I'm not sure on that last part, but on the first part I have no idea what the interwebs are talking about.I ran this through a bunch of amps (that I spent about a year dialing in the tones on each of them; little tweaks here and there over the course of a year) to get what I considered ideal metal tones for both recording and jamming. The Fusion Edge pickups sounded killer on every amp, in every position. Some of the amps I ran it through were the H&K Grandmeister Deluxe 40, Soldano 100 watt, Jet City, Triple Rectifier, Old School 5150, Engl Powerball and 2 different Line 6's: The Pod Go's Angl Meteor and a Flextone 3 head I've had for 2 decades. It sounded great.I bought this guitar because of the control placement; they're ideal in my opinion. The volume knob is out of the way, the pickup selector is in the perfect position and isn't a blade, which is huge for me, and it coil splits, which is a massive plus.The controls are the biggest selling point of the guitar for me.There's 3 things I hate about the guitar.1) The neck shape is NOT a Wizard. It is a super buly, fat and uncomfortable D shape. With my small hands, I eventually acclimated to it, but isn't my idea of a great ride. 2)The dot inlays look stupid. For a $... guitar, Ibanez should've gotten a bit more creative with a pattern. In a perfect world, there would be no inlays at all, just a beautiful blank canvas.3) My ultimate gripe with almost all Ibanez guitars: Bolt on neck. In spite of this, higher fret access is excellent and I barly noticed it's a bolt on, which is true of Ibanez in general. I called several luthiers in Texas, Arizona and New Mexico to see if I could find one skilled enough to reshape the neck for me. Only one offered to do it with confidence, but at a price that hardly seemed worth it. Therefore, in spite of the great tone and controls, I'm going to list it on Reverb today.The guitar is really for a big dude w/ big hands. My other huge gripe is that Ibanez will not open it's custom shop to the general public, so getting the right Ibanez for an individual player is impossible unless you're signed or touring, which is totally stupid. If they'd open their doors, I could've built the exact guitar I've wanted for 10 years, rather than constantly having to mod existing models, drill extra holes, fill holes and swap out electronics.This is a good guitar for any player of any style and is a worthy buy if you don't mind fad D shaped necks.
| Finish | Deep Espresso Burst |
| Year | 2010s |
| Made In | Indonesia |
| Right / Left Handed | Right Handed |
| Fretboard Material | Maple |
Ibanez AZ242BC-DET Premium Deep Espresso Burst
Delivery $428.40
Western Guitar Ibanez Az242bc-det
Delivery $53.08
Affiliate Disclosure: We may receive a small commission for purchases made through this link at no extra cost to you. This helps support our site. Thank you!
Yes I know that's what they wanted me to think and I'm not going to buy into the snake oil of torrified woods generally. But.... The neck feels great cz tuners and bridge make for awesome stability and the pickups and 10 pickup options mean this is a guitar for all seasons. It can play jazz and metal but fit well in-between. Classic rock rocks, blues is rich. Just enough output to push without being able to find a clean tone. A couple of sessions in I'm sold.
I didn't buy mine through Musicians Friend but I recently bought mine and I'm madly in love with it. First off it looks nothing like the pictures here. The grain pattern is wildly different from this picture. It's gorgeous. Everyone I show it to falls in love with it. Also the roasted maple neck is way darker and looks so sexy.If you're expecting a traditional Ibanez playing experience this is not your guitar. The neck is super thick but crazy comfortable and easy to play on. I hear everyone comparing it to a Fender modern C neck but it feels way more like a Les Paul neck or to be exact it feels exactly like the PRS SE Holcomb whereas it has a wider 20' radius on it so the two feel almost identical. Yes you can absolutely play fast on it. It's smooth, it's fast, ... MoreI didn't buy mine through Musicians Friend but I recently bought mine and I'm madly in love with it. First off it looks nothing like the pictures here. The grain pattern is wildly different from this picture. It's gorgeous. Everyone I show it to falls in love with it. Also the roasted maple neck is way darker and looks so sexy.If you're expecting a traditional Ibanez playing experience this is not your guitar. The neck is super thick but crazy comfortable and easy to play on. I hear everyone comparing it to a Fender modern C neck but it feels way more like a Les Paul neck or to be exact it feels exactly like the PRS SE Holcomb whereas it has a wider 20' radius on it so the two feel almost identical. Yes you can absolutely play fast on it. It's smooth, it's fast, it's amazing.Ok now I'm not sure if you're familiar with Suhr but I think somebody at Ibanez bought one and suddenly took instant inspiration from it because the two Suhr are alike (see what I did there? Lol). I mean come on the knobs are even the same lol. Which those knobs are really fantastic. If you like to fiddle knobs and flip switches when you play these are definitely killer too use from the top grip and overall feel of them. When comparing this to a Suhr does it feel like a $5k Suhr? No, of course not but it really does come close. The thing I like more about the Ibanez though is the tremendous versatility if the ten different pickup combinations via the two switches. There's not a single tone that you can't get with this guitar and it does it amazingly well. It definitely does metal but at the same time I beats the majority of single coil tones I've gotten from Tex Mex loaded USA strats. This guitar does it all. Another thing that really surprised and impressed me was the amount of resonance and sustain.
So I bought this from Sweetwater almost 2 years ago. The fusion edge pickups get a lot of slack for sounding muddy in all settings, and are supposedly very similar to the DiMarzio Titan pickups. I'm not sure on that last part, but on the first part I have no idea what the interwebs are talking about.I ran this through a bunch of amps (that I spent about a year dialing in the tones on each of them; little tweaks here and there over the course of a year) to get what I considered ideal metal tones for both recording and jamming. The Fusion Edge pickups sounded killer on every amp, in every position. Some of the amps I ran it through were the H&K Grandmeister Deluxe 40, Soldano 100 watt, Jet City, Triple Rectifier, Old School 5150, Engl Powerball and 2 different Line ... MoreSo I bought this from Sweetwater almost 2 years ago. The fusion edge pickups get a lot of slack for sounding muddy in all settings, and are supposedly very similar to the DiMarzio Titan pickups. I'm not sure on that last part, but on the first part I have no idea what the interwebs are talking about.I ran this through a bunch of amps (that I spent about a year dialing in the tones on each of them; little tweaks here and there over the course of a year) to get what I considered ideal metal tones for both recording and jamming. The Fusion Edge pickups sounded killer on every amp, in every position. Some of the amps I ran it through were the H&K Grandmeister Deluxe 40, Soldano 100 watt, Jet City, Triple Rectifier, Old School 5150, Engl Powerball and 2 different Line 6's: The Pod Go's Angl Meteor and a Flextone 3 head I've had for 2 decades. It sounded great.I bought this guitar because of the control placement; they're ideal in my opinion. The volume knob is out of the way, the pickup selector is in the perfect position and isn't a blade, which is huge for me, and it coil splits, which is a massive plus.The controls are the biggest selling point of the guitar for me.There's 3 things I hate about the guitar.1) The neck shape is NOT a Wizard. It is a super buly, fat and uncomfortable D shape. With my small hands, I eventually acclimated to it, but isn't my idea of a great ride. 2)The dot inlays look stupid. For a $... guitar, Ibanez should've gotten a bit more creative with a pattern. In a perfect world, there would be no inlays at all, just a beautiful blank canvas.3) My ultimate gripe with almost all Ibanez guitars: Bolt on neck. In spite of this, higher fret access is excellent and I barly noticed it's a bolt on, which is true of Ibanez in general. I called several luthiers in Texas, Arizona and New Mexico to see if I could find one skilled enough to reshape the neck for me. Only one offered to do it with confidence, but at a price that hardly seemed worth it. Therefore, in spite of the great tone and controls, I'm going to list it on Reverb today.The guitar is really for a big dude w/ big hands. My other huge gripe is that Ibanez will not open it's custom shop to the general public, so getting the right Ibanez for an individual player is impossible unless you're signed or touring, which is totally stupid. If they'd open their doors, I could've built the exact guitar I've wanted for 10 years, rather than constantly having to mod existing models, drill extra holes, fill holes and swap out electronics.This is a good guitar for any player of any style and is a worthy buy if you don't mind fad D shaped necks.
I am very impressed with this Ibanez AZ242BC. I shy away from the regular RG series of Ibanez as I am not a shredder. I play mostly hard rock from the 60's - 70's. The neck is a bit thicker than most Ibanez guitars, but in a good way. Gives you better support playing bar chords. The roasted maple neck is very smooth on the back and feels much like a satin neck. It does not get sticky at all! The stainless steel fret work is perfect in my eyes. No sharp ends or any dead notes anywhere on the neck. As for the pickups, I am new to these Duncan pickups. They are not as HOT as most Ibanez pickups are (which is good for my type of music). But do not they have that longer sustain. They do handle Overdrive well and also have a nice warmth to them. So I give the pickups a ... MoreI am very impressed with this Ibanez AZ242BC. I shy away from the regular RG series of Ibanez as I am not a shredder. I play mostly hard rock from the 60's - 70's. The neck is a bit thicker than most Ibanez guitars, but in a good way. Gives you better support playing bar chords. The roasted maple neck is very smooth on the back and feels much like a satin neck. It does not get sticky at all! The stainless steel fret work is perfect in my eyes. No sharp ends or any dead notes anywhere on the neck. As for the pickups, I am new to these Duncan pickups. They are not as HOT as most Ibanez pickups are (which is good for my type of music). But do not they have that longer sustain. They do handle Overdrive well and also have a nice warmth to them. So I give the pickups a thumbs up! The tuning stability is very good. I can play for hours without having to adjust the tuning. The weight and balance is very nice, lighter than most Strats.So it saves my back and I can go longer in band practice without pain! Overall, at being a $1,300-$1,000 guitar, it's well worth the price. I read some reviews where the AZ they purchased had the frets not level and sharp ends. I guess I am one of the lucky ones as my AZ was perfect off the rack.
Unfortunately the quality control on this Guitar wasn't great. I know others that did not have any issues with their models. On receiving the guitar the action was extremely high and when taking it to a Luthier for a setup we discovered there was a problem with the Truss rod as well. That being said Andertons refunded me without question, and I opted to purchase the Prestige Model instead of the Premium Indonesian version.
nice sounding guitar I am happy.
Solid guitar for the price. Smooth to play and classic Ibanez tone.
Not as good as prestige series, not as bad as budget ibanez :) Quite nice (but not perfect like prestige) build quality, good sustain, very versatile, very characteristic feeling of playing like the other Ibanez guitars and so on.. If someone said that this one is Japan made guitar - I would delete Ibanez from my list :) But referring that its made in Indonesia, I would notice quite good quality. Shortly speaking I don't regret spending the money buying this guitar. So... Advantages: very good instrument for its price, good option for those, who don't want to spend over USD2 000+ for Japan made prestige models (if you buying a new one). Disadvantages: still needs revision... Indonesian guys didn't spent much time for polishing frets and shielding of electronics. Had ... MoreNot as good as prestige series, not as bad as budget ibanez :) Quite nice (but not perfect like prestige) build quality, good sustain, very versatile, very characteristic feeling of playing like the other Ibanez guitars and so on.. If someone said that this one is Japan made guitar - I would delete Ibanez from my list :) But referring that its made in Indonesia, I would notice quite good quality. Shortly speaking I don't regret spending the money buying this guitar. So... Advantages: very good instrument for its price, good option for those, who don't want to spend over USD2 000+ for Japan made prestige models (if you buying a new one). Disadvantages: still needs revision... Indonesian guys didn't spent much time for polishing frets and shielding of electronics. Had to spend additional money for quality frets revision and buying good pickups (PAFs are one of my favourite, but there's something wrong with the stock ones).
| Finish | Deep Espresso Burst |
| Year | 2010s |
| Made In | Indonesia |
| Right / Left Handed | Right Handed |
| Fretboard Material | Maple |
